Our family took the 8 day cruise to Cozumel, Limon, Costa Rica and Colon Panama. We did a ton of research prior to our departure. We read a lot of great things about this itinerary and a few disappointing things. I'm not sure who those people are who wrote that "the food was not good" or that "there are too many children" or whatever but this was a great cruise. Not sure how you go on a cruise and look for things that are wrong with it but that's another issue.

We went down the night before and stayed at the Fairfield Inn in Davia which is about 3 miles away from the port. Great price and excellent location. Highly recommend this location.

The next day we got up, at our leisure, and arrived at the port around 10:30. We dropped off our luggage and parked our car in the adjacent parking garage. Very easy. We waited in line until they opened up so that took a bit of time but no big deal. We moved through the embarkation line rather rapidly and we were on the boat by about 11:30ish. We made our way up to the Lido deck for some lunch and a few family pictures. When we went to our room around 1:00 it was ready. Everything moved along just fine. Carnival has the turning over of the ship down to a science. Read more