I am 25 and sailed with my Dad age 61 and my sister age 22 on the August 8th sailing of the Carnival Destiny. I have sailed with Carnival twice before and this was my Dad and Sister's first cruise. I was so excited to see if they loved cruising as much as I did.

We flew in a day early to make sure to leave time for flight delays. We flew on American Airlines and I have to say I hated the flight. On the way there when we touched down in Miami we were informed that a plane was parked at our gate and having mechanical trouble. We sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half! I was really frustrated, why could they not just let us get off at a different gate? Why cant they just get a ladder and get us off! There were over 150 people on the plane who missed their flights because they were stuck sitting on this plane! The lack of concern by the airline was really frustrating to me.

We stayed at the Hilton Miami Airport, the hotel was very nicely decorated, the beds seemed comfy to me and the rooms were fairly spacious. We used the hotel shuttle to get picked up from the airport and had no trouble at all. The hotel had a "casual" restaurant that we ate dinner at. The "casual" part of the restaurant was how you were allowed to dress. The portions were small and the food quality was not very good but the burgers were $15 each! I thought it was very expensive for what we got but there was nothing close by that we could have walked to so that we could eat. The next morning we paid $12 each for a ride from the hotel to the port. We arrived at the port around 12:30, it took us about 45 minutes to finish boarding the ship. The initial check-in was quick but once we got our sign and sail cards it was a long wait to get our pictures taken and when we got on the ship we waited in a line outside the deck before getting scanned in. Read more