We flew into San Juan the day before and stayed at Cervantes Hotel. This hotel is very nice, and is within walking distance (2 blocks) from the port. They also held our luggage the next day so we could tour the city before boarding the ship. By getting there the day before, we had a very relaxing start to our cruise. Getting through the airport was a piece of cake. Boarding the ship was also no problem. We have waited much longer on other cruises. The boarding couldn't have gone smoother. We found our room to be clean and perfectly comfortable. I also love the nice size bathrooms on Carnival.

Now, I will get the negatives out of the way. We usually cruise in May or October/November because these seem to be to "quiet" times. This was not the case. There were a lot of very loud, rude people on our ship. (could this be because of the departing port?) I also did not appreciate the "spanish only" announcements. The other negative had to do in part with the layout of the ship. Deck 5 is the only deck that you can go the whole length of the ship. So why do they have events right in the middle of the only pathway from one end of the ship to the other. This caused major traffic jams. I also felt the dining room food was not quite as good as usual.

Back to the fun-even though the ship got a little noisy for our tastes, it was ok because every day we could go into a wonderful port. Our first day (St. Thomas) we went to Megan's Bay. On other cruisers recommendations, we just went out to the taxi stand and took a taxi to the beach. I was concerned that it would be very crowded because this is the most popular beach, but if you just walk to your left a little, the crowd thins out. Read more