I have not cruised in 20 years, my 2 sisters and I plus my 14 year old granddaughter went on this cruise for my 60th birthday celebration. Needless to say we were surprised to find children, including very young children, running rampant on board.

Let me start at the beginning though. We flew out of Chicago to begin the vacation the day before the ship sailed and we flew into Ft. Lauderdale and stayed at the Rodeway Inn. I would recommend staying there 100%, Izzy and his staff are the greatest. On the day we were to sail they had 228 plus cruisers going out. Izzy made what was a very chaotic situation as calm as possible. He gave helpful hints and tips, he has cruised over 80 times, and funny antecdotes while getting people into vans and off to their ships. The Inn itself is purely Florida, a little old, but well maintained. We stayed there post cruise for 1 night also and their was a rental car desk right there on site, that was great considering we came off the cruise on Thanksgiving Day and their restaurant wasn't open. The restaurant by the way had excellent food, service was a little slow, but tolerable.

The embarkation process at the Carnival Destiny was very smooth and almost painless. The ship itself was fine, the cabin was a little smaller than we expected, the pictures online made it look bigger. We thoroughly enjoyed having a balcony, well worth the money to have one. The service on board was excellent, we were called by name by everyone from the Cabin Steward, waiter, the waiters assistant, the girl who got our drinks at dinner, even the waiter on the Lido deck, Kuang, who worked in different venues on the ship and who seemed to be everywhere we were, excellent service. The food was VERY good and plentiful, food every time you turned around. Read more