We are late thirties husband and wife who have cruised 6 times in the past, with Royal Caribbean, Norweigan and Celebrity. This was our first Carnival cruise. We actually won this cruise! The cruise was part of a large group from Pennsylvania and was organized by a local travel agency. For our past cruises, we always booked everything ourselves, but in the end, we were VERY thankful to have a travel agency involved, but more on that later.

We flew into Ft. Lauderdale the morning of the cruise. Our group got on a pre-arranged transfer and travelled to the POM. The trip was much shorter than anticipated, and we arrived at the port right around 11 am. The group went inside to start the dreaded embarkation process. We were pleasantly surprised, of all the cruises we've done in the past, this was quick and orderely! We were on the ship in under an hour. After using the self service Kiosk, we were given #19, but the wait was only a few minutes.

The ship was very nice and clean. Our stateroom was an interior on deck 2. It was a nice size and had more than enough storage. We typically book an interior cabin on our cruises since we don't spend much time in the room. Read more