Well, my wife and I got home last night from our first ever cruise vacation.  We had a blast!  We rode the Carnival Valor, and sailed out of Miami for a Western Caribbean adventure.  During our travels, we made it to Grand Cayman, Isla Roatan (off of Honduras), Belize City and Cozumel, Mexico.  Our favorite stop on the trip was Roatan by far.  It is an absolutely beautiful island.  

Being on the ship itself is actually quite an adventure.  It was much bigger in person than I had pictured in my head.  It probably took us about 3 days to be able to navigate comfortably around the ship without a map.  And then there are all the people you meet.  There are people from every part of the country and across the world.  We actually ate dinner with a couple from Slovakia and became friends with them over the week.  There are old people and young people.  People who wear gothic boots and those from Texas wearing these.  Of over 3,000 people on board, there were over 700 kids.  The Carnival staff did an excellent job of taking care of them so that they wouldn’t completely alienate the adults.  

During the days, you would go out and do an excursion at the port of calls.  If you go through Carnival, they are super expensive.  My wife and I avoided that and bought our excursions on shore.  Next time if we get more brave, we’ll even get by the shore excursion people and hire a local to give us tours.  

Once you get back on board, there is always entertainment for the evening.  There were 3 comedians I think.  We didn’t go to many of there shows.  We did however, go to the dancing shows, as they were very good.  If you didn’t like either of those, there is an onboard casino that is always flashing it’s neon open sign.  My wife actually won $170 on a penny slot, and we thought we were tycoons!  

Overall, it was a great trip.  If we do one again, we’d love to do it with friends and family.