Saturday, March 2nd
8:05 a.m. – ATA Flight finally takes off from Chicago-Midway Airport one hour late. Luckily we booked the earliest flight of the day. We were one of the last planes to get out for awhile that morning, since a total of 16 inches of snow fell by the time the storm was over. We arrived in Orlando around 11:30 a.m. I had made reservations online with Able Shuttle Service for round-trip transportation. They gave us a great rate of $125 total for the round-trip for 4 people. And, it was not a ride-share shuttle, it was just us in the van (both ways). The driver met us at luggage holding a sign with my name on it (which I kept as a souvenir of course!). He drove us to the Radisson Resort at the Port at Cape Canaveral. This was a wonderful hotel – very beautiful pool, hot tub, and other common areas. We paid $99 ($110 with tax) for the room. They provided us free shuttle to the port. When we checked in, we just signed up for whatever time we wanted to head to the port (starting around 9 a.m. and going up until like Noon). We signed up for 10 a.m. There is a great restaurant in the hotel with an excellent dinner buffet. There are also 2 restaurants neighboring the Radisson – one is a little Italian restaurant with a pizza, calzone type of menu – the other is a Greek/American restaurant. There is also a McDonalds across the street (great for a quick breakfast sandwich the next morning).

Sunday, March 3rd
We met the shuttle in the front of the hotel at 9:50 a.m. and headed to Port Canaveral along with 4 other hotel guests within 10 minutes. It took just a few minutes to get to the port and the driver dropped us right at the door, which was nice. The porters were there waiting and we had them check the clipboard for our room assignment so we could fill out and attach the right tags to our luggage. And, the "Kelly-Method" of cabin assignment was correct. We were assigned to E211. We each tipped the porter $5, so he got a total of $20 for 5 bags. We entered the building and were directed to an escalator to go up. There was a desk with all the extra forms we needed to fill out (customs forms for the Bahamas and extra Sail & Sign Applications for everyone since we had separate credit cards. After filling out the forms, we went got in line for check-in and since there were only about 4 people in line, we were checked in within 15 minutes. The room keys and Sail & Sign cards arrived just as we were checking in, so they gave those to us right there. Then we went outside to enjoy the weather for awhile since it was only 10:30 and boarding wasn’t beginning until Noon. We got in the actual embarkation line around 11:00. Boarding began right on schedule at noon and right at the front of the line, they insert your Sail & Sign card and take your picture going across the walkway to get on the ship.

We got on board and went to our room first to get rid of our carry-ons. We were near the aft of the Empress Deck. We put our bags down quickly and headed up to the Lido deck to sit and have a few drinks. We ended up eating from the lunch buffet on the Lido deck too. They had cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and a choice of like 2 entrees each day on the lunch buffet. On the Lido deck, we met the first of our incredible crew members - our bartender/server Edwin from the Philippines. He was great and whenever any other server came up to us, we told them sorry, we were waiting for Edwin. Edwin knew what we liked to drink and he would watch our drinks until they were almost empty and magically appear with a new one. He even memorized our S&S number so we didn’t have to keep pulling it out every time, which was really nice. 

Our lifeboat drill was at 4:00 and was of course the least favorite part of the trip, but it went fairly quickly and we had our life vests put away and were at the front of the ship by 4:30 to watch as we pulled out of port. For dinner, we asked for late seating – and were scheduled for 8:00 in the Jubilee Dining Room. We were at a table for 8 along one side of the dining room. 2 people at our table never showed up, and the other 2 ladies that did show up really weren’t very social and didn’t say a whole lot. We gave phone cards to our servers the first night. Our head server was Anca (from Romania) and her assistant server was Anja (from South Africa). For appetizers I had the gazpacho, the pumpkin soup, and the roast duckling with raspberry mousse, all of which were wonderful. For my main course I had the beef wellington (I just went ahead and ordered 2 servings since I knew this was one of my favorites), which was also wonderful. For dessert I had the key lime pie, which was good, but nothing spectacular. NOTE: Dinner was a wonderful experience for us every single night. I can honestly say both Anca and Anja were the most terrific servers I have ever encountered in my entire life. They both made our dinners fun and exciting. They both had great senses of humor – always happy and smiling regardless of how hard they were working, constantly telling jokes, etc. I just can’t say enough about how great they were. They remembered all of our names immediately and always remembered exactly what we all liked to drink. They even played practical jokes on us occasionally. They had us laughing every single night. Besides our tips that were on our Sail & Sign cards, the 4 of us each tipped Anca an extra $20 the last night, and we each tipped Anja an extra $10 the last night.

Monday, March 4th 
The ship docked in Freeport around 7:00 a.m. We could feel the vibrations a lot in our cabin when we docked, but it didn’t really bother us, it was just like our little alarm clock. We ate breakfast at the breakfast buffet on the Lido deck every day. They had scrambled eggs, french toast, pancakes, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and an omelet station. The omelettes were really very good. We ate quickly and since we were in Freeport from 8am – 4pm we decided to just shop in Freeport and save going to the beach for Nassau the next day. We figured we’d go into port and get our shopping done, then just head back to the ship for lunch and do some relaxing by the pool the rest of the afternoon. We took a cab ($4/person each way) to the International Bazaar to do our shopping. It turned out to be a great place for shopping. They had a little straw-market kind of setup in the front here. Then it was a huge area of shopping with areas themed like different areas of the world. Anything you want to buy, you will find here. And, it has a lot of good photographic possibilities. (As soon as I get all of my 182 pictures developed, I will post the link to my online photo album) They had cabbies waiting out front for us to return. 

We headed back to the ship right around noon and as soon as we reached the line to get back on board, the clouds moved in and opened up and it started to rain. It didn’t actually rain for a very long period of time, but it kind of rained on and off throughout the afternoon - the clouds never left and the temperature dropped a bit. We ended up getting off the ship once more around 2pm to do pick up a few more souvenirs at the mini-straw market (a circular set up of little huts) which was right off the ship. This was also our formal night, which was a good night. Since we leave Freeport at 4pm, everyone, no matter what their dining time has plenty of time to get ready after getting back in from port. All 4 of us took our turns showering – and I must say I was impressed that we could each take a 15 – 20 minute shower and the water was still hot after the last person finished, although the water pressure could’ve been better. After we were all ready, we headed out to get our formal portraits done.

Dinner was very good. This night, I had the Wild Mushroom Cream Soup and a Southwestern Egg Roll (both excellent) for appetizers. For my main entrée, I went with the Prime Rib and baked potato which was also very good. For dessert, I had the chocolate mousse, which was one of my favorites for dessert – it was one of the above average desserts in my opinion. The waiters all lined up, paraded around the room to their assigned areas and sang "Oh Sole Mio". I actually enjoyed it this time. On my last cruise, none of the staff was really into it. This time all of the servers were enthusiastic and really had a good time doing it. Our server did an excellent job and we stood and cheered loudly for her! 

After dinner, we headed to the Majestic Piano Bar for drinks. Here we met another wonderful server – M.Gede from Indonesia. (He told us to pronounce it like the beer – MGD) He was really wonderful – really nice guy with a great sense of humor. He even went walking around with us in Nassau for a little bit. We each tipped him an extra $20 the last night. 

Tuesday, March 5th 
We woke up around 7:00 a.m. and had breakfast on the Lido Deck again. The weather again was yucky and cloudy so we hung back on the ship for a bit hoping it would improve. When it was obvious it wasn’t going to improve much, we just headed into port on foot to do some more shopping. We took advantage of the free mallorca pearl earrings in 2 of the shops mentioned in the Carnival Capers. In 2 other shops, they had good deals on earrings – 1 shop had emerald earrings for $9.99 and the other had tanzanite earrings for $9.99. After shopping we headed back to the ship for lunch (and prayed the sun would appear so we could head to the beach). It stayed yucky out and never got warm enough to go to the beach unfortunately, which was the biggest disappointment of the trip. That night at dinner I had wonton soup and tomato & cucumber vinaigrette salad for appetizers and chateaubriand with béarnaise sauce for my entrée (which was EXCELLENT!). For dessert, I had a slice of swedish chocolate almond cake. 

Wednesday, March 6th
This was our day at sea, and it was nicer than all of the other days, but still cloudy. We did actually see some blue sky in between the clouds sporadically over a couple hour period. Actual total time of sun shining on us was approximately 20 – 30 minutes. It was the warmest day of all though, which was nice. We stayed on Lido deck most of the day in our deck chairs catching the sun whenever it peeked through the clouds. We also watched the ice carving and Survivor contest. I am a HUGE Survivor fan so I was waiting by the deck for this game. When she set out the forms we had to fill out (name & cabin #) to enter, I asked if there was a limit on how many we could fill out and she said no, so I wrote like a madwoman. Edwin, our Lido bartender had even been helping me prep for the game, quizzing me on stuff they would ask. We had about 3 or 4 minutes to fill out the entry slips. I must’ve filled our 30 or 40 of the slips, but unfortunately I didn’t get picked. I had to watch from the sidelines, but it was really fun to watch. 

This night at dinner I had the french onion soup – which was one of my favorite soups, a dinner salad, and veal parmiagana for my main entrée. Dessert for everyone was the baked alaska which was pretty much neopolitan ice cream in between 2 pieces of cake. We were really sorry it was our last night with Anca and Anja – they were the best and we told them so when we gave them their additional tips. We took a ton of pictures with them and were hugging them on our way out. We will really miss them. My Mom and I did play the free cruise bingo that night - $20 for a sheet with 3 cards on it. You had to get an "X" to win. I was down to needing 1 number (B7). B8 had already been called, and then they call B9 and the table next to us yells "Bingo" – I could’ve cried. But, such is life. We went and found Edwin and MGD that night to say good-bye to them too. We went through the same picture-taking, hugging ritual with them. We even ended up getting their e-mail addresses, as they wanted us to e-mail them some copies of the pics we took with them. 

Thursday, March 7th
We woke up and went to breakfast on the Lido deck at 7:30 a.m. We had to be out of our cabins and in a waiting area by 8 a.m. What was nice that I liked better than last time, was that you weren’t assigned a waiting area – you could just go to one of 4 designated waiting areas. Because the weather was nice, we just stayed on the Lido deck. The ship cleared customs & immigration at 8:30 a.m. They started calling luggage tag colors then. Apparently, they put all the color tags together and just drew 2 colors at a time to disembark. Our tags were in the 4th set of colors to be called, and it was right at 9:30 a.m. It took us less than 15 minutes to make our way down, off the ship, through customs, and outside to our shuttle. Our shuttle guy (same guy) was waiting for us. He saw us and recognized us before we even noticed him. He loaded up our stuff for us and we headed to Orlando. We were at the airport in line to check our luggage by 10:40 a.m. Our flight wasn’t until 5:59 p.m., but a wonderful ATA employee, Tomas, was kind enough to get us seats on the earlier flight (12:40 p.m.) – he even got us all 4 seats together. We didn’t originally book that flight only because I wasn’t sure that was allowing enough time for disembarkation and transportation back to Orlando. But, we lucked out and were able to grab a quick bite to eat, board our plane and head home. 

Cabin Notes
Our cabin décor was great – all was neat and clean – no signs of wear in the bedding or anywhere else. We had 2 uppers and 2 lowers – I was in an upper bunk, and after trying them both, found the uppers to be even more soft and comfortable than the lowers. Our cabin was on the chilly side. I discovered the control switch for the a/c though. In the center of the cabin on the ceiling you will find the control – just turn the dial to the left to lower or shut off the flow of a/c to your room.