Lew Port

We recently drove to Tampa for a Carnival Paradise cruise and used the Parking Doctors parking facility. They were great and the price was fabulous. The service was prompt and the drive was outstanding . He gave us a recommendation to not have Carnival take the luggage if we can carry it. We pack light so that worked well. The debarkation was smooth and we

arrived at the pick up area earlier than if we had used the Carnival luggage service. The car was ready to head north and we managed to find I275 north. Bottom line, The Parking Doctor is a good choice for parking in. Tampa.

Liberty is a fine ship. We had a blast on it a few years ago.

Sorry to hear about this to the OP.

We are headed to Tampa for a western Caribbean cruise in 2 days, and I will remember to use the safe.

Thanks for the heads up.

2...Paradise departs Tampa on Saturday 10.28

2 days... Paradise leaving Tampa on Sat. 10.28

The CD makes no difference. Dr.E. was memorable on Magic.

These are great replies and a wealth of information. Avoiding Orlando seems to be a common theme.

One month to go !! YAY.

Maven3.. have a great cruise next week.

We drove from KY to Tampa in May. I would suggest using The Parking Doctors. I found them online and used them to park our vehicle and then they took us to the Port. They were absolutely amazing. The lot was very secure and monitored and the distance was maybe 5 minutes from the Tampa Port. When we disembarked they had drivers there waiting no call's had to be made or anything just jumped on the van and they took you right back to your vehicle.

Thanks. This sounds very promising.

I know departure is spelled incorrectly. ugh

Do you have any thoughts on the following.?

We have a cruise coming up at the end of October. Tampa FL is the port for the Paradise. Leaving on Saturday and returning on Thursday. After some investigation, I found I could park at the port and have shuttle service to and from the ship. The driving is at 13 hours. My thought is to drive 10-11 hours on Friday. Stay at a hotel and complete the drive early Saturday morning. And at the end of the trip, we might visit friends in Charleston SC.

Removing the cost and aggravation of flying is a goal of this plan.

Thanks for any input

Joining cruise critic well before the first cruise and getting some info on the internet services while cruising could have saved the OP a whole lot of money. Just "unplugging" would have been a great idea.

This ^^^. You're on vacation. Cell phones are fancy cameras IMHO when on a cruise.

Like others have said, bingo is costly and trivia is free.

I have been lucky enough to collect a ship on a stick on both the Carnival cruise I have done.

One time there was a team trivia contest and that was a lot of fun.

Putting tags inside the bag is a great idea. I will do this in October

I'll be on the Paradise in November. If you can wait, I'll post the data you request.

Have you had any luck contacting Carnival directly ?

What are the pros and cons of sailing on a brand new ship ?

It seems every year a new ship is being launched by several cruise lines.

If you have sailed on a ship in its first year of operation, what are the pros and cons? What did you like and what did you not like.?

Kind of like the first year of a new car model..

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

Will we be out of place if we don't dress up?

No. On our last Halloween cruise approx 50% dressed up. Lots of fun for kids of all ages. Door decorations were numerous and colorful.

A co-worker of mine is on the Dream. He is a maintenance engineer and probably helped the repair efforts. HAHA.

If something broken is supposed to move..WD40

If something broken is not supposed to move...Duct tape

Cant wait until we set sail...

Nice review. We are going on this cruise in October and am looking forward to it.

Thanks for the review.

We are sailing on Paradise at Halloween .

The disturbing part is the non-repair of the door lock.

This should have been a 30 minute fix.

Long waits for dinner with children are not acceptable.

Great pics !!

293 days until Paradise.

The fact that it is 7* and we got 5 inches of snow had no bearing on the fact that I booked this cruise today

Just booked it today.

293 to go.

The weather in my neck of the woods had nothing to do with this booking.

7* and 5 inches of snow last night

I recommend the Casino. Several sporting events were shown there on the cruise I attended at Halloween.

On our Halloween cruise we ate at the Cucina on the first night. The service and food is fantastic. I wanted to order the roasted potatoes for dessert, they were that good.

belated happy birthday

After re-reading your posts about Cucina, I just realized we were there at the same time.

Small world on a big ship.

We booked the champagne sunset cruise at St. Thomas and the rains cut short our trip. The captain of the catamaran did the right thing to get us back to shore. And Carnival rebated 50 % of the excursion. Which we promptly 'donated' to the casino.