Carnival Legend Day 1

We arrived in Tampa by 11:30am. It took us a few turns around the area to figure out how to get in the parking garage. This was the worst port as far as organization and ease of getting in and out. We paid $98 to park and walked across the street to the port. We walked up to the front door and the guard looked at my passport & told me my maiden name on the passport did not match my cruise ticket last name. I had thought about changing my passport, but I knew it may not be back in time. I didn't even think about bringing my marriage certificate or birth certificate. I had my driver's license, SS card and voter's registration. He finally let me go up to the desk. The lady that checked out paperwork at the desk never even noticed the names & let us get on board. Whew! We immediately called Vince's parents to be on notice in case we need our marriage license faxed to someone (but thank goodness we never needed it).

As soon as we boarded, we ate lunch. They had a huge buffet (4 actually) that had different types of food (Asian, Deli, Rotesserie, Mediterranean) and a salad bar and dessert bar. Our rooms were not ready until 1:30pm so we ate first thing.



We sailed out on the day of our 1 year wedding anniversary. For Vince's anniversary gift, I surprised him by upgrading our cabin to an extended balcony cabin. This was our view.

At 3:30pm, we had to do the drill. It's the first time ever that we didn't need to wear the life jacket. They said the rules had changed that week. Nice. They showed us how to wear them, much like watching the flight attendant on an airplane buckling a seat belt.

As we sailed out, we passed tons of huge oil companies. Some had nice pictures painted on the tanks.

For dinner, we ate in the Truffles dining room. The chandeliers were made of glass. In fact, there were glass decorations all over the boat. For our first dinner, I had strip steak, mac & cheese, and black forest chocolate gateau dessert.

As we were walking to the show after dinner, we caught the sun setting and watched it settle over the horizon.

Before the show started, we played a trivia game. Vince was one of 3 winners with the most answers correct. He won a "piece of ship on a stick" (a trophy). The show was a nice little welcome show with some singers and dancers. They didn't allow cameras.

After the show, we wandered all over the ship. We found the chapel & the library.

Along all the corridors were many sexual pictures and naked people. This was one of the most explicit.

And then we came back to our room and found our first towel.....um...animal? We decided it looked like something entirely different. I'll let you guess what we thought it was.

We then ventured to the nightlife areas and found the Firebird Lounge. There were 4 Asian guys there singing everything from Spanish Ballads to Dave Matthews and ZZ Top. They were really good.

To finish up our first night, we stopped in at the disco, Medusa's Lair. The decor all over this ship was really great with lots of attention to detail.