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Teresa arrived approximately 10 minutes before our scheduled pick up. The drive from the Excursion Hub to the dock was 5 minutes. Before we left the property, we found more wildlife. When we arrived the dock, Captain Shaun was waiting for us. We got on board and after a safety briefing, we were off. It was about a 30 minute ride out to the spot Captain Shaun wanted to take us. There were only three other boats in the area. It did not take long before we found what we were looking for.

ICY STRAIGHT POINT: We were scheduled to port from 2-11PM. We pulled into port early. The weather was foggy upon arrival. We had scheduled a Whale Watching with Glacier Wind Charters, https://www.g-wind.com/. I found this tour company after reading reviews on Cruise Critic and from watching YouTube reviews from ParoDeeJay, The above video is from their most recent visit, but the one I watched was older. They must have liked them so much that they used them again. When we schedule our tours, we usually do not like to book through the Cruise Line. This is because we like small tours and usually can save a little bit of money. This company has small tours with only two boats. One boat holds six people and the other holds thirteen. Both boats are the same design, just different in size. The company is family run with Captain Shawn and his son, Captain Casey. Captain Shawn's wife, Teresa is the one that picks you up at the port. We were able to book a tour for just the six of us. The boat had plenty of room for us to roam around on. Captain Shawn was very friendly and did his best to find whales. We saw plenty of whales and wild life just no bears. I would highly recommend this tour if looking for a whale watching tour at this port. Finding Teresa was super easy and a two minute walk. When we exited the ship, there was a partially covered walkway that leads to the Adventure Center. We were told to exit through Door 2 and follow the signs to the Excursion Hub. After exiting the building, it was only a two minute walk to the Excursion Hub. There was covered areas to wait. Before we got to the Adventure Center, we spotted our first Bald Eagle in the trees.

Alchemy Bar was really good size and the bar tenders were great. Plenty of different types of seating to listen to live music at night. The thing I did not like was its location. It was located Deck 2 aft. People going to the dining room had to "walk through" the Alchemy Bar. If you were sitting at the bar, no problem. But if you were sitting elsewhere and were watching the band play, people kept walking in front of you. Even after the dinner rush, people are constantly walking between you and the band.

CABIN: Cabins were ready about 1:30pm, but we cheated and walked in about 1:10pm. We were towards the aft, Cabin 7311 and 7317. Our friends were 4 cabins down, 7333. I don't have photos of the cabins as you can find them on the internet and I forgot take any. About our cabins, perfectly fine and Francis our stateroom attendant was awesome. This ship is 18 years old and does not have the fancy engines, Azipods, thrusters etc. as the new ships. I knew this going in which was fine. There was a constant noticeable motion on this cruise though no matter what the condition on the sea. It was more noticeable northbound going into the wind. I was never sick, but just felt the ship rock more than any other cruise I have been on. This is something to consider if sensitive to motion. Another thing, we sailed in a lot of fog. Due to this, the ships horn would blast every two minutes. I could hear it while in my stateroom and wondered how loud it was towards the front/mid of the ship. SHIP: The ship felt crowded when we boarded, but never again. Lines were existent if you were at the buffet when it opened, maybe 20 people deep. If you waited ten minutes, there were only three people in front of you. The omelet stations were slow even though they only had two -three people in line. I found they would only cook one omelet at a time even though then had three burners. The wait was tolerable though. The ship was clean and smelled clean when we boarded. The ship is scheduled for dry dock in a few weeks, but I felt was still in good condition. I never found anything that made me gasp about the condition. Staff was always cleaning or painting. DAY 2 & 3 - Sea Days After leaving SF with beautiful weather and whales in the channel, we awoke to fog and cooler temperatures. Like I said above, we were rocking. I expected cooler weather so it was not like it was a disappointment. We hung out and participated in a few activities on the ship. One of the new ones was called Carnival Caper which was like playing the game CLUE. This activity lasted the whole cruise and was a family fun activity. We also participated in the Gold Rush which was like a scavenger hunt for gold nuggets. These activities were something to do and fun. During the cruise we attended comedy shows by all four comics, four shows from the Playlist cast, and played trivia and bingo. I would say the comedians were okay. Because we had the kids, we went to the PG shows. Two of the comedians seemed to struggle to keep the show PG. It was painful. While all were funny, it was felt the two struggled for material. The Playlist productions we saw were 88 Keys, Heart & Soul, Getaway Island, and 80's Pop. I would say 88 Keys was the best, but have to say I could do without all the dancing. It seems IMHO that the dancers were trying too hard. I don't see anything wrong with allowing a singer or two singers just sing with no dancing. I also felt the music was louder than the mics for the singers which drowned them out. The other performers that performed almost every night consisted of three violinist, two other groups that were made up of one male/one female, and another band that played at Red Frog that we never saw. All groups were great and we really enjoyed them.

SAIL AWAY: We left on time, 4:00pm. This was my first sail away where we would go under a bridge. I knew where to be and was on Deck 9 - Lido forward. Our friends wanted to be in the aft to see the bridge with a wake. I have to say, it was awesome. It seemed as we got closer to the bridge, everybody came to where we were. I couldn't blame them, but my plan was to book it to the aft for photos, but it was too crowded and people were slow moving.

So as you can see above, this is not my first cruise. We have a routine. Once on board, straight to Red Frog for a drink. Then muster and then a refill followed by lunch. We entered and were immediately directed to go to muster. We bypassed this and stared towards Red Frog. Our friends who had boarding group C4 boarded only 5 minutes after us and went straight to muster. We bypassed Red Frog and went to muster which was two minutes and super easy. After that, we started towards Red Frog. This is the first Carnival cruise that we did not have Cheers. I thought was since the kids were with us that we should act like semi-responsible adults. When we entered the Red Frog, there was nobody there and I noticed that Happy Hour started at 12. It was 11:55am so I said I'll wait a few minutes. There was only one bartender and she said she was a helper, but could still make us our drinks. At 12:00, we ordered our drinks. Now you must understand that we know our Red Frog drinks. We drink them every cruise and even attempt them at home (not as good). I watched as the bartender grabbed gin and vodka for my drink. I was in disbelief as I was in a rum bar so what should be in my drink but rum. I then watched her grab Blue Curacao and add it. I finally had to say something and she stopped what she was doing. I told her my drink did not have those ingredients. She then started making DW'S drink which again was not the correct ingredients. She poured the drink and it was the wrong color and DW pointed it out. She started to argue that it was correct when the usual bartender arrived. She confirmed the ingredients with him and gave DW the drink. She remade my drink which was still the wrong shade of color. Our friends ordered their drinks which were also the wrong shade. We took our drinks which were not tasty and started to the Lido deck. Once at the Lido deck, we decided the drinks were not tolerable and went to Red Frog Bar and had them remade which were perfect and tasty. We were now on vacation. A Guys Burger later and we were relaxed. The sad thing is that we normally spend a lot of time at the Red Frog Pub during the cruise, but the drink was so bad we never went back. Below are a few photos from the upper decks.

I would say there were about 300 people in front of us to get in. The Terminal opened about 10:20am and it was a slow, but not too slow process. Masks were required to enter the terminal and an employee was walking through the line telling everybody. I had used Verifly and ArriveCan and was ready to show both. When we got up to the front of the line, we showed identification and boarding passes. I asked if they needed to see my Verifly and they asked if I had used it and told them yes. They did not ask to see it or any other documents. We then went into the Terminal. We went through security and I asked if I had to remove by wine (had two bottles) from my backpack. I was asked how much I had, but did not have to remove it. I was told that I would have to remove it before I boarded the ship to show employees, but never had to. After going through security, we stood in line to show more documents. Once in line with only 5 people in front of us, I noticed that Terminal 27 is the smallest Terminal I have ever sailed out of. I noticed they had a priority line and an area designated for suites, Platinum, and Diamonds members. The rest of the seating area was only for about 300-350 people. We checked in and were told to go sit down. We were in the terminal and through security in about 20 minutes. We sat down for about 30 minutes and they called priority to board about 11:20am. Our friends had a later check in time and after visiting the first group of employees they entered another line. They were only in that line for 5 minutes and joined us. We had A4 boarding. After the priority, they called A1-A4 within two minutes. We walked up with nobody in front of us to board and were told to stop. We did not have the correct documents. They told us that we had to go to the second line (the ones our friends went to) to check in. We told them that the first employee checked us in and told us to have a seat. Either way, we went to the second line where they looked at the same documents again (no Verifly) and we were ready to go. We were on board at 11:35ish.

Greetings: I wanted to do a small (we will see) review of my experiences with the above cruise. I will not be able to compete with Saint Greg or Jamman54 (both post great reviews), but thought it would be beneficial to someone who is considering sailing out of SF. BACKGROUND: This was our 4th cruise with Carnival and our 10th cruise overall. Previous Carnival ships include Sunshine (2013), Breeze (2015), and Horizon (2021). We have previously sailed to Alaska in 2005 so we sort of remembered what to expect. Sailing was DW, and both my kids (13 & 15). My kids have sailed once before, but were newbies to Carnival. Also joining us were some friends that we met on the Sunshine and have since sailed six times with. We live approximately 90 miles from the port and this was our first cruise that we were driving to the port. It was cheaper for us to get two balcony rooms with $800 OBC for 10 days than to fly to Seattle and sail for 7 days. I enjoy being on the ship so was happy to get a longer cruise for less money. Our friends flew in from the Midwest and got to see California. This cruise like so many others was booked 2 years ago, but canceled due to COVID. We did not attempt this cruise in 2021 due to Canada still being up in the air about their borders so we had an adults cruise on the Horizon which was awesome. We sailed two weeks before Carnival implemented the negative test to sail order so this year it was going to be interesting. We ordered the COVID tests from eMed in February to make sure I was prepared since I knew they would not expire in 2022. Since we had over two years to plan, we thought we had things down. Our excursions were booked in September, 2021 since we basically rebooked them from 2019. LET'S GET READY: Our friends arrived on Saturday, 7/23/22 and we planned to have a swabbing party followed by celebratory drinks. I surely needed a drink after all the tests were done. It took us 3 hours to complete six tests. We had issues getting onto eMed's site to complete the tests. The first two tests were easy, but then we were unable to connect. As I was stressing about why I could not get on, I remembered previously reading on this great site about people having issues using the same device to take multiple tests. We used new devices and found no issues. So six tests using six different devices later, we were done. Of course, all NEGATIVE. This sure is stressful as you sit there and stare at the test to make sure there is only one pink line. CHECK IN: We had a check in time of 10-10:30am. We left for the port at 8:00am anticipating getting to the port about 9:30-9:45am. I would drop the luggage and the rest of the family off and go park. I parked at the location suggested by Carnival/port and it could not have been easier. For those considering it, https://sfport.com/maritime/cruise#tab-12453-pane-2 is the parking website. You fill out a Google Doc and they contact you for payment. You can only book parking within 60 days of sailing. I filled the form out exactly 60 days out and was contacted within 1 day for payment. Super easy. The parking garage is a 5 minute walk to the port on a flat surface. It was $220 for the trip which is a decent rate for SF, or at least I thought. Traffic was a little thick as it was Monday, but it is always thick in the Bay area. We arrived at 9:45ish and there was already a line to get in. No biggie, I was there with plenty of time to spare. The excitement built as we got closer and kept looking for the whale tale. Finally, we saw home.