This was my 7 cruise and 4th on Carnival. It was 7 of us (4 adults and 3 teens) just looking for an end-of-summer vacation. Of our party, two had never cruised before and I'm not sure they found it that enjoyable.
Food seemed to be an issue as they are extremely picky and don't like things with fancy sauces. Also, they aren't all that into vacationing in general. So, I will make this strictly from my point of view.
We flew directly to Ft. Lauderdale and immediately saw the Carnival reps. We waited about 20 minutes or so before being escorted to the buses for the trip to Port of Miami. After another 20 minutes or so, we were on our way. Upon arrival at POM, there was absolutely no problem checking in. It was very quick. I believe we were on board the ship at 11:45am. Not so quick, however, was our baggage, which didn't arrive at our cabin until 6:30pm. Oh well, no big deal since we had late dining.