Update: We sailed aboard Carnival Imagination in 2013, when the ship was still part of the Carnival fleet. Carnival later placed the ship into long-term layup in 2020, and Carnival Imagination is no longer in service. I’ve consolidated our original four-part cruise series into this one article while keeping the experiences and photos from our trip intact. Anyone planning a Carnival cruise today can browse the current Carnival cruise ships.
Carnival Imagination was our family’s very first cruise, and when we booked our three-day Bahamas sailing from Miami, I really had no idea whether cruising would be a good fit for us. My sister and her family had taken a Carnival cruise the year before and came home talking about how much fun they had, which was enough to get me interested. A short cruise seemed like the perfect way to test the waters with three kids without committing to an entire week at sea.
As it turned out, those three days gave us a pretty good introduction to cruising. We experienced the tight quarters of sharing a cruise cabin with five people, discovered how easy it was to feed three kids with completely different tastes, explored more of the ship than I expected, and somehow managed to come home with a raffle prize and a mini iPad. More importantly, we found out that cruising was something our family genuinely enjoyed.
Carnival hosted our family on this cruise. All experiences and opinions shared are my own.
Boarding Carnival Imagination in Miami
The timing of our first cruise wasn’t doing much to calm my nerves. Tropical Storm Dorian formed shortly before we were scheduled to leave, and even though its projected path wasn’t expected to interfere with our sailing, seeing a tropical system on the weather map when you’re already a little unsure about being surrounded by water wasn’t exactly comforting.
Once we arrived at the Port of Miami, excitement started winning out over nerves. We had purchased Carnival’s Faster to the Fun option, which allowed us to board early and get into our room fairly quickly. Traveling with three kids, I appreciated being able to put down our things and establish a home base before everyone scattered in different directions to explore.
Our ocean-view stateroom accommodated all five of us with:
- A king-size bed
- Two upper bunks
- A cot for our fifth person
- A chair and two small tables
- A desk
- An ocean-view window
Once the upper bunks came down at night, there wasn’t much extra floor space. Getting up in the middle of the night required some careful maneuvering around beds and family members, but we also weren’t spending our vacation sitting in the cabin. The feature that mattered much more to me was the window. I loved being able to wake up and immediately look outside at the water, and for my first cruise, having that connection to the outside made me much happier than I think I would have been in an interior cabin.
We’ve taken other cruises since then and experienced different ships and accommodations. Our Carnival Conquest cruise ship review shares another Carnival family cruise, including our room, food, ports, and overall experience.
What Carnival Imagination Was Like Onboard
One of the things I remember most about boarding Carnival Imagination was realizing just how much was packed onto the ship. As someone who had never cruised before, I had pictured a boat with rooms, restaurants, and a pool. Once we started walking around, it felt much more like a small floating resort.
There were restaurants and casual dining areas, shops, lounges, a casino, an arcade, a fitness center, a pool, waterslides, mini golf, and entertainment spaces spread throughout the ship. Carnival provided a small folding map that fit into a pocket, and I relied on it quite a bit during our first day. By the second day, we had figured out the places that mattered most. The kids knew where the arcade was, my husband definitely knew where the shops were, and everyone could find the food.
A Few Things That Surprised Me as a First-Time Cruiser
- The ship was easier to navigate than I expected.
- There was always something nearby to do without having to schedule every minute.
- We spent much less time in our cabin than I had imagined.
- Different family members could find activities they enjoyed without everyone having to do the same thing.
- I stopped thinking about being “on a ship” surprisingly quickly.
Mini golf gave us one of our first reminders that we were, in fact, moving across the ocean. We decided to play near the top of the ship while leaving Miami, just as the wind and a little rain started picking up. Between trying to hit the ball, keeping my hair out of my face, and maintaining my balance, I’m not sure any of us played particularly well.
My daughter thought the wind was fantastic, and we joked that we might have to tie her down before she blew away. It wasn’t exactly a peaceful game of miniature golf, but it was much more memorable that way.
Cruise Food Worked Surprisingly Well for Our Family
Food can become a major part of any family vacation when everyone likes something different. That was definitely true in our house, so having multiple options available throughout Carnival Imagination made meals much easier.
We boarded around lunchtime and headed to the Lido deck, where we found hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, pizza, deli sandwiches, salads, and rotating buffet selections. My oldest son could reliably find the familiar foods he liked, while my daughter immediately began checking out whatever else was available.
Our children’s completely different attitudes toward food became even clearer during our first dinner in the Spirit Dining Room.
| Family Member | Dinner Personality |
|---|---|
| My daughter | Wanted to try the regular menu and more adventurous dishes |
| My teenage sons | Wanted chicken nuggets, pizza, fries, and familiar favorites |
| My husband | Very happy when lobster and shrimp appeared |
| Me | Mostly happy everyone found something they would eat |
My daughter was only seven, but she was already willing to try foods her brothers wouldn’t touch. She enjoyed dishes such as stuffed mushrooms, ribs, French onion soup, pasta, and other selections from the regular dining-room menu.
The boys had a very different reaction. They studied the dinner menu as if there had been some terrible misunderstanding and Carnival had forgotten to include food they recognized. I tried convincing them that fried chicken and french fries were reasonably close to chicken nuggets, but they disagreed. Then our waiter arrived with a children’s activity book, and on the back was a kids’ menu featuring chicken nuggets, pizza, and french fries. Problem solved.
That flexibility was one of the things I appreciated most about cruise dining with kids. We could sit together for dinner without everyone having to want the same type of food.
Dinner Was More Than Just Dinner
The Spirit Dining Room also gave us some of the more entertaining moments of the cruise. One evening the music started and members of the dining staff began dancing to “That’s Amore.” Our waiter folded napkins into different shapes, made my son a bow, and then tried his best to convince my daughter to dance. I offered him $100 if he succeeded because I knew my money was safe. She wasn’t moving.
My husband had considerably more success with his dinner. He ordered lobster tail and shrimp one evening and enjoyed it so much that our waiter returned with a second serving he had apparently already ordered for him. Those little touches from the staff stood out just as much as the food itself.
Our final dinner brought another family moment when my younger son secretly worked with our waiter to arrange for everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” to his older brother, who was about a week away from turning 16. Was it a thoughtful gesture of brotherly love? Probably. Did he also enjoy watching his brother get embarrassed in front of the dining room? Almost certainly.
Shopping, Watches, and an Unexpected Raffle Win
It didn’t take long for my husband to discover the onboard shops. He collects Invicta watches, so the sight of watches displayed behind the doors was enough to guarantee that this would not be our only visit.
He and my son had a great time browsing and trying on watches. I’ve never been much of a watch person, so I wasn’t nearly as excited, although my husband did surprise me with a beautiful blue bracelet. I’m generally the person who would rather receive an electronic gadget than jewelry, but I genuinely loved the bracelet.
Those repeated shopping trips also resulted in us accumulating five raffle tickets. Later in the cruise, the jewelry shop held a drawing, and because there were watches involved, my husband was definitely interested. We attended the presentation, waited while the numbers were called, and discovered that one of our tickets was a winner. We left with a watch and pen set.
It may not have been the Invicta watch my husband had been admiring, but there is something undeniably fun about hearing your number called when you weren’t really expecting to win.
My First Trip to a Casino
Our raffle luck may have given me a little too much confidence because I decided to try the casino next. I had never been inside a casino before and had no idea what I was doing, but fortunately, a Carnival employee helped explain how the slot machines worked and how we could use our room cards to keep track of the money.
I wasn’t interested in risking much, so I started with $10. That $10 ended up entertaining me over several nights. At one point I doubled my money, and another night I managed to get as high as $30 before cashing out at $25. Eventually, my luck ran out and I lost what remained on the final night.
For someone who isn’t much of a gambler, I still considered that a win. I had spent $10 total and gotten several evenings of entertainment out of it.
Cruise entertainment ended up being something we enjoyed on later Carnival sailings as well. Our Carnival Conquest entertainment, shows, casino, and onboard activities article shares more of what we’ve experienced on another Carnival ship.
The Arcade Produced Our Biggest Win
The arcade was a natural stop with three kids, although everyone gravitated toward different games. My daughter preferred racing games and traditional arcade games, while the boys were much more interested in anything that offered the possibility of walking away with a prize.
One particular machine had everyone’s attention. The goal was to guide a key into a small opening, with prizes including expensive headphones and a mini iPad waiting behind it.
It looked simple enough:
- Move the key from side to side until it is lined up with the prize.
- Press the button to raise the key.
- Release it at exactly the right height.
- Hope the key slides cleanly through the opening.
The boys tried. My husband tried. Everyone came frustratingly close.
We returned to the arcade the next morning, and on my husband’s first attempt of the day, the key lined up perfectly and he won the mini iPad. We had to take the prize to the casino and complete some paperwork before leaving with it, but it was ours. Between the raffle prize, my modest casino winnings, and a mini iPad from the arcade, our first cruise turned out to be considerably luckier than expected.
Of course, my husband immediately tried his luck on another prize machine afterward. That machine happily took his money, reminding us that apparently there were limits to our winning streak.
What We Learned From Taking a Three-Day Cruise
When we booked Carnival Imagination, choosing a short cruise was mostly about convenience. Looking back, I think it was also one of the reasons the trip worked so well as our introduction to cruising.
Three days gave us enough time to:
- Find out how comfortable we were being at sea
- Experience cruise dining with three kids
- See how five people managed in one stateroom
- Explore different activities without feeling rushed
- Learn our way around the ship
- Decide whether cruising was something we wanted to do again
We didn’t have time to become bored, but we had enough time to settle in and understand what a cruise vacation was really like. For someone unsure about cruising, a shorter sailing can be a very different commitment than jumping straight into a seven-day vacation. By the end of Carnival Imagination, our family had its answer: we liked cruising.
Looking Back at Carnival Imagination
Carnival Imagination is no longer sailing, and anyone finding this article today is probably here because they remember the ship, are curious about what it looked like, or came across its name while researching Carnival’s history.
For us, it will always be the ship that introduced our family to cruising. The things I remember aren’t necessarily the biggest features of the ship. I remember my daughter laughing in the wind during mini golf, my sons discovering the kids’ menu, my husband’s excitement over watches, trying a casino for the first time, somehow winning a raffle, and watching a mini iPad come out of an arcade machine. Those are the kinds of moments that made the trip memorable.
Carnival Imagination may now be part of cruise history, but I’m glad we still have our photos and stories from the three days that started our family’s love of cruising.