As cruise-ship newbies, we relied heavily on online forums and anecdotes from colleagues to help us select a cruise. Endless options exist on the market at different price points, target markets and on-board experiences. The Caribbean was our overall destination, but more decisions were required to pick the islands we wanted to visit. Luckily, our criteria involved incorporating a Christmas Day sailing so that limited the choices. In the end, we booked a 7 day Carnival Conquest Eastern Caribbean cruise and this blog post outlines part one of that trip.