We are a family of four with twin 8 year old girls. Hubby & I sailed on Celebrity in Alaska 10+ years ago, and we did a 22-person multi-generational family cruise on Royal Caribbean a couple years ago before this Spring Break excursion on the Eclipse. This one was a (very generous) gift from my father-in-law, who cruises a lot. To give some perspective on our travel experience, we usually stay in luxury resorts for our vacations (think Ritz Carlton type places) and travel internationally as we like to experience different cultures, etc.

In no particular order:

Ship: Nice, modern decor -- far less glaring than some ships seem to be. Super clean -- hand-sanitizers everywhere plus humans offering squirts of sanitizer at several points (yet still we saw many people skip it -- why?!). The lack of pool space was a challenge. Much competition for seats -- 1/2 of them seem to be under the covered decks. While it was nice to have an adult pool and a kids' pool, they are literally separated by a couple feet, so the concept of the adult pool wasn't quite achieved. The amount of bodies in both tiny pools was overwhelming, yet every time we walked through the indoor solarium pool area, it was virtually empty -- I can see the appeal in a colder climate but it was wasted space on a Caribbean cruise. Double the pool deck space would've been better. Read more