This cruise was a celebration of our 20th anniversary. My husband is new to cruising, and I have only cruised once prior. His only requirement for me to get him on the boat was that Key West had to be a port of call. My younger brother and his wife of 20 months decided to come along on the cruise and celebrate with us.
I searched NCL, Carnival, Celebrity, and Royal Caribbean. My prior cruise was with RCCL on this same ship, and again they turned out to have the best deal and the length of cruise we were searching for. Our itinerary had us stopping at Key West, Cozumel, and Belize. We booked through the RCCL website and I found their site easier to use than NCL or Carnival. During the year the price dropped and we were able to switch our room around to the lower price. I also had a savings certificate as a Crown and Anchor Member that helped the cost, so this cruise was extremely affordable.
We flew out of Charlotte Douglas Airport on a direct flight to Ft. Lauderdale. Although we live closer to Raleigh/Durham Airport, we could not get a direct flight, so driving the extra hour to Charlotte actually was the best for us. I made these reservations myself and saved money compared to what was quoted from the cruise line. Our trip was non-eventful and smooth, no delays. After we picked up our luggage we saw some RCC staff folks and they told us to go right on to the boat and that we could go ahead and board although it was earlier than our ticket booklet stated. We caught a cab on our own which also saved us money compared to if the cruise line took us to the port.