Christmas cruise on the Jewel of the Seas

On Saturday the 24th of December 2006 my wife Marti and I flew out of Portland Maine to Fort Lauderdale Florida on US Air. We departed at 6:05 am and landed in Ft. Lauderdale at 11:05 am. A representative of Royal Caribbean in the baggage claim area met us. After picking up our luggage we went to the staging area for passengers that were going by bus to the pier. We had attached our ship luggage tags that had been supplied to our luggage and waited about 15 minutes to board the bus. The ride to the pier took about 5 to 10 minutes and we then entered the terminal where we received our boarding cards and went aboard the ship. The whole process took about 10 minutes and we were in our cabin # 8084 which was ready when we arrived. The cabin, for clarification purposes is on deck #8 and is almost amidships. It was a perfect location as a couple of steps out our door and we were at the elevators or the stairs. We did not see our luggage again until about 4:30 p.m. The only downside to that was we didn't pack any shorts or short sleeve shirts in our carry on luggage. If you are coming to Florida to go on a cruise in the winter make sure you don't make the same mistake. 

After checking out the cabin we went to deck #11 to the Windjammer buffet and again were more than pleased with what met our eyes. Marti did the complete tour of the buffet area before deciding what to have while I selected a variety of hot food and found a table by the windows and proceeded to eat lunch. Marti arrived shortly after I sat down and gave me a rundown of all the foods that I missed. I made up for my mistake on the second trip to the buffet areas. Although there were a lot of people in the room there was no crowding or pushing and everyone seemed to be already getting into relax mode. Read more