This was the first real cruise for me and wife. For a variety of reasons we missed our 25th anniversary celebration and were looking for someplace to go, amazingly enough it was our kids idea to get away. We were considering several destinations within a day's drive of our Gainesville, FL home when I suggested a cruise. Since our only other experience had been a disastrous cruise to nowhere on which my wife got horribly seasick, I was somewhat amazed she agreed. I assured her newer ships were stabilized, and armed with plenty of Bonine we booked the trip, the Dec. 24 4 day to the Bahamas.

Embarkation.

We arrived fairly early at Port Canaveral, missed the turn into the terminal once and after circling back around parked the car in the lot, after dropping off our luggage with the porters. Upon entering the terminal we went up to the counters, where they weren't quite ready yet. Literally minutes later they started checking people in, and once checked in guided you to seats where you were sat in order, not unlike the land of the mouse. While we waited they assigned us our team colors and we played a silly little game loosely based on the 12 Days of Christmas with the awarding of points. Apparently there's some kind of ongoing contest for the teams as points were awarded at various events, but I never really figured out what it was. By the time the game was over, we were allowed to start boarding, in order, getting our pictures taken as we came on board. Very smooth. Read more