This was our second cruise aboard a Royal Caribbean vessel and our 10th overall. Having sailed previously on lines such as Carnival, Princess, Norwegian and Celebrity, we were expecting a "WOW" from RCCL that we really didn't feel we had gotten from our Jewel of the Seas cruise earlier in May of this year. We did get the "WOW" this time. From the time we joined the Cruise Critic Roll Call for the cruise all the way through post cruise, the experience was awesome. By the time we sailed, there were over 130 of us that had met on the Roll Call and Cruise Critic did a spectacular job of setting up our own personal Meet & Mingle cocktail party with RCCL. It was great having so many new friends onboard with us. You couldn't be on a deck without running into a member of our Roll Call.

PARKING: Since we are lucky enough to live within 30 minutes drive to the port, we parked our car at a lot about 1 mile from the port and saved about 50%. The problem we had was that there were only two shuttle vans running and there were two ships in port this day. A Carnival ship was late disembarking it's passengers which really slowed down the transfer process from the lot to the Port. We waited about one hour with other sailing passengers before we were able to get on a shuttle to the Port.

EMBARKATION: After so many cruises, I had always thought that the earlier you get to the port, the faster you board the ship. I am beginning to beleive that everyone else has the same idea. When we arrived at the port of Tampa at about 12pm, the line was long yet moved very quickly as there were many check-in personnel so it took about 30 minutes before we actually were able to board. My point, get there when you can as long it is 90 minutes prior to sailing or you'll be waving goodbye to the rest of us. PLEASE remember to have all of your necessary documents at the ready when you arrive at the port for check-in. Most of the delays were caused by passengers that forgot to fill something out or couldn't remember which credit card they used when doing the online check-in process. All of the information you need can be found here at the CruiseCritic website or just by asking in the forums. Read more