This was my 9th Cruise. Four on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Four on Carnival Cruise Lines and one on Norwegian. It had been 18 years (1996) since my last RCL cruise. So that is my qualifier. Now the Port of Galveston started things off on a bad note by having the lousiest run "official" Parking Service there is in the world. $70.00 to park for a week uncovered and they do not even have enough buses to service the parking lot. No sidewalks and crosswalks if you decide to walk. So on a 98 degree F day you are standing in the SUN waiting on a bus or walking about 4 city blocks across un-mowed grass and railroad tracks to get to the cruise terminal. Royal Caribbean lines you up and starts boarding at 10:30am and they send you a text to try to get everyone to space it out by telling you a time to get there. FORGET THAT!. They have six X-ray machines but will not run more than three at a time so any semblance of organization is out of the window. Get there so that you are at the terminal at 10:30 and fall into the cue, first come, first served. That was my first lesson learned. Because I was told to get there at 1:30PM by RCL. I started parking my car at 11:30PM, was at the gate at 1:00pm and was 3:30PM getting on the Ship. Lousy experience mostly caused by the Port of Galveston and Royal Caribbean's contracted Security Service.

The ship is awesome. It is a thing to behold. RCL has the top of the class when it comes to Large Cruise Ships. Since my significant other works in education we had to schedule the cruise in the summer months of June or July. That was a mistake for us as we are both approaching 60 with no kids. The ship had booked a record capacity of 3,900 people with 1,100 of them being kids (

Our stateroom was an inside one which is what I try to book because I never spend time in any hotel room or accommodation I ever have. I am a get up and get to seeing and doing kind of a person. Besides the inside staterooms sleep the best because they are so dark you cannot see your hand in front of your face. The room was wonderful and the room attendant was great. Not as good as I have had in the past but way above adequate. Read more