We booked this cruise several months ago because we got a very decent rate on a JS. We like to cruise in December to both celebrate my birthday and rest up for tax season (DH is a CPA). The Bahamas is not our favorite destination; we booked knowing we'd probably never get off the ship (we didn't).

Pre Cruise

Roughly a week before we sailed, someone on our Cruise Critic thread noticed the itinerary had changed as had our departure time (originally 4:30, moved back to 7:30!) I got on the horn with Royal Caribbean the next morning and they had no idea what was going on. They told me it looked as though the embarkation schedule was between 2-6. They also had no idea why we lost our sea day and would be staying in Nassau overnight. They promised to find out and call me back; they never did. Bottom line. Communication from Royal Caribbean was awful on this situation (until we got onto the ship and the Captain did his best to deflect the angst). I did receive two days before we sailed a text, a voicemail and an email that boarding would be between noon and 4:30. Many people received no communication. There was a lot of unnecessary angst in the days leading up to our cruise. Adding to it, the confusion about which terminal we'd be going out of and coming back to. T-6 (usually Carnival) can't really handle the Royal Caribbean ships and there had been reports of long delays boarding. It turned out we left out of T-6 and sailed home into T-10. Why? Who knows! A Carnival ship was in T-10 Saturday the 13th. It made zero sense. Read more