My boyfriend and I decided at the last minute to take a cruise vacation because he is being deployed shortly to Iraq. Neither one of us had ever been on a cruise but we like to have stuff to do on vacation and didn't really want to just go lie on a beach for a week. I found out that Royal Caribbean had a ship leaving from Baltimore near where we live and the price was great so we jumped on it. The trip to the Port of Baltimore was a snap. It is very easy to find and parking was a breeze and only $10 a day. We couldn't get our cruise documents to print but that was no problem. RCI had a rep there who take care of us quickly and then it was only a short wait for security and no wait at all to check in. We then had the obligatory pictures taken and boarded. We were supposed to leave at 4 and we arrive at 1:30 and were on the ship at 2. Very nice and smooth process all around.

We got a large interior stateroom which was a lot bigger than what I had expected. It was actually larger than my last hotel room in New York City. We had more than enough room for the two of us and I thought they had a ton of storage space. The room was really well designed. The bed was really comfortable and we loved the total darkness to sleep in. Wow. I haven't slept so well in a long time. We could hear our neighbors on one side pretty well when they were up because they were just loud people but that was pretty much the only noise we heard at all. Of course, we spent very little time in our room. The ship was beautiful. I know it is an older ship but it was well maintained and very clean. The only thing that bugged me was that there were lots of recycling bins but no regular trash bins! Plus there was a serious lack of clocks and as neither of us had a watch we were constantly asking people for the time. I loved the centrum area and the pool deck.

There was a lot to do on all the days but not everything appeals to everyone so sometimes the ship's planned activities were a little boring to us. We didn't have any downtime though as we toured the ship, went to the gym, read, played ping pong, etc etc. It was great. The shows were pretty cheesy but bingo was fun, the art auction was really interesting and the game shows were hilarious, especially the Quest which is one of the most entertaining things I have ever seen. You MUST not miss it if you go. They take tons of photos of you and they are expensive (19.95 a piece for the 8x10s) but the photos were really well done and professional. Read more