IF YOU'RE FLYING DOWN, FLY IN THE DAY BEFORE. I've heard too many horror stories of people's luggage not making it or worse.
Where do I start? I went with my fiance, her parents, their best friends, and their daughter and son-in-law. We'd all been cruising together before: the elder 4 of our party are all Platinum (there's a joke there for later) and the other three of the younger had all been on at least 5 cruises, this was my second.
We all know that half of the fun of a cruise is because you spend time together on board, as well as anticipating your departure. About two weeks before we set sail, I started emailing our group with a paragraph or two about what we were going to do in 14 days, then 13 days, then 12 days... you get the idea. The whole crew got into it, razing me and my future father-in-law about packing too many suitcases, my fiance about packing too many shoes... stuff like that.