My boyfriend (soon to be fiancE...we'll get to that later) Craig and I left on May 20, 2006 for our 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise, departing from Miami. My first piece of advice: get to your port a day early if you need to fly there. We took a 5:30 flight out of Albany International to Ft. Lauderdale, then transported to Miami via van. While everything went fine, I am very high-strung and was worried all day that we would be late! Getting there a day early would have relieved that stress.

We were at the port by about noon-1:00, and got in line ASAP. Really enjoyed the lemonade and cookies provided! While the lines were long, they moved very quickly. We got our Sea Passes from the service desk and then got in line to get on the ship! We were quite early getting on board, so our cabin was not yet cleaned from the last cruise. This brings me to my second piece of advice: make sure you give all of your big luggage to the porters before you check-in and get on board. Again, being very high strung I insisted that we carry most of our luggage on board with us, to make sure it didn't get lost. This was not a smart idea, since our room wasn't ready until about 3pm and we had to drag our bags all over the ship with us in the meantime! The porters, I learned, are very responsible and I did not hear anyone complaining that they lost their luggage.

Craig and I were immediately overwhelmed with all of the people offering us stuff on the ship. Drinks, wine specials for the week, jewelry, etc. We did sign up for the Wine Package for the week...you pay a set amount for however many bottles of wine you want for the week. Then, when you're at dinner, the waiters will get you whatever one you choose until you run out. If you don't finish the bottle, they hold on to it for you until the next time you want it. It was a great deal, and since we are big wine drinkers, it came in handy for the week! Read more