Background info - This was my third time on the Explorer of the Seas and my mothers second time. We're both diamond members on RCCL - I've been on 13 Royal Caribbean cruises and my mom has been on too many to keep track of!! I was extremely excited for this trip because it was my moms first ever balcony cabin, room number 6666. I picked that cabin because I decided that it would be very difficult to forget our number! I should also note that I was a bit nervous for this cruise because my mother didn't have the best service when we were on the Adventure of the Seas this past January and she was very close to writing off Royal Caribbean altogether. I didn't want that to happen because she's one of my best cruising buddies!

Travel to Port - We live in Mystic, CT so we left at 8:20am and thankfully encountered no traffic. We arrived at the Bayonne cruise terminal at 11:40am and after dropping off our luggage, parking, and going back to the terminal, we zipped right through priority boarding and we were on the ship making our spa appointments by 12:20pm - it doesn't get much easier than that! After making massage and hair appointments for the following day, we headed to the Windjammer for some lunch, then enjoyed a quick drink at the pool bar before heading to our cabin around 1:30pm.

Our Cabin #6666 - Mom loved the balcony so that was awesome. We walked in to find that the beds were pushed together so I called housekeeping and was assured that it would be taken care of so no biggie. We were thrilled to find that our luggage had already arrived so we immediately unpacked and settled in. Our room steward knocked on our door and introduced himself to us and he was fantastic all week. In addition to the cabin being a very memorable number, it also happened to be in a great location. We found that starting out on deck 6 always seemed to be just perfect, whether we were going to dinner or the promenade on deck five or up a few decks to visit the pool - it never seemed like we were very far away from anything. Read more