To start, we missed our embarkation in Miami due to the unusual weather we had in Vegas. We met up with the ship in Cartegena, Colombia, the second port of call, after we decided to take a diversion trip to Epcot while the ship sailed towards Cartegena. We were told we could not board the ship in Labadee, Haiti, the first port of call, since it was a privately RCI owned island. I wonder why not?

In the future, we will plan our cruises away from the Holidays. We were told that this cruise had up to 800+ children which was a minor annoyance since we are a pair of DINKS and travelled with another couple that left their children at home. The kids, including teenagers, were running rampant (in packs) at times. The most annoying part was that every night, they clogged the entire staircase on the 12th deck leading up to the disco/bars on the 13th deck (we had to use this route because the SeaView Cafe is located on deck 12 which we frequented). RCI ship security is way too nice in comparison to our hotel security here in Vegas. To be fair, there were some well behaved kids.

This is our first RCI cruise. We have cruised on Carnival once and Princess five times. So, I can only compare RCI vs. our experience with Princess. Read more