will begin my report for this cruise which was 7 nights out of Ft. Lauderdale to Labadee, Haiti, Falmouth, Jamaica and Cozumel. First of all we like normal flew in a day early and stayed at the Hyatt Place in Ft. Lauderdale. We had to fly into Miami as we could not get a return from FLL to ORD until like 1700 and did not want to sit around all day and MIA had a return to ORD at 1235. We taxied into the Hyatt which was around $80.00 so its a bit costly but the shuttle bus was only about $10.00 less with other stops so we chose the taxi. I must say the service at the Hyatt was excellent and we took their shuttle to the pier for about $7.00 pp so not bad. Once in port we had to wait a while to actually get onto the ship and I was not impressed at all by the personnel there. Lets just say CS seems to be lacking in their training but of course they are not RCI employees. Once we checked in the courtesy kicked in. It took about 45 mins. to get onto the ship and our cabin was not yet ready but actually it was finished ahead of the announced time.

We walked around this marvel of a ship and had lunch at the Park Cafe in the Central Park section, just some salads as we were not so hungry. We had a balcony cabin on the 9th. deck and the first thing I noticed was that the balcony was bigger than what we had last May on the NCL Getaway. It turned out to take a while to get used to all the areas on this huge ship and we seemed to have discovered something new every day.

We were assigned my time dining as first seating was not available when we booked. On the first night I requested it from the Maitre'd and that was honored a day later. However that first night we shared a table with a couple from FLA. and they too wanted first seating so actually we were able to get a fixed time at the my time dining restaurant, American Icon with them so it was very good of RCI to meet our requests that way. I was so awe struck by this ship that I forgot we had reservations that night for the Oasis of Dreams show but we were able to book it for a later day. We happened upon a preview of the comedy show and saw three performers and I really got some good laughs from them. The rest of the first day was spent just checking out the ship especially Boardwalk and the Promenade. Wow! Like I tell all the people I know who have not cruised you don't know what you are missing. Many seem to think that you just sit around all day and there is nothing to do. We got a good nights rest and I must say that for the week we were on this ship detection of any motion was just a few times and it was next to nothing. I suppose 225k tons of a ship makes the ride very smooth. Read more