This is our third cruise, but our first time on Royal Caribbean. We've been on Carnival the other two times. We chose Jewel this time because of the itinerary to go into the Panama Canal. My wife and I are in our mid 50's, kids have grown and flown. We've been married for 33 years. We took a train from Albany NY, to Miami. It's a day and half travel and we had a roomette for privacy. It's tight quarters and a bit noisy, but the train never leaves the ground so we were happy overall for that. We met a couple who were also going on the Jewel. We saw them many times during the cruise.

Our cruise was scheduled to leave Monday March 23, and we arrived in Miami Sunday March 22 around 7PM. We stayed at the Fortune House in downtown Miami which was only 4 miles away from the port. Fortune House is a condo with one and two bedroom suites for sale or rent. It's a very classy place in a good area of Miami.

On Monday the 23rd, we slept in a bit, and eventually had a taxi take us to the port. Our luggage was picked up by one of the loaders and we went into the main terminal. Because I had done the on-line preregistration, getting our sea-pass cards went very quickly. We had to wait in the terminal as the Coast Guard was doing a surprise inspection of the ship. The ship passed with flying colors which is nice to know. But by 12:15pm or so we were able to board. We headed for the dining room first to try to get a table for two. We had to wait for the MD until after 1:30 to make any changes. We headed up to the Windjammer to see what was for lunch. Our room was available after 1:30 so we headed there to unload all our carry-on bags. We were met by the most delightful and sweet cabin attendant you could ask for. Mehalia was just a gem the whole cruise, willing to run for us for anything we needed. My wife was told by the MD that they would see what they could do about getting us a table for two but for the first evening we would have to sit at the assigned table,which turned out to have only two other people there. The following day, we got a card in our cabin door advising us we had our table for two as requested. I'm not sure the exact time our luggage showed up at our room. We were having too much fun exploring to worry about that. At some point in the late afternoon all of our bags showed up. We didn't unpack until after the ship left port. Read more