Our family included myself, my husband, 6 yr old and 7 yr old boys.

We stayed at the Four Points by Sheraton Miami Beach the night before the cruise and we didn't enjoy it at all. It was very loud all night and we were happy to leave as soon as we woke up the next morning. We ate breakfast on Miami Beach and had a wonderful time exploring South Beach for a couple of hours before heading to the cruise terminal. My husband dropped us off at the terminal and went to return the rental car. It took him about 30 minutes to get back. There were minimal lines for check in and most people were walking in the ship in a matter of minutes. Our gal seemed new and took quite awhile to get us checked in, but I think we were the exception.

We boarded the ship around 1 p.m. and looked around before heading to the Windjammer for lunch. The food was decent and everyone in my family was able to find something they liked. We found a table by the window and enjoyed our lunch before heading to our stateroom. We had a balcony room on deck 8 and we loved it. I was concerned about how small the room would be but it is set up so well that it wasn't a problem at all. We really enjoyed our stateroom and our balcony. We left the pullout couch as a bed the entire cruise and had no trouble moving around it. We used the gym twice and enjoyed it. Good equipment and fabulous view from the treadmills! We ran on the track twice and really liked this. Can there be a better view than the Caribbean sea all around you while you run? I've seen postings where people say that chairs were on the track and they couldn't use it, but that never happened to us, even when we wanted to walk in the middle of the day. We never felt crowded on the ship even though it was spring break and very full (except for the tender lines). We did have trouble finding chairs by the pool. Most of the chairs had people's stuff on them, but I never saw the people. That was disappointing but it certainly wasn't going to ruin our mood! The kids LOVED the H2O zone and the pool. It would get crowded but we never felt like there wasn't enough space to play. The kids loved the kids club. They never went for more than a few hours here and there, but it was just enough to give us all the separate time that we needed. The food on the ship was fine. I was pretty sick of it by the end of the week, but I think that's because it's just not the food I'm used to. But no complaints. We did end up eating in the Windjammer most of the time because the kids liked it so much and the main dining room took us almost 2 hours the first night. The food was very good but we wanted to do other things with our time. We were on the sailing that had the big norovirus outbreak but that's life. RCCL was scrubbing everything day and night to try to keep norovirus under control. Not sure there's much they can do. There is so much to do on this ship and we didn't have time to do most of it. But I think that's part of its charm - you can do as much or as little as you want to do. We enjoyed the sports deck and the pool area the most. Read more