My boyfriend and I were on the Century Western Caribbean cruise May 10-15, 2010. We are 26 and 30 respectively. This was my third cruise (the past two were with Carnival and Royal Caribbean) and his first cruise ever. We flew down to Miami from Detroit the morning of the cruise. I heard from many people that we should come in the night before but we didn't have any flight issues. I might consider coming the night before next time because another couple on our same flight had their luggage delayed and they did not receive it from Delta until 5 pm the day we were in Cozumel. After collecting our luggage, we found a taxi to get to the port. There is a flat rate fee of $24 to go from the airport to the pier so together with tip, we saved a few bucks over using Celebrity's transfer and I think it was definitely worth it. We didn't have to wait for the bus to fill up and we didn't have to deal with the swarm of people getting off the bus at the pier.

After leaving our bags with the porters at the pier, we entered the cruise terminal. There weren't any lines at the metal detectors and only a short 3-4 minute wait to check in at the counter. We were issued our Sea Passes and we proceeded aboard. In total, the whole process from getting off the plane to getting on the boat was just over an hour.

We enjoyed our glasses of champagne then proceeded up to the buffet on deck 11. This was the first and only time we had to search for seats. The Islands Cafe was never busy any other time we visited it. We enjoyed an excellent lunch and the announcement was made a little after one that the rooms were ready. We went to check out our room and drop off our luggage before we explored the ship. Our luggage arrived outside our room a little after 3pm. Read more