This cruise was to celebrate one of the groups graduation from college. The age range of the entire group was 16 - 57. This was my first Royal Caribbean cruise, I had one prior cruise on Carnival in 2007.
The price with Royal was pretty high as compared to Carnival, but we were sailing to Bermuda (graduates choice) and Carnival didn't go there. A close family friend was our travel agent for everyone, she can get the best deals and upgrades, didn't matter this 5 day Royal was more than a 9 day Carnival. I sucked it up because I assumed it would be worth it.
Getting to the pier at Cape Liberty in Bayonne, NJ was horrible, what should have been a 2+ hour trip was closer to 4, and this was a Saturday morning, when assumable traffic should have been light. The pier is actually a run-down, collapsing, abandon military post. If it wasn't for the 500 cars in line, I would have never assumed I was even at the right place.
The location was good, above the lifeboats. Balcony was useless due to railing height & material. Standing up looking over the railing was a nice view. Because of the design of the ship, the lower floors, 1-3, don't go from end to end. Eventually people learned that this hallway could be used to get from one end of the ship to the other. There was always a lot of foot traffic in the hallway. The A/C was adequate, was always catching up if you opened the balcony door though. I overheard another guest say their A/C was like a meat locker, that wasn't the case for this cabin.