Pre-Cruise-I typically don't write my pre-cruise experience, but mine was interesting. I am a veteran cruiser (30 cruises under my belt mostly with Royal) as is most of my party, there were two newbies in the group. We had a party of 12, ages ranged from 13-49. Some of us were from Fl and the other half from the MD/VA area. We all stayed at different hotels (I stayed in the Doubletree Airport, one family in the new JW Marriot and another in the Intercontinental and still another with a relative). We do the Thanksgiving cruise annually and usually stay together but loyalty programs drew us in different directions this year. Myself, I live in Florida so I drove down (from Orlando) on Friday afternoon with 3 family members from NJ (who had flown in on Wednesday prior). The trip down was relatively uneventful we made it to the Miami city limits in record time but it took another 1.5 hr to get to our hotel (which usually takes about 35 mins). I had made promises to pick up others at the FLL airport. Well getting to our hotel so late put me on 95S late thus arriving in FLL close 9PM (again usually a 35min trip), my nephew and my friend and her children all arrived from Baltimore at 7PM. One other couple was expected to be picked up at MIA airport at 830P needless to say that didn't happen. I ended up not getting back to my hotel until 1030P.

What a truly exhausting day. So after finding food for everyone in my personal party (total of 6), my daughter ask about our passports. UGH! I was so busy worrying about everyone else having their stuff I totally forgot to take our (my daughter and mine) passports out of the strong box. As tired as I was I refused to not make the cruise...my daughter offers to drive back, but she lacked the highway experience and I wanted her to stay and keep my nephew from ordering room service and such...? So my two nieces made the trip back to Orlando with us. 1130P here we are on the road headed back North. We made it to my doorstep in 3.5 hours...no traffic whatsoever. We napped for 1.5 hours and showered and hit the road at 0430A. At this rate I was hoping to get back in time to snag breakfast take a quick nap, return the car and be on our shuttle to the pier at noon. NOT! No traffic going back until we were just outside of West Palm...all four southbound lanes on 95 were closed due to an accident (very light rain-but that's driving in Fl). Anyway we were diverted to the turnpike (took the wrong exit for this originally and finally after 45 mins were on our way). We arrived in Miami, again in pretty good time but much to our chagrin traffic is snarled again. At this point my plan was to just return the car and high tail it back to the hotel and pick up the rest of our party, which is just what we did. Getting there in just enough time to get everyone corralled and catch our shuttle. I now get to the cruise...but this set the tempo of things to come. Arrival at the pier...FINALLY! We had all been waiting for this cruise since May 2009. All papers are together, I was off to terminal B (penthouse) and the rest were off to Terminal C. And thus it begins.

I had what was called priority check in and the only thing priority about it was that we were in a separate room but I could've checked in much faster by going through the line with the others. The priority waiting rooms was pure chaos. There was no order to who was there first and only one person working check-in. Then you had to wait to be "escorted" onto the ship, something I could've done without as well...but ok. It took a total of 40 mins to go through this process. My family had made it on board long before me. After the courtyard tour, etc I finally made it to my cabin and I felt like maybe all the mishaps were out of the way. I chose an aft penthouse over a courtyard because I prefer that back of the ship (stern). I was totally happy with my choice and I loved my butler Ahkmad...though I didn't really employ his services he was always very helpful. Read more