A little background of who we are: this was our fifth cruise, third with Royal Caribbean. We are an active (I stress active) couple, 36 and 40 years old, with no children. We enjoy cruising because of the value you get for the money and we enjoy visiting new countries and always go into ports of call. Our favorite activity while in Caribbean ports is scuba diving.

We arrived on Saturday and stayed at the Holiday Day Sunspree Resort. It is a nice hotel and our balcony faced the Gulf. We opted for the stay and park package and took the hotel shuttle to the port on Sunday. The Port of Galveston is a slow moving port, that was the only negative about our trip and has nothing to do with Royal Caribbean. It was slow getting through security but once through, check-in was a breeze and we walked right onto the ship around 12:30 p.m. Getting through customs upon return was a nightmare, it took about two hours!

For the age of the ship it is in great condition. The only issue was one of the hot tubs on deck 11 was out of order for the first half of the cruise and then the one next to it, may have been closed for cleaning perhaps. It did not matter to me as I do not swim in public swimming pools, but it just looked awful wrapped up in white plastic while work commenced. Read more