As a cruising novice, you can sense my emotions when my cab arrived at the dock with the Royal Caribbean International's Adventure in the horizon, have never been close to a cruise ship before and my first reaction was wow.

When I got out of the cab there were large lines of people, from babies to mature ladies and gentlemen, the people in line were in good form and as I was travelling alone very friendly and welcoming. While in line there was some paper work to fill in to spend some time, fresh drinks were available if needed which i thought was a nice touch. At the end of the queue my luggage was taken and then i was screened, after that you went to the reception desk and then you got your sea pass which you sign for. Please remember there is no cash on board your sea port gains entry to your state room and also how you pay for everything on board, this initially frigtened me as I hate using my credit card abroad, I had nothing to fear as you can check your account on your state room at any time.

When I got on board I was informd my state room was not ready, so decided to go exploring, I decided to go for a coffee and get some food and as you can imagine it was free. have to say the ship was huge but on the first day they have an orientation of the ship and I would thorougly recommend it. When my stateroom was ready I went in to see what it was like, it was very spacious and as I had an outside cabin it was nice to see the world outside. Read more