We set sail on Serenade of the Seas October 2-October 9th. We arrived a day early and stayed at the Marriott Stellaris and Casino. It was a nice hotel and we had a view of the city. It was nice to have a balcony at the hotel as well. Our cab fare was $16.00 and you pay $1.00 per bag to the hotel so if you have a carry on bag, keep it with you so you don't get charged for it.

We made plans to check on Sunday around 11am and head over to the pier. I didn't want to arrive too early and end up standing in lines waiting to get on. We left the hotel around 10:55 (cabs are plentiful and easy to get) and arrived at the pier at 11:10. Didn't matter because we still had to wait in line. First line was for the porters to collect your luggage (this took about 10 or 15 minutes). Once your luggage was received, you head over to another line to wait for pier check in to begin. This took approximately 20 minutes. Once the line began, it moved pretty quickly. You have to fill out a health card before you can check in at the RC desks. I would say from the time we arrived (11:10), it took approximately 45 minutes to have our luggage, collected, wait in the security line, check in with RC staff, and then up for our welcome aboard photo. We headed to the dining room to check our table and I'm happy to say that my request for a table for two in the center of the dining room was taken care of...dab smack in the middle of the dining room! We headed up to the windjammer for lunch and then headed to the spa to make appointments for the week. After that, we headed for our cabin. You can't go to your cabin until after 1pm.

We had a deluxe balcony cabin on the 7th deck (cabin 7618). Cabins on this side and in this general area have life boats underneath them so when you stand at your balcony and lean over, the life boats extend out approximately 6-8 feet so you can't look directly below. I knew this going in and even though it felt a bit weird at first, we quickly became used to it. Read more