Our kids have wanted to try a Voyager Class ship ever since they saw a show on the Voyager on the Travel Channel. In looking for different cruises, we noticed a 5 night cruise on Voyager of the Seas for immediately after New Years. My husband and I weren't sure if we could handle a 7 day cruise on such a behemoth of a ship, we thought a 5 night cruise would be the perfect opportunity to try out the Voyager of the Seas. It definitely was!!

A bit of background on us -- we are avid cruisers who have been on 10 other cruises. We are in our early 40s with two kids, ages 12 and 16. As a family we have cruised on such lines as Carnival, HAL, RCI and Celebrity, with Celebrity being our favorite family cruise line to date. We have only been on one other RCI cruise and had a less than favorable experience (Sovereign of the Seas in Jan 2001). Our family wanted to see the difference between a Sovereign class ship vs a Voyager class ship. Some things were 100% better, others were the same.

Embarkation -- Out of 10 cruises this was our worst!!! We got to the pier in Miami at 12:30 p.m. after driving in from Orlando. While the lines for embarkation were long, we didn't think it would take that long. After the porter took our luggage and we parked the car we entered into a small holding area downstairs. They were allowing about 10 people at a time to go upstairs. After our group was allowed upstairs, they closed the lines. NO ONE would be allowed to enter in the building until the rest of the passengers disembarked. We were told by one port official that there were over 700 passengers left to disembark. You could look up and see the lines of people trying to get off the ship. There were many many unhappy folks both in the building and outside in the heat. Finally after about a 2 hour wait the lines started to move. We got to the boarding counter, received our cards and were finally on board at about 3 p.m. Read more