Our group consisted of 4 adults; ages 52, 51, 47 & 48, and three 18 year old boys(referred to from now on as "the boys.") Six of us have sailed numerous times, and it was the first time for one of the adults. We were taking this cruise to celebrate our wedding anniversary, our son's graduation from high school, and of course Thanksgiving. We drove from the Atlanta area early Friday afternoon prior to sailing out of Port Canaveral on Saturday. We were to pick up another member of our group at the Orlando airport on Saturday morning. We booked two rooms at the Days Inn Coca Beach - simply because it was close to the port and the rates were very competitive. We also liked that we could (Securely? More on that later) park at the hotel during our cruise. We made a reservation with Royal Shuttle to arrive early on Saturday morning and take my husband to the airport to meet the member of our party who was flying in. The shuttle never showed up (they lost our reservation). He ended up having to drive to the airport himself. The Shuttle did arrive on time to take everyone from the hotel to the port.

EMBARKCATION: Embarkation was a breeze. In fact that was the smoothest and quickest we have ever boarded a ship. We immediately went to the Lido Deck - deck 10 for lunch. We chose the Mongolian station - which we all enjoyed.

We booked two rooms side by side on the Veranda Deck (Deck 8) mid ship. We were able to get into our rooms around 2:00pm, though our luggage didn't arrive until around 7:00pm. I do like that you can easily open and close your room safe with a four digit code instead of a credit card. It was also easy to change when the boys figured out what our code was!! Read more