Background: My wife and I had sailed on RCCL many years ago. Our most recent cruises have been on Princess and Holland America. When we decided to take a family Christmas cruise we decided to revisit RCCL since we wanted a shorter cruise and wanted to sail out of Tampa. We booked three inside rooms for ourselves and two of our children. One son is married and he and his wife in their late twenties to early 30's. Our daughter is married and his two boys, ages 2 and 5. Another reason we chose RCCL was because we wanted a line with a good children's program. Before sailing we were notified that my wife and I had received an upgrade from our inside room to a superior outside room with a balcony! Now that is what I call an upgrade!

Embarkation: We arrived at the port at about 1:30pm. Dropped off the luggage and parked the car at an off port lot. The cost was about 1/2 that of port parking and they took us right back to the port. Very easy. When RCCL says boarding begins at 1:30pm, they mean it. You had to line up outside and go through security to get to check in. It was no big deal since it was a beautiful day, but had it been raining it would not have been fun to stand around while you had to get through the security. RCCL will not allow you to bring on board any water, soft drinks or wine. They will take it. After getting through security, the check in procedure was fast and painless. Very nice people. Once on board we checked the kids in and they were issued writs bands and we went off to find out rooms. There were no escorts or guides, so I would suggest you know where your room is before boarding.

Rooms: The two inside rooms we had were on deck 4 and were standard inside rooms. About 160 sq feet. Very similar to Princess inside rooms. The bathrooms had no shampoo or lotion. There was a hair dryer, safe and refrigerator. Plenty of drawer space and closet space. I would say the room was similar to a Princess inside room. Even had a small couch. The balcony room was the same size, but had a nice balcony with two chairs and a small table. We had room for another chair or two and since we knew we would have visitors, we asked for more chairs and were told no. Our room steward was fine, he seemed most interested in us understanding that we could only reach him during his hours, which were 8-1 and 3-6. When he failed to place a day's schedule in the room and I didn't find out until 8 pm, it was too bad. I had to get one myself. The kids said their steward was great. The rooms were clean. Read more