I couldn't wait to get on the boat. It had been many years since my last cruise, and the fact that I was so close I could see the captain in the bridge from the shore made me all the more annoyed that I couldn't get on the boat for another three hours.

My family and I had chosen to go on a cruise over Christmas with the recent passing of our father. We decided Christmas at home would be too much to handle, and we decided to get away for the holidays to distract us. We arrived in Galveston Texas on Sunday, December 18th to board the Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas en route to the Western Caribbean.

That excitement was soon quelled when we were told there was a Norovirus outbreak on the ship during the cruise just before ours. We were told we had to wait an addition three hours before boarding. I wanted so desperately to get angry and annoyed, but RC was doing their job. They had to clean our boat so we wouldn't get sick. Read more