To start, we have been 3 other Royal Caribbean cruises - once on the Radiance of the Seas and twice on Freedom of the Seas. We choose this cruise for two reason, it left on a Sunday and we had not been to a majority of the port before. We traveled with the same core group of people for all our cruises, three couples.

We took a direct flight from Boston to San Juan on Sunday morning. When we arrived in San Juan, it was raining, but we easily found a taxi to the port for our whole group. Make sure you pay attention to the taxi fees when at the airport, it gets complicated with additional passenger and bag fees. No big deal - we are on vacation - right? At the port, I expected mass chaos from the all the reviews I read before I left. It was more complicated than necessary, but not as bad as I expected. It is a two step process - bag drop and then check in. Bag drop is the line closest to the road - check in is three or four lines closest to the building. I did not start a timer, but I would estimate the whole check-in process took about 60-90 minutes and we were problem free.

After check-in, we caught up with our travel companions and found that our travel agent dropped the ball and had us at different tables. When we boarded the ship, we immediately headed to the main dining room and had the problem resolved. I was amazed at how quickly this was fixed. Read more