This was my wife and I's very first cruise with any cruise line so leading up to the sail date I was full of excitement. Our cruise was an Eastern Caribbean cruise that had ports in Key West FL, Freeport Bahamas, and Nassau Bahamas from April 8-15, 2012.

To begin with we drove down the day of our cruise from Dallas, TX and really experienced little trouble with traffic. This may change if your cruise wasn't on a Sunday, but the only time we began to notice an increase in vehicles was once we were on Harbor Dr near the Galveston port. Since this was our first time ever checking into a ship we followed the traffic in the beginning which ended up being a waste of time sitting in some extra traffic for about 15-25 minutes, not a big deal since we were early for check-in. The problem was most people drive up to the curb and drop their luggage off with the port personnel in the blue Hawaiian shirts and then back track to the parking area designed for the cruise lines. We both felt more comfortable keeping our luggage with us until we handed the bags off personally to the ship. Once you park and pay the $70 dollar (price is related to your cruise length) you can hop on a free shuttle that takes you back to your ship so that you can board. Also this is where I think dropping your bag off would have helped since we still had our luggage you can only get on the shuttles that have bag room and I think there were only 2 going back and forth, not a big deal just slowed the process a little bit since there were quite a few people waiting for shuttles.

The boarding process was painless, just standing in a bunch of zip-zag lines, getting your picture taking, going through airport like detectors, and getting our sail and sign cards. I had read a bunch of reviews about certain items I can take on the ship such as beverages, snacks, and other things and after going through the process (granted your person could be different) I feel like I could have packed as much alcohol and such in my bag and I would have gotten through just fine. I also remember reading when bringing on drinks it said to limit your amount (no alcohol besides a bottle of unopened wine), we both saw some families with as much as 2 cases (24 packs) of waters and sodas and much more so I'm not really sure what limited means to them. We brought on some waters/Gatorade's and had no issues. Read more