We planned this cruise to celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary. We decided to take the kids along, as well as friends who were 1st time cruisers. Our party of 8 included DH and me with our 2 dd's age 7 and 10 as well as our friends and their 2 kids, dd7 and ds3. We had noted on our reservation that we were celebrating our anniversary, but there was no acknowledgement of this all week.

We booked the cruise package at the Country Inn and Suites. Arrived on Saturday and signed up for the 1030 shuttle. We arrived very early in the day on Saturday, and although our room was not ready, we were given complete access to the property. On Sunday, our shuttle left a little early and we arrived at the port shortly after 1030.

Check in was easy, we had a short wait outside then moved easily through security. This was the first Freedom cruise after the change in the wine policy; my friend and I had both picked up 2 bottles of wine and they were all taken. The security guard taking the wine was quite slow in filling out the form, but overall no big deal. (We did get our wine back later in the cruise, checked with Guest relations a couple of times and it finally showed up in the room on day 3.) DH and I have cruised RCI before so we were in the gold line for check in, our friends had not so they took about 20 minutes longer in the regular line. They were allowed to sit with us in the gold member area to wait to board. There was a delay in boarding; we were initially told that it was due to a computer problem with the seapass machines, but when we got to our room there was a notice that they had done a deep clean due to a Noro outbreak on the previous cruise. Read more