Our 18 year old daughter went on a Royal Caribbean cruise with her friend's family last spring, and she made it her goal to finally get us to agree to a cruise. We had considered them in the past, but the potential sea-sickness always scared us away. However, she was able to win us over, and I booked a Christmas cruise on the Valor. The cool thing was, I had accumulated enough Amex points that the cruise was paid entirely with points.
We arrived in Miami on the evening of 12/21, after a traffic-filled 11 hour drive from Charleston, SC. Note to self: the Saturday before Christmas is probably NOT the best day to drive I-95 South. Oh well, it wasn't TOO bad...
We had booked a one night stay at the Hyatt Place Miami Airport/ Doral through www.stay123.com. I highly recommend both Stay 123 and the Hyatt Place. A very nice suite type hotel (two doubles, with fold out sofa bed/ sectional and free breakfast/ wi-fi). The hotel offers free parking for cruisers, so we were able to leave our car there and not have to deal with parking at the port. The hotel also provided transportation to the port via a third party company (Doral Transportation), of which, 2 of the tickets were paid by the hotel. So, we had to pay for 2 of us to get to the part and back. I think it was $12 per person per trip. I was able to park right in front of the hotel so I wasn't worried about anyone breaking into my van.
Heard the anchors going down early in the mornings we arrived in ports, but didn't bother us. Did not get seasick, boat didn't rock much on Deck 1, fairly quiet in hallway, as this location is close to the end of the hallway. Room got a bit hot at night, even with AC all the way down, not bad though. Hairdryer on/off switch broken so you have to hold your finger down on the button the whole time you dry your hair.