My husband and I went on the 9/11/05 sailing to the Western Caribbean. This was my 5th cruise though I hadn't been on a cruise in 12 years (the first 4 were with my parents when I was a child) and this was my husband's 1st.

We flew into Miami one day before sailing so the day of embarkation would be relatively stress free. We did the pre-cruise stay at the Doubletree. It was very nice hotel with a great balcony view of the bay and the RCI cruise terminal. We awoke Sunday morning to see a great view of the Explorer. I highly recommend the Doubletree. There were a few restaurants to choose from (we had dinner at the sushi bar and breakfast at the South American steakhouse) and a great convenient store for extras like bottled water, desserts, and anything you forgot.

We had transportation lined up with Royal Caribbean that I had confirmed Saturday evening with the RCI office. They told us that the bus would be there at 12:00 Pm to take us to the port. We went down to the lobby area and were told by the concierge that the bus is usually there at 12:30 PM. 12:30 passes and the concierge tells us that there has been a history that if there are only a few RCI customers staying at a particular hotel, transportation never shows up. We were the only people sailing RCI. By 1:30 PM, the concierge arranged a taxi to take us. Read more