The pre-cruise things:

Booked two hotels pre-cruise in East Lansing, MI ($50) and Tampa, FL ($40) through Prieline.com and flew on Northwest Airlines that we had booked on our own. Since our hometown of Muskegon, MI was hit with an ice storm the night before our flight, the choice of overnighting in East Lansing was the right one. Also booking a night before in Tampa took out the worry factor of getting to the Port of Tampa on time or not at all.

The ship: Read more