This was mine and my wives third cruise. Second time with RCC. And our kids first. We had a great time!! Royal put us up at the Doubletree Hotel the night before our cruise. Nice hotel for the most part...The pool was very green. Hard to tell were the grass ended and the pool started. So, we did not use the pool. (yuck) My fifteen year old son and I used the workout room. It was nice, a bit small. But, we were the only ones in there, so it was okay. When we checked in the hotel staff gave us cookies, that were still warm. That was nice after traveling all day.
The bus ride to Galveston, was nice. Plenty of room in the bus. We got our own seats to sit in. The a/c on the bus worked great. Make sure that you take something to drink while you are on the bus. Because they do not offer anything. It takes about one and half hours to get to the ship. Boarding was very fast. It took longer for the bus driver to find a parking place, then it took for us to board the ship. We got to our stateroom and it was very clean, and nice. It did not have a refrigerator in our room. So, I called the information desk, and asked for one. It was in our room, when we got back from dinner. The next time we cruise with our kids I will check into getting a larger room, for the four of us.
The first two days sailing to Jamaica, was fun. I got in on the belly-flop contest at the pool. I won first place!!! It was painful, but very fun. After winning the contest it made me very popular on the ship.