My Family: Me dad (turning 41 on cruise) Wife, Son (7), Daughter (2), Previous Cruises (9).  For a family of four on a 9 day cruise we got a great deal, we booked the cruise for the week in November that NJ schools are closed so that our son would not need to miss school.

EMBARKATION: Cape Liberty, NJ (embarkation a nightmare). We planned on taking our son out of school early on embarkation day Friday November 4th, but due to the ship being delayed in Bermuda we didn't need to. Here is a plus to using a local travel agent. I received a call on the day before the cruise that the ship was late leaving Bermuda due to high winds and that we should plan on getting to the port around 6:00PM. We picked our son up from school and headed to my Father's house so he could take us to the port. We arrived in no time at the port at 5:15 PM, considering rush hour I was surprised and actually got there earlier then expected. At the port previous passengers were still leaving and this made for major traffic and confusion getting to the drop off which took another hour. Once we were dropped off and the longshoreman took our luggage we go on what appeared to be a short line to enter the terminal, it was now 6:15 PM. However, it turned out the terminal was full of passengers that had already arrived and we were to wait in this line until 9:00 PM until they emptied the terminal and let us in (at 8:00P PM they brought out some chairs to sit in). Thankfully my daughters' diaper bag contained some fruit snacks, juice and pretzel sticks so my children were able to eat something as there was nothing offered or nowhere to go to get even a cup of water. We were better off then the family behind us who had booked their cruise online directly through RCCL and were not informed of the ship being late, so they had been hanging out since 2:30 PM that day. Once we were allowed in to the terminal we checked in and were given a number 68, which when called would allow us to board a bus to the ship from the terminal (they were calling numbers in the high 30's at the time). Well you could see that at one time there was food and water available to the waiting passengers in the terminal but none was left now. Through this whole time my children 7 & 2 were taking it wonderfully. After an hour of sitting on the floor my daughter wanted her blanket from our carry on. As I was getting it out an RCCL employee was walking by and she overheard me telling my daughter and my son that I was proud at they way there behaving and that it shouldn't be too much longer. The woman asked to see my number (they were currently calling numbers n the mid 40's), at which time she commented that we couldn't wait any longer and that we should follow her. We followed her through the terminal to the busses, she got our boarding cards, we thanked her and we were on the bus and off to the ship. We arrived on the ship, dropped of our bags and were sitting in the restaurant eating dinner by 10:30 PM. The last passengers were on the ship by a little after midnight.

CABIN: Read more