It's always good to start by introducing our group, so you can judge in comparison. There were eight of us: 2 gay male couples in their 50's, a family of 3 (mom, dad, and their 6-year-old daughter), and a 50-year-old male traveling on his own. I am part of one of the couples, and navigate in a manual wheelchair. We have had different prior cruise experiences, so I will speak only for myself: this is my partner's and my fourth cruise: we were on the Oceania Regatta twice and MSC Poesia once.

We arrived in FLL a couple of days prior to avoid any connection problems and enjoy a relaxing day either at the beach or in town. Our airline damaged my wheelchair on the trip down and we had to arrange with them to get it repaired before the cruise began, so that extra day was very useful. (For what it's worth, American Airlines and the company they worked with did a fine job.)

Embarkation looked overwhelming, but all the stories about RCCL's "well-oiled machine" held true. We did not use any special "accessible" lines and still got through the entire process very quickly. From the time we were getting bags out of the car to the time we were aboard ship, we took just over an hour. And this was with the party broken up into different queues as our cabins were on different decks. Read more