I wanted to book a quick get away for our 20th wedding anniversary. It needed to be quick because we have kids (who usually come with us) that we were leaving behind. Sailing out of Boston on a 4 night cruise was the perfect choice since it is a fairly easy drive for us to the port. While we are far from seasoned cruisers, we have sailed on RCCL 4 times in the past, and once on Disney. This was our first Carnival cruise and we very much enjoyed it.

Getting to the port was easy, and we parked in a large lot for a flat fee of $50 for the trip, which was a better price than I had thought it would be. If you do this cruise, bring cash for parking. It was then a quick bus ride to the ship. We got to the parking lot at 2 pm, and we walked onto the ship about 25 minutes later. It was fast! I will say that the embarkation process/terminal was confusing. If I had never cruised before we would not have gotten on so quickly. When we got to the terminal we were not sure where to go. I saw a couple of lines, and honestly I still don't know why all the people were standing in those lines waiting. I asked a porter where we needed to go, he took our bags, pointed to the escalator and we were off. We never got into a line. Upstairs we walked through the maze of ropes, walked right up to the desk, handed her our papers which she glanced at and never even took from us and waived us on the ship. It was the quickest boarding process I have ever been through.

Once on board, we went to our cabin, an aft balcony. It was very nice. A little oddly configured because of it's location, it wasn't as wide as a normal cabin but it was fine for the two of us, and the balcony was wonderful. The beds and bedding were really comfortable, that was a huge plus for us! Read more