We arrived a day early at stayed at the Hotel Intercontinental, which was very pleasant and close to the Bayside Marketplace. Embarkation was pleasant as we were Platinum members and had only a very short wait to get on board. Our cabin was an E1 aft-balcony and was ample in space. The aft balcony was fabulous and we spent much time out there. They had slightly upgraded bedding, but not as nice as what we had on Carnival earlier this year. Our comforter seemed to be the old bedspread covered in nice sheeting. After 7 days, the mattress (even with pillowtop mattress cover) was very hard and stiff. I missed the little toiletries you also get from Carnival as all you get from RCCL is a bar of soap and a "mystery" soap dispenser in the shower. We did get a few bug bites and asked our cabin steward to change our sheets close to the end of the cruise and it seemed to stop the bites from occurring.

The first sea day it rained all day and the insides of the ship were full of people. We still had a nice time in the Promenade area and played trivia, bingo, etc. We tend to feel the "crowds" more on the Voyager-class ships, but love the ice rink and all the activity. The Promenade cafe is always a great place to go for pizza, sandwiches, and those wonderful RCCL cookies.

Free self-serve frozen yogurt is available and was only so-so, but we had a few cones while enjoying the Solarium pool. Shows were excellent and we met Bowzer from Sha-Na-Na and it was one of the highlights of the cruise. Read more