First off I have been on 17 plus cruises... Travelers included myself (37) and BF (50). Living in Florida is definitely a plus for us and since RCCI does not discount booking I went with a well known bulk warehouse type of travel agency which offered free insurance.

Embarkation seemed somewhat disorganized since we booked less than 2 weeks in advance we had no luggage tags and no one knew quite what to do at port. As an experienced traveler we watched them attach tags - which we re-wrote our cabin number legibly - and were off to the inside area of port everglades. Signs said boarding began at 2pm however they had already started the process in an organized fashion when we arrived around 12:15ish.

By the time we went through all the security it was before 1pm and they insisted that our room was inaccessible at this time. Instead of schlepping our carryons to the buffet area we waited it out on our deck and chatted with the "deck nazi" until we were allowed to proceed. Read more