Husband's been struggling with cancer for years and it recently moved to his brain, so we had little time to complete two cruises and reach platinum status before his late October surgery. He's had an uphill battle since, but is beginning the recovery period and talk of future cruises finally got me motivated to submit a review.

We didn't have more than 10-days for this trip, so we chose back-2-back from Miami, sailing first to Nassau Oct 11-14 (with an overnight stay) and then to Key West & Cozumel Oct 14-18. First time we didn't book a balcony in forever, so we had some reservations about being disappointed. Happy to say, we weren't. Had a wonderful cabin steward (Harry) on Riviera deck who took very good care of us and was totally charming.

Since the Oct 11-14 cruise was technically our 9th, we weren't expecting much in the way of VIP boarding, but they allowed it for that departure because we didn't do a 'real' disembarkation before the Oct 14-18 sailing. Had we known how nice, convenient, relaxing VIP boarding could be, we would've made a much better effort to hit platinum level sooner!!! Read more