My husband and I (35-40 yrs) took our 13 yr old daughter on this cruise (our 2nd, her 1st). We found the great price on the internet and called the travel agent that we used for our 1st cruise to see if he could match that price. He called the cruise line and booked it, including air, for w/i $5.00 of the internet price. We just felt better working through a travel agent. We ended up having to fly out a day early because of weather concerns and booked a hotel (via internet) in Miami for the evening before the embarkation. (Suggestion: If you have to fly to your port, you should consider flying in the day before. It can be very exhausting and to fly, change planes, and then have to board all the same day.) We took a hotel shuttle to the hotel (we only waited about 20 min).

I would not recommend this hotel. A well-known national chain close to the airport, but the service was terrible, the elevators worked only periodically, and the restaurant was way too pricy, took forever and not that great at all. Our morning travel to the ship was easy enough and even though the port of Miami is under major construction, there were adequate signs to guide you right to where you needed to be. We where there by about 11:00, went directly through the sign-in process (we had pre-registered via the internet which helps a bunch), and waited until around noon when they let us board. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that we had been upgraded from an interior room to an ocean view room!

We ate lunch on the Lido deck and looked around a little until 1:00 when we were allowed to go to our rooms. We were very pleased with the accommodations. We think the room (and bathroom) are a little larger than those on RC cruise line. We loved Key West and wish we could have been there a little longer. We booked our own trolley tour and saved $14.00. It was very interesting and worth the money. We booked the excursion at Cozumel through the ship. We went on a boat to snorkel, then to a beach. The snorkeling was awful and the beach crowded and not that pretty. It lasted too long. However, if you like to party, you probably would have liked it. For some reason, we had a long wait to get off the ship at Cozumel and had to be tendered in because of the number of ships in port. We were stuck in the stairwells for between 1/2 hr and 1 hr. They were very apologetic about it. Read more