Doubletree Hotel offered a park & cruise with free shuttle to the terminal. We considered this a deal for 100 bucks to stay one night, park for the week & the shuttle service. Arrived at the port at 11:30 & by 12:15, we had drinks in hand, enjoying lunch. No other feeling in the world like sail-away! I would highly recommend for folks to get up on the top deck & watch the ship pass under that beautiful bridge. Very cool indeed. Here's the long (& nothing short) of it:

Cabin was much more roomie & comfortable than expected & being able to open the french doors was lovely even though we had an obstructed view. It was very quiet on deck 4/mid aft & we appreciated that when midnight rolled around. LOVED the ship's web cams on tv! I took one of those hanging shoe things that was suggested here. What a life saver. Had room to hang it in the closet & it was jammed packed with odds & ends & helped to keep our desk clutter free. Bet our Room Stewart, Wayan, appreciated it as much as we did. Even though we'd pre-paid our gratuities, we gave him 20 bucks upon the first meeting & had planned to give him more. Didn't give more as he point blank told us that he wanted to work upstairs where the better money was. That was kinda bad to tell a guest we thought. More about that later....

The first fun day at sea was pretty great. Ran around all over the ship (twice) seeing how lost we could get. Very surprised to find that there were many places where we'd find ourselves totally alone. Where'd everybody go!? LOL Found ourselves starving from all that exploring by the late seating. Dinner was great! Will write more about that towards the end. The Casino is so so. Didn't see anyone do more than break even. Some people complained the Bingo pots weren't larger. I can see that. But both were fun activities to burn some time until it was time to eat again. I think we ate something every two hours & I was happy I packed elasto-pants. Read more