This was the first cruise for my husband and I. We decided to do something fun for our 5 year anniversary. Heard many great things about Royal Caribbean. Booked the trip way back in Feb. We decided to drive down to Florida (from Ohio) and visit with some relatives in Florida before our cruise. In the paperwork we got from Royal they stated not to be at the ship before 2pm. We took our chance and got there around 11 to Port Everglades. Not hard to find. We dropped off our luggage and parked in the garage parking ($15 a day). We had already done all the paperwork online and found it easy to get onto the ship. It probably took us around 45 minutes to go through all of security to get onboard. We got on the ship around noon with no problems and went to eat at the Windjammer. Rooms weren't ready till 1:30. Food was not bad there, kinda reminded me of fast food but there were many choices. Rooms were suppose to be ready @ 1pm but didn't get in till 1:30. I was surprised at how small the room was (we had a oceanwindow room) but it served its purpose. Of course my husband got his luggage around 2:30-3:00 and I didn't see mine till almost 5! They recommended taking on a carry on bag, but i don't really see the reason other to make sure you have any medication on you that you might need. We walked around the ship till it was time to eat. We had early dining at 6. I was dreading who we would be eating with... we are 25 & 26.. but they grouped us with honeymooners (23 & 27) and an engaged couple (28 & 33) both were from NY. We ate in the dinner room every night.. the food was very good! So we never bothered eating at the Windjammer for dinner.

We did attend the shows in the evening in the theater after dinner. I thought they would be cheesy but they weren't. We missed the Love and Marriage game show, heard it was really funny. I kept finding myself tired at 10pm... always lots to do around the ship. Our itinerary was changed at the last minute due to "electrical" problems. The ship was suppose to go 22 knots but could only go 19 knots so all the port times were shortened which sucked. My one complaint is not enough time in the port of calls. Key West - 7am till 1:30 Of course nothing was open till 10. We walked around and checked out the keylime pie on a stick. We didn't find much to do there. Heard it was more of a night life city. Cozumel - 10 to 6:30 Tender process was HORRIBLE. We didn't get onto the tender boat till 11 (an hour after we were suppose to) I guess it was pouring down rain and the seas were too bad to get the tender to the ship. We did the Segway tour though the ship. A LOT of fun. Had a great tour guy, Allen. We got lucky and there was a total of 4 people on this excursion, the other people were two friends that went to Ohio State University (about 1 hour and 45 mins from us). We rode the Segways down to a beach and took a break to go snorkeling. My husband loved it, i'm not a big fan of the water so it was just OK for me. The water was soooo blue and clear there. I think in total we only rode the Segways for 45 mins to an hour, wish we had more time on them. Belize - 8 to 3:30 This time the crew had all of the excursion people go to the theater and we would be called in groups to go onto the tender. Well our trip was planned for 8am (on the ticket) and we didn't get onto the tender boat till 8:30. Plus another 30 mins to get to shore. This was another TRAIN WRECK of tendering. So our tour started off over an hour late. We did the Aerial Trek and Cave Tubing through Royal. Had an hour bus ride to the rain forest. My husband loved this excursion.. i'm afraid of heights but have to admit this was FUN and worth the money! Beware if you do this take bug spray. Everyone got bit all over and one of my bites ended up swelling up. Cave tubing was OK for me, not that exciting (water was freezing). Since our tour started off late were were 10 minutes late back to the last tender. Thankfully since it was through the ship, they held the last tender for our group.

Disembarkation was a MESS! The night before everyone is suppose to sit their luggage outside and they would come take it and have it ready for you the next day. Well they group everyone into color-coded systems and let you off at certain times. Well we were scheduled to be the last group off at 10:30 since we didn't have a flight to caught. I found out all you have to do is ask guest relations for a travel lite voucher to be the first off the ship and you can carry your own luggage off. Lets just say everyone was ready to get off the ship at 8:30 and it was chaos to get out. Don't make plans to have a flight before 10am.. A lot of people missed their flights because they couldn't get off the ship in time even though they know people have early flights. Overall the cruise was fun. I wish the fitness center was bigger (as it was always busy) and there should be more non-smoking areas. My only side effect is i can't seem to stop feeling like i'm still moving and on the ship after a few days. We tried the patch for motion sickness and it seemed to only work 75%. I found ginger root pills to be my cure but they sometimes made me a little sleepy.