Some background info: I am 39 and my husband just turned 50. This cruise was a gift for his 50th B-day. My husband has been on 2 short Carnival cruises. This was my 3rd RCCL cruise and 7th cruise total. This was actually my longest cruise so far--the rest have been 3-4 nighters.

Up at 2am (too excited to sleep) Left home at 4am to drive to Detroit Metro Airport. Flew out of Detroit the day of the cruise, which was Monday, Feb 4th. Got to ship at 10:45am and were on board at 11:15am. Loved the ship--especially the pool area. We went to lunch at the windjammer then changed into our swimsuits (packed them in our carry ons) and tried top go in the pools but theywere a little cool so we did the hot tubs :) Room was ready at 1pm and luggage arrived around 3pm ,I believe. Cabin Steward was wonderful. We ate dinner each night in the dining room. Food was great and wait staff very good. One night they tried out a new menu which was good. I had the cornmeal breaded tilapia (or some kind of fish--kinda all a blur now!) Was a little disappointed that lobster was not served as I had heard conflicting reports that lobster was served on this 5 night cruise. Oh well. Good was very good and my favorite deserts were the Grand Marnier souffle and of course the warm chocolate cake!!!! We ate the buffet for breakfast and lunch a few times and it was pretty good as well.

We had an inside cabin on the 3rd deck near the front of the ship (3011)and we were surprised that there was a pole in the room! It was off to the side of the bed but made the small room even smaller. We finally had them separate the beds and that made for more room. Read more