This is our first cruise with RCCL two previous cruises with Carnival. Traveling with me is my husband we are both retirees in our early 60's. I made our reservations directly with RCCL.
We started our vacation by traveling by air NWA from Michigan to Orlando the Wednesday before our Saturday sailing date to spend a couple of days with family. Rented a car at MCO with Alamo. We stopped at a local Publix to get an 8 pack of caffeine free diet & regular coke and a six pack of bottled water to take aboard with us. Friday we drove via the Florida turnpike to Miami where we had reservations at the Crown Plaza near the airport. We would have liked to stay at the port at either Holiday Inn or Intercontinental but because several things were going on in Miami that weekend they were either not available or the rate's were sky high $400 for one night. The Crown Plaza was quite nice and helpful with directions to Bayside Marketplace which we ventured off to after our 4 hour drive from Orlando. A nice place with shops, entertainment and restaurants. After dinner we dropped our car at Alamo & took their shuttle to the airport and then caught the hotel shuttle in a matter of minutes, all quite painless. We arranged for the hotel to have a bellman pick up our bags the following morning and have a cab waiting for us. The cab fare is a flat $24 plus tip from the airport. All went smoothly.
Embarkation: We decided to arrive at the port early after reading several posts here on CC. We arrived at 10:30am. We were allowed to enter up the escalator to a waiting area which has a small amount of seating. We decided to sit down and in a matter of minutes the seating was all taken. We saw some large groups of people being talked to by RCCL personnel and were told there were 5 weddings scheduled for the week. After waiting about 45 minutes we were shown to the area for check in and then to another waiting area. This area allowed everyone to be seated; we sat there another 45 minutes and could see that passengers were still getting of the ship. We finally got on the ship about 12:30. If we hadn't been there early we would have had to do a lot of standing and waiting as some of the other passengers later told me. We immediately went to make a reservation at Chops for Valentine's Day dinner, on to the Windjammer for lunch. After lunch we stopped by the dining room to check our table and were disappointed to find it in the Rembrandt dining in a small room we went directly to the desk and with no problem our table was changed to a table of 4 in the Michelangelo dining room on deck 4 next to the window. Our table mate was a gentlemen traveling alone from Scotland who was one of the biggest enjoyments of our cruise.