We're going on a cruise My husband and I work very hard like most two family income couples. We both have stressful jobs that require a lot of responsibility and time away from our family. We have two sons in college and most of our savings has gone into ensuring that they don't graduate with a massive college debt. With my oldest daughter graduating next year from high school, we thought that we all needed a treat this Spring. We thought of spending a week in Key West but after airfare and hotel, we were looking at a substantial amount of money. My daughter suggested a cruise and I began to research it. I obtained prices from several websites, but all the options and decisions soon began to jumble together in my mind, so I called a local travel agent who specializes in cruises. My husband wanted to see Grand Cayman, my daughter thought Jamaica was important and I needed to get back to work on Monday so we needed a Saturday to Saturday cruise. The TA returned my call that same day with two options: A Carnival cruise out of Port Canaveral and Royal Caribbean on the Grandeur of the Seas. We knew enough about Carnival to not want to take that option, so the Grandeur was the obvious choice. Jamaica wasn't to be on our itinerary, but all of our other criteria were met. We booked right away and called the girls from their bedrooms. "We're going on a cruise!"

New Orleans We arrived a day early to New Orleans. Since we drove from Indiana straight through, we were pretty exhausted once we arrived around 8:00 AM. I had booked a room at the Wyndham French Quarter through Price Line for $59 and had called ahead to request an early check in. We only had to wait about 30 minutes before we were handed our room key. After a short nap, we were ready to see New Orleans. I'd been there before, but my husband and two daughters, 17 and 13, had not. Their impression was that it was dirty and pretty much overrated but were none-the-less happy to say that they'd been there.

Embarkment We arrived at the Port of New Orleans at 10:00 AM. I'd heard (and read) that there was limited parking so we wanted to avoid finding another lot and dragging our eight suitcases. They are two small side-by-side lots, one for each cruise line that they service. The Royal Caribbean lot was still full since the Grandeur had only arrived two hours previous, so we were told to wait down the road until it was 90% empty. We waited in a line of about 15 other vehicles for only 30 minutes and then were able to park. We were told by the porter that we would not be able to get on the ship until noon. After presenting our birth certificates and ID's (I had a passport and it was definitely the easiest), we proceeded through security which only took minutes. We then proceeded through jet ways and various corridors thinking the eventually we would be taken to a waiting area before we were allowed to board the ship at noon. To our surprise we were taken right to the ship at 11:05 AM. Read more