My wife and I cruised the Destiny for the second time. Overall, great cruise. This was her 17th cruise, over 20 for me. We flew Delta from TN, arriving on Friday afternoon. We had Pricelined the Marriott ($121) for two nights. TIP: when checking in ask for a corner room. The windows are magnificent and there are two balconies, one of them with an ocean view. Secondly, get up as high as you can. They were playing music in the lobby both nights until 2am and we could here the beat even on the 5th floor. My wife did complain and they took care of us. So the service at the Marriott was good; the beach not so much. The pool area was nice. Two shallow pools, lots of kids. If you are a walker Ashford St. is a little boring going left or right. I walked away from the beach, crossed the major road and got into the "downtown" area and walked over to Miramar area. (We had originally booked thru Hotwire Hotel Miramar. After reading so many negative reviews, I took the loss ($162.) and booked the Marriott for the beach). While I was walking (about 5 miles) I tried finding the Hotel Miramar, asking two people as well, never found it. BTW, we did not have to pay the resort fee at the Marriott. I had asked them if I had to and they said no. We ate at Tiajana's and Uno's. Both $30. meals. Sunday we left the hotel at 10:30 for the ship. It was $20 ($18 + tip) from the airport to the hotel and the same from the hotel to the ship.

Arriving at the port, we stood around a while. So many people were still getting off. After about 20 minutes a porter asked to take our luggage. We tipped him and probably 20 minutes later they let us start the check-in. We were first to check-in so that was quick. We sat after check-in from about an hour. Got on board about 12:30. OPINION: My wife knows I am ansty to get on board but I would advise not go as early as we did. I thought after we checked in there would be a glut of people but there wasn't. People trickled thru check-in. They did take care of priority passengers and it was fairly orderly. I don't know about later on though. You enter the boat not on a regular centrum level. It is low on the ship Deck 0 I think. After the pictures it was very confusing on where to go to get on the ship. You have to wind around the stair case and go downstairs so just keep walking down the corridor even though it will appear that you are walking away from the ship. Of course, we directly went up to eat. After that we went to our cabin (2334). After getting settled we went off the boat and toured OSJ. Having been there two other times we made the effort to go down streets we had not walked before. We toured El Morro for the first time; it was excellent.

On these boards I had read that 2334 was 1A cat. and that it had two portholes and regular bedding situation. It is bunk beds!! I had even seen pictures (obviously from a different ship) on these boards. I ran over to 2335 because I had read that it was bunk beds. It was as well. I was disappointed with the bunk beds, but oh well! We asked Maricleno for feather pillows and egg crate topper for the beds. We got the pillows,he said they didn't have them for the beds. Remember, at the back of the ship if you are not an early riser, you will become one. The winches for the tethering dock ropes start up about 30 minutes before docking. It is brief but loud. The room did have a double medicine cabinet and a nice 2'x5' shower, great robes, decent hair dryer (the European kind), no frig. We had on night of noise about 2 pm. but that was it. The room has a long hall, maybe that helped. We are very early risers and go to bed usually around 10pm. Read more