Background Information - We are a family of 5...DH & I (late 30s, early 40s) and our kids 15yo son, 12yo son & 12yo daughter. This was our second cruise, but first on RCCL. Our other cruise was on the Carnival Miracle in 2005. We chose this cruise for several reasons...since we live less than 2 hours from the NY/NJ ports we wanted to try driving versus flying, we wanted an Eastern Caribbean itinerary since we had already taken a Western Caribbean itinerary, and we wanted to try a different ship/cruise line.

Travel To Port of Embarkation - We left our house at 9:30am, and were pulling into the port to unload the truck by 11:30. Couldn't have been easier. DH parked the truck and we were walking into the check-in area at 11:45. No lines what so ever, walked right up to the counter, checked in and were given passes to bus #9. Spent the next hour eating cookies and drinking lemonade. By 12:30 we were getting on the bus to take us to the ship. Ship Info - The ship is beautiful. I enjoyed walking around and exploring, taking lots of pictures (over 500 in total for the whole vacation), and just taking it all in. The one thing I WAS disappointed in was the stores on the Royal Promenade. I expected more shops and less bars. I was also disappointed with the selection offered in the RCCL logo store, and in the other store. It wasn't until one of the last days that there were tables set up on the Promenade offering a bigger selection of logo apparel, and then it was hit or miss with the sizes. DH was finally able to get his polo shirt, but there were no sweatshirts for me, so I got a pair of pajamas. Stateroom - We had 3 cabins for the 5 of us. DH & I were in 8576, which is an E1 balcony, the boys shared 8577, which is a Promenade room, and were directly across the hall from us, and our daughter had 8579, all to herself.

Our room was fine for the two of us. Plenty of storage space, no problem fitting all our clothes in the closet. There isn't a lot of drawer space, but plenty of shelves in the closet to store clothes. We had 4 suitcases and they fit fine under the bed. The bed was very comfortable and I slept really well every night. We had towel animals most nights and chocolate every night on our pillows. The bathroom is adequate, but the shower is tiny. I learned it was easier to shave my legs out of the shower then rinse in there. Read more