My husband and I planned this cruise as a getaway from our two young children for a week. It so happened to be the same ship we were on for our honeymoon and just about 10 doors down, so it was strange to be back in the same place again, but with different ports of call. The ship had been slightly updated since our honeymoon cruise 6.5 years ago with flat screen TV's and the big screen at the pool that would show movies at night, but that was about all that seemed different, so overall it seemed more dated than it had 6.5 years ago. We expected this, and we chose this ship for the most ports of call and least days at sea (most bang for our buck since we don't get to travel often). We were in a balcony stateroom 8364. We enjoy balcony rooms since we will sit out there often before dinner and first thing in the morning and enjoy the sites.

San Juan - we left from this port for our honeymoon too. It is a long flight from Colorado and you have to go down the day before. Our travel agent put us at the Sheraton Old San Juan. Their website shows the ships right outside the hotel and so we chose it for that reason. It was actually across the bay so another taxi ride was in order to get to the ship. We ate at Senor Frogs the night we got in since it was attached to our hotel which made us feel old (we're in our lower 30's) since it was just overpriced Mexican food and LOUD music. I would recommend a different hotel. San Juan feels unsafe and not very tropical to me, but we walked around Old San Juan and it was very hot and humid. We got late check out at noon and took a taxi to the pier where we were able to board the ship, even though they say you can't board until 1:30, we were on board and eating lunch up at Windjammer by 12:30.

St Maarten - we went to breakfast in the main dining room and returned to our room to find out our excursion - the snorkeling and airport beach excursion through RCCL had been cancelled because of wind. I was so looking forward to this excursion and really wanted to see that beach of the planes landing. We headed to the excursion desk and asked to change to a Beach Break, but those had all been cancelled because of low participation. If they would have waited to cancel those, I'm sure a bunch of us from our excursion would have chosen that instead. So we were left without an excursion which was a bummer. I know I always enjoy a port better when I do a formal excursion. We got off the boat and took a water taxi ($7/pp for unlimited rides) across the bay to the public beach. We were greeted by someone trying to sell beach chairs and umbrellas, and he wouldn't take no for an answer, he followed up for awhile and insisted on showing us the chairs. We finally agreed to it, it was $20 for 2 chairs, umbrella and 6 drinks. I saw as more passengers arrived that some people were bartering more, so we probably could have gotten a better deal, but it gave us shade to sit in. It didn't seem that windy, so I'm not sure I believe that our excursion was cancelled because of wind, but perhaps on that side of the island it was worse. Beach was decent, but I am sure there are much better on the island. We stayed about 4 hours and returned to ship for a late lunch and laid by the pool the rest of the afternoon. First formal night was that night, and the meal was excellent. The food is always best on formal nights and that was indeed true of the two formal nights on this cruise. Read more