Hello and welcome to another VegasMark review. I'll try my best to give an honest, thorough review of my sailing on February 8th, 2009. I am a 32 year old professional who went on this cruise with my 28 year old girlfriend. It was my 11th cruise and her 2nd. I have now sailed on RCCL (4), Carnival (2), Princess (2), NCL (2), and Costa (1).

Since we live in Houston , we drove to the port. Be advised that there was significant traffic in the vicinity of Beltway 8 along the 45. It took about 45 minutes to go 2 miles at that point due to road construction. Make sure you factor that possibility into your trip, as I believe the road construction is ongoing. Also, try not to forget your passport which would require you to turn around 10 minutes into your trip. Not that I did that or anything... just a word to the wise ;) Also, try not to forget your snorkel and mask - goggles do an adequate job, but are not quite as good. We parked at Lighthouse Parking for $50 online. The bus took us right away (had it to ourselves) as it was already about 2pm at this point.

I was sort of surprised to still see a line at this time. I was pretty sure the crowds would have thinned out, but I believe others may have also been caught up in the traffic. Check-in was no problem and the staff was friendly and efficient. When we headed to the ship, we were stopped for the normal embarkation photo. The background is an ugly brown building. Surely, we thought, they would add a background later. Nope - it was the same ugly background in the photo. What was ironic is that the photographer had his back to the ship. Why not turn us around and have the ship in the background? I'm sure RCCL would sell a lot more photos that way. Read more