FIRST: My name is Jeff and I'm Emerald status on Royal Caribbean and only a cruise or so away from Diamond. Of my 11 cruises, this was my 9th on RC and I'm what they call a loyal royal. I do have a pessimist streak but try to stay positive. I wasn't sure how to approach this review at first but have decided to look at it without the perspective of timing. If I approach this with having gone during spring break and all that entails, it would affect my review in a negative manner and that would not be fair to the ship and crew.

BOOKING: While I normally like to take a 7 day cruise, my work situation was better suited to being gone only one weekend versus two. I looked around and found this 5 night cruise on Independence and the pricing was too good to pass up. We booked a balcony guarantee and got placed in a D3 cabin on deck 6 at the rear. I called RC and they were kind enough to move me to deck 8 in cabin 8240. This is a perfect location near the forward elevators and a situated 3 decks below the pool deck and Windjammer and 3 decks up from the Promenade. This made taking the stairs much easier and let us avoid the elevators as much as possible.

THE JOURNEY TO FLL: Since flying and traveling are always a chore, I wanted to maximize our time away so we flew in on Wednesday for the Saturday departure. I booked the hotel we always stay at in Fort Lauderdale Beach. When looking at prices, it seemed much higher than normal and then it struck me that it is spring break. I realized this would mean more folks in the area but I was surprised by the amount of traffic when we arrived. Having been to FL so many times I had not set my expectation level properly. We also had not done the same at home. Flying out of Dallas Love Field, TSA lines are usually 5-15 minutes long. We left the house a little late but were still on the highway for a normal 30 minute drive to the airport by 6 a.m. As luck would have it, major thunderstorms were in the area and roads were a mess. Our flight was leaving at 7:35 and had we made it by 6:30 to the airport, under normal conditions things would have been fine. But, the roads were not fine and we got stuck in traffic at two different wrecks. We arrived at the parking location at 6:50 and were at the check in at 7:00 a.m. Once again, under normal circumstances, we could have made the flight. Well, apparently Southwest did such a great job with the fare sale and combined with spring break travel, the TSA line was over an hour long. The agent said we would not make our flight and moved us to stand by. We did make the next flight and just made our connection and only arrived in FL a couple of hours behind schedule. Nerves were a little frazzled and my pessimistic streak which I work so hard to control was being tested but hey, we made it and our bags were waiting on us as they had made the original flight. Read more