Well, I guess we should have chosen a week other than Easter and Spring Break week for our vacation. It was noted that this particular cruise on 4/3/10 had the most boarded passengers EVER of any cruise...over 6,000 guests (including 1,900 kids!!!) and over 2200 crew members. wow. It really is a floating city. I think it would have been better and obviously less crowded on a different week. The only times it felt TOO crowded was: (1) that time where people are leaving 1st dinner and people are arriving for 2nd seating of dinner- during this time, around 7:30 the Royal Promenade is CRAZY crowded. (2) lining up for shows in the Opal Theater and leaving the show at the end, (3) Pool decks on sea days, especially the kids zone area and main pools, the solarium was not too bad, and (4) the sports zones, flow riders/sports court area was constantly full of teens, crazy! We did not even go to the Windjammer buffet together, I went one time for lunch while my husband saved our pool seats and it felt pretty crowded there. He did not visit the buffet at all as he hates crowds like that. The lunch that day was very good and I managed to get a table but there were not enough tables there for everyone. If you want a good pool chair, you need to be out there by 10am!

I will try to cover everything so I will start from the beginning now. Sorry if this is lengthy but if you're like me, I enjoyed reading all I could about this ship before I left so I'd know the best things about it.

Day 1: Left our home in Jacksonville, FL around 6:30 and arrived at the Port around 12:00. Dropped off luggage and parked the car right across the street there at the Port Parking lot which is very convenient..$105 for the week but I think the safety and convenience was well worth it. Checking in for the ship was amazingly quick! We walked right up to the check in agent with no wait and it only took about 5 min to check in and we were on the ship by 12:30!! They won't let you up to your rooms before 1:00 so we went to the Park Cafe in Central Park and ate lunch which was fantastic. They have these awesome carved roast beef sandwiches and they make a great salad for you. This became our favorite breakfast spot as it was right around the corner from our room on deck 8 as well. (free restaurant). We walked around this amazing ship after we checked out our room as our luggage did not arrive until later. This ship is amazing..very big and beautiful...it is an engineering marvel. I like how they do the safety review now, our group met at Studio B (ice rink) and they show you a video of life boats, life vests, etc. You no longer have life vests in the room as they would distribute them as necessary at your station. Much better than standing outside in the heat with a life vest on! Safety drill was at 4:15 and we got back to our cabin shortly after and our luggage was there so we unpacked. We had a D1 ocean balcony with large balcony deck 8. I have had a similar category room previously on Freedom and Mariner and those cabins were a bit larger than these. It seems as though R/C has made these cabins smaller in order to accommodate more people which is not such a good thing for us passengers! The previous cabins had more drawer storage and bathrooms were larger too. I did not care for the decor in these bathrooms, ugly in my opinion. 60's chic decor? The shower has a little bar at the bottom which makes shaving legs easier. Lots of hooks to hang up wet swimsuits in there. Also has automatic night light which was great!! The cabin was pretty and nice though. Bed was very comfortable, by the balcony door. I wanted to bring that bed home with us!! I did notice that our room NEVER got cool. I called maintenance and they said you have to make sure your MASTER switch is on and that the balcony door was closed and LOCKED...this is an inconvenience as you want to spend time on your balcony...the door has to be locked from the inside in order for the a/c to work so when you come back in from relaxing on your balcony the room is warm! Even at night with air all the way down it never felt cool, probably got down to 78 at lowest. The TV's are nice and big, flat screens that swivel and the computer on there is cool as you can view your account balance, check out restaurant menus, wait times, etc. DINING: Night ONE - we ate at the MDR, we had My Time Dining and ate at the same table with same waiter (who was awesome, Adrian) every night. The table was for 2 and close to other tables but we really enjoyed the 2 couples in the tables next to us and became friends with them. I had the Prime Rib the fist night which was my favorite meal of the trip. It really is good. Hubby had the sea bass which was good also. We did not have any shows scheduled for this night so went to bed early as it was a long day since getting up at 5am and with the long drive. Wish we could have gone to Ft. Lauderdale the day before but DH had an event he had to attend the night before. Read more