I reside in South Florida with my wife and almost 5-year-old son, who has Asperger's. We recently returned from a Thanksgiving cruise on the Jewel of the Seas. We generally cruise about 1-2 times a year. Our last cruise was an 8-night cruise to the ABC islands on the Adventure of the Seas in December 2019.

I booked this cruise in December 2019 after Royal Caribbean announced that they were moving the Jewel of the Seas to Miami from Dubai. Originally, I booked into a large OV on Deck 8. However, in about July 2021 I repriced to a Balcony GTY. About 30 days out we were assigned a partially obstructed balcony on Deck 7. However, I was able to move the cabin to Deck 8, Cabin without an additional charge. While our cabin was smaller than most of the other balcony cabins we've had, we loved the location (it was 2 cabins away from the Centrum). The only thing we did not like was the fact that the cabin had a bunk instead of a sofa bed. Our almost 5-year-old slept the entire 8 days in our bed because he was too young to sleep in a bunk bed.

Because my son was not vaccinated (he gets vaccinated this Saturday), I took my son for his COVID test at the local CVS the Wednesday before our cruise. I received the results at 10:15 PM the next day. My wife and I, on the other hand, completed our COVID used the BinaxNOW COVID-19 home test. We had no issues with the BinaxNOW home tests. Read more