We joined a large family trip with lots of kids and three generations. In short, this is probably a great cruise for a large group and for families but our observations were that this is not the cruise ship for adult couples...at least not one who are expecting a more traditional cruise experience.

To start, embarkation in Miami is total chaos. It is amazing to think that Royal Caribbean designed and built that terminal for this ship class. The traffic pattern to enter/exit the terminal must have been designed by a moron. After you navigate the bad roads then you pull up to what can only be compared to a scene from hell. Total chaos. The porters and traffic monitors are blowing whistles, yelling, impatiently pushing people through. I am not sure if this is because they expect that the passengers are all idiots or if they just want to make the embarkation experience as stressful as humanly possible. Once we got into the terminal, all was OK. We were all traveling in Sky Suite class so the check in was easy and comparatively "serene."

Boarding the ship is like walking into a crowded mall. Tons of people, mall like atmosphere, just blah. At least they grabbed our group and conducted the muster drill within 2 minutes of getting on the ship, getting that out of the way. Read more