I am in my mid 40s and this is my 25th cruise. I was fortunate enough to start cruising when I was a senior in high school, so I've seen cruising from a teenager's perspective all the way to a middle aged father with kids. I traveled this time with my wife, my father-in-law who is in his 80s and my two kids who are 10 and 9 years old. This is my third Royal Caribbean cruise, and to be honest, this is not the kind of cruise I would have ever booked because I've tended away from large passenger ships after a bad cruise on the Sun Princess where I constantly felt crowded and like cattle being herded from place to place. I also had a sub par experience in 2001 on Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas where the service was spotty. But, my kids are old enough now to see TV ads and internet promotions and convinced me to try this Royal Caribbean mega-ship.

With that being said, these passenger reviews have been very valuable to help me set my expectations correctly. Disappointment only really happens when your expectations are set too high. If you are reading this you probably have already booked this ship so I won't go into too much detail about Royal Caribbean versus other lines in this review. My expectations were basically that this would be a crowded ship with average food and so-so service. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was wrong on most counts.

Pre Cruise Hotel: We flew into Orlando a couple of nights before the cruise to visit some relatives who had driven up from Tampa, but we normally fly in a day or two early just so we don't have to worry about missing the ship if our flights are messed up. We stayed at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes before the cruise and found it to be a very nice place with a good rate and a really good pool for the kids with a "lazy river" to swim in. Read more