Hi All - a little background about everyone who was sailing: Myself - 33(cruised twice before, once on Carnival and once on RCL), my Boyfriend - 34 (Never cruised before), My mom - 66 (cruised once before on RCL), My mom's friend, 77 (cruised numerous times).

First off, we are from NYC, and since I thought we could all use some time to unwind before we started our cruise vacation, I thought it was a good idea to drive to Port Canaveral, FL. My mom never did this drive before so I thought it would be fun (like the beginning of our adventure)! Well, it was! Drove 19 hours to FL and arrived one day before our cruise left Port Canaveral. Our ship left on Saturday, August 7th. I had booked us at the Radisson at the Port for the night before we left. The hotel had a package for free parking at the hotel (saving us $150 by not having to park at the Port) plus it offered a free shuttle for before and after the cruise. I had booked a King size suite in the hotel after reading reviews from other cruise critic reviewers and it turned out to work out well for us. The hotel was ok for the one night that we stayed there, if I was staying longer I would have booked another hotel, there were stains and cigarette burns on the pull out sofa bed (my bf and I slept there and my mom and her friend shared the King size bed in the suite), again, it was ok for the one night we stayed there. We were excited to get to the ship! We were about to embark on a 7 night cruise to the Western Exotic Caribbean (Ports visited: Cozumel, Roatan, Belize, Costa Maya).

We woke up, had breakfast in the hotel and checked out and got on the shuttle and headed to the port. Arrived at the Port and our luggage was unloaded from the shuttle and I found myself looking around for a sign(s) on which way to go! There was no one out there directing anyone, people were just standing around looking confused. I asked on of the luggage porters and he directed us to the entrance of the Port. Embarkation took us about 30 mins and we were inside by 1:30 p.m. We headed to our rooms, we had balcony cabins next to each other. We were on the 9th floor and it was a great location, a quick walk to the elevators at the rear or mid of the ship. We were assigned to the Lower Crimson Dining room for late dining, Our waiters were Arnold and Edsel....We can't say enough wonderful things about these two guys....they were great!!! We are still missing them and we've been back 3 days! LOL Read more