This was my very first cruise ever. I went in with little or no expectations other than to be warmer than I was at home. We were a group of 10 with 3 kids ages 3, 6, and 15. Riding into the Port of Miami on the shuttle bus, I was awed by the sheer size of the ship. Once we got off the bus it was a bit chaotic trying to corral 10 people to get where we needed to go. But the lines went fairly quickly. We were on board the ship by 2pm. The only snafu was they couldn't find my son's seapass card so had to issue another one - about a 10 minute delay. Once on the ship, it was mild chaos trying to figure out where to go. I suggested that my smaller group go see if we could get into our room and drop off our carry-on luggage. Our rooms were ready and we proceeded to the Windjammer for lunch....too crazy and busy for my taste. Food was ok but nothing special. We then proceeded to wander around the ship just trying to get our bearings. 4 in our group of 10 are smokers so we figured out where the smoking areas were and went to check out the teen activities for my son who is 15.

After a nice walk around the ship (and my 2 nieces taking a dip in the kids pool area) we went and got ready for dinner. I had not received my suitcase yet so I wore what I had on since it was pretty casual that night. The dining room is beautiful and our table was easy to find with help from the staff. Joe, our waiter, and Suad, our assistant waiter, were wonderful. They learned all of our names pretty quickly and were extremely friendly and helpful.

That evening we all just worked on learning the ship and enjoying our first night at sea. Read more