We are frequent travelers, but have never cruised before. But we wanted to do something fun and international for our 10th anniversary. Now the kids are in school we have to go during spring break (but not taking them along with us). So I started shopping for the cheapest cruise and cheapest cabins. So after pricing for a few months I found this 4 day cruise from Tampa on March 24th for $299 for an inside cabin. But the balcony cabins were only $399! So after a few days hesitation the price went up to $419 and finally we booked. Glad we booked through RCI, I'd looked into some other internet rates that advertised 'lowest price available, guarenteed!' and when I went on the RCI site and their cruise was cheaper the other site wouldn't match it. So for the two of us the total for our room, taxes, and prepaid gratuities came to almost exactly $1000. We talked later that we thought we ate our fare in food in just the four days, not far from the truth! I think it's important to put the price you paid in reviews because it really changes how people view an experience. If someone paid $3000 for the same room they wouldn't feel the way we did. We felt like we got a wonderful room, yes it was smaller than a hotel room, but felt very roomy with the light coming in from the balcony. And it was definately worth the extra $100 per person for the balcony. We went with the 'guarenteed balcony room' and I thought we might end up with a room with an obstructed view or on a deck that wasn't that great. But we noticed that this ship has TONS of balcony rooms, which is probably why they were on sale.We arrived at the tampa port around 11:45 but didn't know which dock it was departing from 1-6, finally we found a sign that said our ship was departing from port 3, but didn't know exactly where that was. After looking around trying to figure out how to get to our ship we walked into a tourist building and they pointed us to port three. We were dropped off easily and dropped our bags with the porter. We had prepaid our gratuities so I assumed our porter was included in that but when we got on the ship we asked and the welcome person said no, the porters are part of the Tampa port system not the cruise itself. Hubby felt awful and wanted to go back so out we went, found the porter tipped him $3 and then back through the security lines and back on the ship. Even with all of that we were eating lunch in the Windjammer around 12:30. When we finished lunch around 1pm we were told our rooms would be ready so we went to drop our carry on bags there before we explored the ship. While we were in the room the first of our two bags arrived. We left the room around 2:30 to explore the ship and started with the top on the sports deck. The mini-golf wasn't crowded so we did that around 3pm. The course is 9 holes and is pretty awful if you really care because the tin cups were above the level of the ground so it was tough to get it in, but hubby was impressed when I got a hole in one. After that we went back down to the windjammer for some soft serve ice-cream. We loved being able to get that anytime. When the windjammer was closed for the evening they rolled it out to the Thirst Quenchers area that was open all night. We were just wandering around through the Solarium on deck 11 and went toward the spa area just intending to look through but got put on one of the spa guided tours where they try and sell you every different service. It was nice to see the spa and areas, but we weren't intending to pay that much for spa services that we could get at home for much less. But we did put our names into the drawing for prizes to be given away at 5:15.So then around 4pm we went down to explore the lower floors. We loved the Colony club area, hubby thought it was really cool with the old ship feel and the smells of gunpowder or whatever manly ship smell it was piped into the room. We played a round of pool on the self-leveling tables and that was fun. Then we went to the Aurora theater for the muster drill. After we heard all the beeps and saw the people show us how to put on life jackets we were done. We headed back to our room to see if the rest of our luggage had made it through and the big hundred pound bag had come through, but it had been searched (probably because it was so huge!). Nothing was taken so I got the rest all unpacked. There was plenty of closet and drawer space for us, but we are light packers and it was only a 4 day cruise, but if we were staying longer we would have felt there was plenty of storage space.I started feeling some rumbling from below me and thought, 'hmm, they must be getting the ship's engines ready to go.' but then I looked out the balcony and the land was moving! Haha, I told my hubby we were moving and he didn't even notice it until looking outside. The ship was a smooth ride for 80% of the whole trip. We were concerned that motion sickness would be a problem for my hubby since he is prone to it, but he didn't even have to pop a dramamine/bonine for the cruise ship at all.So we went up on deck for sail away, stopped at the spa raffle and didn't win anything. But then got a frozen drink and watched the land go bye bye. The best thing we did was watch as the boat went under the Skyway bridge in St. Pete. It was AMAZING! The boat only cleared the bridge by 5 or 10 feet from where we could tell. We were up on decks 12 and 13 taking pictures and it was a really neat view. We had dinner in the Main Dining Room that night, and as other reviewers had said there was a sign that said no shorts, flip flops allowed but I saw people in shorts on a few of the nights. We had the My Time Dining and though I had placed a few reservations I don't think we ever made it to our actual reservation time. I didn't know what other activities would be going on so the My Time dining was great for us. We just walked up to our dining area (port side, deck 5) and asked for a table. The first night they put us at a table for 6 (even though we wanted a table for two). But later on when no one else joined us to eat they moved us to a recently empty table for two by the window. The other nights we had tables for two (one night as we approached a table for 10 that had 2 other people at it already we stopped and asked for a table for two and our request was granted). The food was always good, plentiful and filling. We felt like it was going to a nice restaurant in town that would have cost $40 per person with what we got. We always got two appetizers and one entree and sometimes dessert. But sometimes we were too full for dessert, but found room for soft serve later on in the evening. No lobster on the menu any day, wish I'd gotten the duck the first night because it wasn't offered again.We went to the Welcome Aboard Show with the comedian and it was pretty good. Not spectacular (as we've seen broadway shows, it can't be compared to that), but it was a nice thing to do in the evening. The dancers and singers came out and did a song/dance to an original Radiance of the Seas type song. It was kind of lame in my opinion and made me not really want to come back to see any of the dance/song productions. It was kind of like something you'd see at Sea World or Disney about how 'we are sailing away....on a great cruise getaway...we'll all have a fun time...so much fun with yooooou.' So we skipped the show on day two. But when we peeked in on day four to the Piano Man show it was good enough to stay for and then we came back for the beginning of the 2nd showing so we could see what we missed. I think I was just turned off to the goofy lyrics of the made up song. When they were doing songs from Elton John and many others the songs and choreography was excellent. Day two we got up relatively early I guess, but it didn't feel like it since the ship had set the clocks back an hour to account that Mexico didn't do daylight savings time. We got breakfast in the Windjammer around 8 and took it over to the Solarium where we ate at the tables there. Then we grabbed two loungers by the pool and stayed there for most of the morning, leaving around 11:30. By then there weren't any loungers near the pool and two people were very glad that they could snap up ours.I had heard such good things about the Seaview Cafe that I wanted to try lunch there but it didn't open until noon. We got there around 12:15 and there was already a 45 minute wait for food. But since it got such good reviews I wanted to try it. So we put in our order and got our number thing and went to Windjammer directly below to get some snacks to hold us over. Our food was ready at 12:45ish and it was pretty dissapointing. The onion rings were great, my soup was good, and my fruit plate was good, but hubby's fish salad was just so-so and the reuban sandwich was laughable. We really had to look under the bun to see if there was actually meat on there. Hubby did the hot shots basketball tournament after lunch and had fun with that, though he said the court was patchy in places and not like playing on a regular court at all. Then he did the rock climbing wall that opened for beginners at 2pm. It did seem that the wall was only open at certain times so we were glad he got it in at this time. Stopped to see the international belly flop contest and that was pretty hilarious.We went back to the room to get ready for formal night and the captain's reception. We got to the reception around 5:40 (it was from 5-6) and couldn't figure out where to get the free drinks. We wandered around and finally asked others who said that someone was passing them, we found the guy and he'd bring out a tray of drinks that would get taken very quickly and then he'd go back for 3-5 minutes to get more and so you had to station yourself by the pool tables if you wanted a chance for a drink! By then they only had champagne. They introduced the officers but we were bored and left. We did some formal portraits and then had dinner (cheesecake for dessert! yum!).Day three we had our excursion to Tulum (Ruins and beach break) which I'll review in the excursions forum. Suffice it to say, it was a lot of travel but was worth it in our opinions as we'd rather see something historical than shop in port or sit in a bar. The morning began badly as our room service that I'd ordered the day before never came. I'd ordered it on the TV to come between 6:30 and 7:00. At 6:55 I called the guest services to inquire because we were on a time crunch because we had to be at our assigned place at 8:15 to get off the boat in time for our excursion. Room service said the food was on it's way (it wasn't) and I called back at 7:05 and they apologized and said they never got the TV orders for some reason but said they would get it right away. I asked if it would take more than 15-20 minutes, because we'd rather just go up to the windjammer to make sure we had enough time. He insisted that he could get it to us quickly. I tried to remember all that I'd ordered and forgot a few things my hubby wanted, oops. So it was delievered around 7:25 and we ate it out on the balcony and that was nice. Hubby said we wouldn't be ordering room service again though. I think that's because I forgot to order him a juice. The comedy/magic show that night was good, best part was when the magician had a little boy, just three years old come up and did some funny and cute tricks with him.Day four was at sea and we started with breakfast in the Main Dining Room. It was the first time we sat with others on the whole cruise. I loved it as an extrovert, hubby tolerated it as an introvert. The breakfast was really good, I ordered 3 things (omlette with hash browns, grits, and pancakes). Everyone else just ordered one thing and seemed like they wanted more, but the waiters were gone by the time they finished.We did lunch at the Windjammer, they had a great mexican buffet this day. We later attended the swing dance class which was very basic beginner stuff, but still fun. We went out to the helicopter pad and took pictures and watched the flying fish. We had some afternoon tea at 4:30 in the Windjammer and then we went to the Love and Marriage show at 5pm in the theater. That was hilarious but they did have it on the boat TV replaying the rest of the cruise. I'm sure it depends on the couples chosen for how funny it is, but there were some very memorable answers and we laughed and enjoyed it. Then we went to dinner the the MDR. We had great views of the sunset from our table. We'd wanted to do some dancing on this night as we'd missed it the other nights because we were so tired. We tried the stardus lounge where there was a Motown Farewell party from 10-11 but there were just two girls out there dancing, it was kind of dead. Then we decided to try the colony club for the Headliner's band for their farewell show and that was pretty sad too. The band wasn't that great and again there were two girls out on the dance floor, it got up to 5 while we were in there but we just decided to sit and play chess instead. We got back to our rooms in time to pack and get our luggage outside the door, very smooth process.Debarkation was very smooth and easy. We got up and went to the Windjammer for breakfast, it was great as usual, though more crowded than other days because everyone was in there early. We miss it now that we are back home and have to prepare our own food. After breakfast we went to our room to finish getting everything together. We had to be in the theater (our meeting room) at 9:15 (but told us to get there 10 minutes earlier) and they called our number around 9:20. We got off, got our luggage, went through customs and our ride picked us up right at 9:35. We could have gotten a porter to get us through the customs line quicker, but really, it wasn't long at all, and we didn't have to worry about tipping!