I had sailed on Carnival 4 times prior to this cruise, and this was my first time on Royal Caribbean. This was very last minute, as my dad booked this cruise 8 days before we sailed. I am 22 and he is 59. We live in Orlando, so it was a short trip to the port. We did choose to stay in a hotel the night before to take advantage of the shuttle to the port. Also, the cost of the hotel including the parking and port transfers was only a few dollars more than if we had parked our car at the port. We stayed at the Comfort Inn next to Ron Jon Surf Shop. The hotel was decent for the price paid but the shuttle to the port was a horrible experience. Apparently seats on the shuttle are first come first serve, so since we didn't check in until 9:00 at night we were last on the list. We were told to be outside at 10:45 for an 11:00 shuttle and we didn't get on a shuttle until almost 11:45. We also stood by and watched them fill up three shuttles, leaving us all alone as the last people at the hotel waiting for a shuttle.

When we arrived at the port it was easy to figure out where to go and the line wasn't too long. After we got through security and up to the desks the line was a little longer than I had anticipated but it moved relatively quickly. Crown and Anchor members get priority check-in, and while the Royal Caribbean website does not designate Gold members as having that benefit, there was a separate line for Gold members that circumvented the normal check-in line. We got on the boat a little after 1:00 so it probably took less than an hour from when we got off the shuttle to when we got on the ship. Since we got on so late our room was almost ready, but we went to the main dining room to change our dining time first. Waited for a few minutes and had no problem switching from Late seating to My Time, went up to deck 5 which is where My Time dining is and filled out a form to transfer the pre-paid gratuities to our My Time staff as opposed to the assigned seating staff. If you didn't already pre-pay the gratuities, the form would allow them to apply them, but since we had already prepaid it was just to transfer them so they got sent to the correct staff.

After that, went to our room to put away our carry-on luggage and check it out. Not overly spacious but plenty of room for two people. The balcony was nice. We didn't use it nearly as much as we should have but it was nice to be able to just walk out when you wanted instead of having to go up a few decks. Loved the shower doors, as opposed to the curtain on Carnival. Plenty of storage space in the bathroom and tons of storage space in the cabin. Lots of drawers and cabinets. After that, we went up to the Windjammer to eat lunch and they were selling pina coladas with a bottle of rum that they would just pour on top of it. These are more expensive than regular pina coladas but it's the (plastic) glass that you can take home with you. Also, they pour the rum on top of it, and my dad drank some of his and then made a comment about more rum and the server happily poured more on top so it was probably at least a double. Read more