So far (unlike last year’s Carnival Cruise), everything about a Royal Caribbean cruise just oozes ‘first-class’. The Royal Caribbean cruise staff (so far) are courteous and friendly, and embarking was well organized, fast, and simple. The ship, “Independence of the Seas”, is absolutely beautiful, everything looks brand new.

It is a cruising tradition of ours to saddle up to the first bar we find once we get on the ship and toast to a great cruise. We found the “Boleros Tequila Bar” as soon as we stepped on-board and we quickly made fast friends with the bartenders Kristina and Ian. They are just great people and we can already tell that this is going to be a really amazing trip.

The plane fare for arriving an extra day early was the same and the hotel was relatively inexpensive. We stayed at the Fort Lauderdale Embassy Suites and it was pretty good…nothing fancy, but they had regular shuttles for dirt cheap to the port and just knowing we had all the time in the world to make it to the ship was worth its weight in gold.

We had dinner at this little Irish pub across the street and the atmosphere and food were great. We highly recommend Waxy O’Connors if you’re in the neighborhood. I had the corned beef and cabbage, which was awesome, and Jody had a burger and it was also great. The beer was cold and the staff was very friendly.

We are excited to get started on our cruise and this little “pre-vacation get-a-way” helped take a lot of the stress out of the first day of traveling.

As I mentioned on my cruise tips page, early seating sucks. For whatever reason, late seating wasn’t an option in the pull-down menu on Travelocity’s site. I’m going to ask the Maitre d’ (while slipping him a $10) to switch us to late seating as soon as we get on board.

Our trip this year was actually $300 cheaper than last year’s Carnival cruise and we get an extra day at sea. Actually, we get 2 extra days of vacation because we’re flying into Fort Lauderdale early the day before. This way we can relax at the pool all day the day before we sail and not have to worry out about making/missing connecting flights the next morning. We barely made it to the ship on time last year because our layover’s were so tight. This year it’ll be smooth sailing.

This time around we went with the world’s second largest cruise line, Royal Caribbean Cruise…we think they’ll try harder than the Carnival Corporation did.

Can’t wait to start blogging about it.

We were supposed to board a 70 foot luxury catamaran this morning that was to give us a shore-tour of the coast of Roatan Island…and ending with lunch, cocktails and an hour of snorkeling along one of the best coral reefs in Central America.

But, no…it was cancelled, just like yesterday’s activities were cancelled.  “Mechanical difficulties” Carnival personnel tells us this time. And so we waited in line yet again to try and book one in Cozumel (like 50 others ahead us…people are starting to really get annoyed with Carnival at this point)

I think I have a new career idea: I will become a boat mechanic on an exclusive tropical island. No really, think about it…how many vacation experiences will I be able to save if I’m the only guy at a popular tourist destination that knows how to fix a carburetor.

Lots of pictures to come when I have more bandwidth!