Just a little background info- I was on the 8/3-8/10 sailing, 28 year old female traveling with husband. This is my 8th RCCL cruise, and 4th time with this itinerary, although my first time on a Freedom Class ship. We've been on older ships in the fleet, was well as newer (Oasis).

Pre-Cruise: Flew into Orlando and stayed at the Fairfield Inn on International Drive in Orlando. That was fine. We rented a car from Budget and dropped it off in Cape Canaveral, then took the shuttle to the port. This process was pretty quick.

Embarkation: I think we ended up getting to the port around 10:30. Checking in was pretty quick, and we only had to wait about 20 minutes before they started letting people on the ship (We were sitting in the Platinum waiting area). We went to to the Windjammer for lunch, then hung out at the solarium pool til our stateroom was ready. It was really nice having so few people on the ship. Read more