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 arrived at the Miami airport (luggage in tow) within 40 minutes of walking off the ship. We checked in with the lower level airline staff and then proceeded to security. Mind you, Miami ranks high on the list of user un-friendly airports…signage to our gate directed us to the end of an empty hallway. When we finally realized we needed to go upstairs signage directed us to a closed security checkpoint. The information desk was closed. Watching others proceed to the right we followed suit and found another checkpoint, conveniently situated right at the top of our gate (who knew?). We made it through security and to the gate without incident.

It’s worth mentioning here that Delta Airlines had nothing to do with screwing up our flight home. It was Carnival’s system that was screwed up and which caused us all the stress and and anxiety the night before. Again, Carnival’s “Luggage Express” isn’t worth the headache, don’t bother.

Unfortunately for us, our flight was delayed 30 minutes, making the likelihood of missing an already ridiculously tight connection all the more real. Deciding to be proactive, I approached the gate agent to see about possible re-routing…special thanks goes to David Easton of Comair, who directed me to a Delta agent a few gates down…he was able to confirm seats on a later connection should we miss the original flight. Alas, we were guaranteed to get home on Sunday.

We ended up arriving in Cincinnati at 2:56pm. Our connection was leaving at 3:05pm. Mike and I readied ourselves to haul ass off the aircraft, and the other passengers did the same (seems almost all of us were about to miss our connection). Seeing as that we were seated mid-plane, it seemed unlikely we were making our connection. We made peace with ourselves and excepted the inevitable (a midnight arrival home and to work at 7am) …but then the heavens parted and music began to play…

”Would Michael Johnson and Jody Levison-Johnson please proceed to the front of the aircraft to see the customer service agent? She is prepared to escort you to your flight…”

And sure enough, a wonderful woman, boarding passes in hand, met us on the tarmac, ensuring that we made it to our connecting plane to reach home (Mike actually hugged her before we boarded).

Thanks to Delta Airlines and Comair who made getting us home their priority as well as ours. And, well, as for Carnival, you suck…thanks for nothing.

So…several trips down to the purser’s desk to get this straightened out but no one can help us. “There’s nothing we can do.”, she repeats over and over. “It’s a problem with our agent” (who remained nameless), she says, and “Maybe it’s a security issue with your husband, they don’t do this for no reason.” We ask if she can call Delta to figure out what’s going on. “No” she says. We ask if she has a terminal to check our confirmation number on Delta’s Web site. “No” she says, “There is nothing we can do”.

The reason I bought a Carnival Cruise ‘Package’ was so that they would take care of these little details…like getting me back home!

I tried to log on to delta.com myself to check the status and get more information, but the WiFi connection on the ship is so bad it won’t even load the site.

Cruise Tip: When booking a cruise, there is a very real possibility that you, or one of your loved ones, will get stranded in an unfamiliar city if the booking was mishandled. Luckily for us, we packed a small overnight bag that I can use for whatever city I may be spending the night in tonight. Also, when considering your vacation budget, tack on a few hundred bucks for a hotel, cabs, tips, and meals in case something goes wrong.