Zipitidoda

Day 0 - Travel Day
As many people do, we tend to get to the port city the day before the cruise. There have been a couple of exceptions, but overall we’d rather pay for a night at a hotel than be concerned over potential delays flying in the day of.
Being Canadians with fairly frequent travel to the US, we’ve invested in the NEXUS pass, which grants us expedited entry between Canada and the US as well as Global Entry and TSA precheck. And flying out of Toronto Pearson, it’s well worth the cost - I’d estimate that on a busy day it saves at least 45 minutes, and maybe 15 minutes on a light day. Bottom line, if you’re Canadian and fly out of an airport with US pre-clearance, it might be the best $50USD you’ll spend on an airplane-related item.
Back on topic, flying the day before meant that we were flying on New Year’s Day. No big deal for us, as we simply haven’t been big New Year’s Eve partygoers after having kids. There is the nice bonus of not having to deal with any sort of traffic.
Bag drop, customs and the flight were all uneventful. We did notice a bit of a line for folks looking to preclear customs (several Canadian airports have a US departures area complete with CBP officials, so that we don’t have to go through customs when we arrive) but with the NEXUS cards, we were through in about 10 minutes.
After arrival and baggage claim, we took a taxi over to our hotel, the Hyatt Place 17th Street. We’ve stayed at this hotel a few times now, not necessarily out of brand loyalty but because the prices are usually quite good, via a dodgy-looking third party website. It’s also close to a variety of restaurants and shops, in case you forgot something or need to buy wine.
Speaking of which, we effectively checked in, dropped our stuff off in the room, and went to eat a late lunch/early dinner. Based on our experience a couple of years ago, we headed to Kelly’s Landing, which specializes in New England-style seafood. And considering that it was New Year’s Day, with no Boston-related games on, at 3 in the afternoon, the place was quite busy. We ate quite a bit of fried stuff – calamari (my younger one is a sucker for this. Every time, every place), Ipswich clams, crab cakes and clam chowder (or is that chowdah?). The clams for me were the highlight, as they were full bodied clams that were fried very nicely.
 

After that bit of gluttony, we shopped at Ross and TJ Maxx because my girls didn’t bring any fancy(ish) shoes. And in fairness, Hannah, my older one, had outgrown all of hers so this was not an unexpected occurrence. We managed to find some nice shoes, bought some water and some ibuprofen from Publix and it was back to the hotel for a nap.
 After the nap, the kids were a bit peckish so I went to a nearby takeaway to grab some American-style lo mein. And also to get some wine for the trip.
 After this, the kids went to bed, and I did a little reorganizing to get ourselves ready for embarkation day.

Absolutely, bring all the camera gear!  On board a ship now with four lenses for my full frame mirrorless camera.
Just be aware that humidity in the Caribbean isn't your friend.  Camera gear in your nice air conditioned cabin overnight will, when exposed to the humidity of the Caribbean instantly form a layer of moisture or condensation on your gear.  Give your gear plenty of time to acclimate before attempting to use outdoors.  When I have a balcony I will often place my gear out there for 10 - 15 minutes before heading out to shoot.  When I don't have a balcony I go hang out on an outer deck for a while before taking pictures.
Full frame lenses have more glass in them and that extra glass takes even longer to acclimate to the temperature and humidity changes.
I made the mistake of changing lenses too quickly once.  The sensor within my camera body formed a layer of condensation that resulted in small watermarks in all my pictures.  They appear as small dark spots.  I had to get my sensor cleaned.  Since then I've figured out how to clean my own sensor and bring sensor swabs with me.  
Now I typically pick a lens to use before leaving my cabin.  I have a small pocket sized travel camera with a 24-200mm zoom lens I use for some shots and my mirrorless with my chosen lens for the day on my full frame body.   

This is something I’ll never have to worry about. Regular balcony rooms are enough for me. 

@Zipitidoda

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-is-the-royal-genie

On the Oasis and Quantum class ships, there are high level suites (Star Class suites) that have, as part of the service/amenities, Royal Genies.  They are personal assistants to the suites and provide extra services like reserving personal seats, making reservations, expediting certain activities, etc.

This is great!  I embark in 4 days for my first cruise though so you're going to need to get to typing. ?

I got so much great advice and information from these message boards that I wanted to make sure I came back and posted a recap/review of our cruise. I'm hoping this might help some other first-timers in the future. 
Sorry if I jump around to different topics! It's been tough getting my brain going again since the cruise! 
Cruise: 12/22 to 12/29 Allure of the Seas Eastern Caribbean 

Staterooms: We had 5 of us in 2 staterooms. I can't imagine trying to get more than 3 people in a stateroom. The magnet hooks and shoe-organizers were awesome for keeping things organized. I think I'm going to take an over-the-door shoe organizer on every vacation from now on!

Dining: 
We chose My Time Dining when we booked. As a first-timer, one thing I didn't realize about cruising was how much you get to know the crew members, and that the same crew members will be working at the same place at the same time (usually) every day. With my-time dining, though, we sat at a different table each night (even if we requested the same waiter), sometimes on a different floor, etc.  So my advice for first-timers: Choose set-time dining, not My Time There are lots of threads on here about dress for formal and casual nights. On the first few nights we tried to stick to these pretty closely. By the last night though, "casual" in the MDR meant shorts and a shirt without writing on it. Yes, there are white tablecloths and fancy menus, but when the tables are crammed together and the dining room is so noisy you can't even have a conversation, the "nice restaurant" vibe goes out the porthole.  We did Izumi Hibachi for dinner one night. We've been to other hibachi restaurants on land, and so I know my family would enjoy it, but the chefs on Allure were really great, some of the funniest I've ever encountered, and they didn't rush us through the meal, either. The food itself was great, too. My steak was cooked perfectly and my kids wouldn't stop talking about the garlic-butter flavor of the fried rice. The only downside was that we did Izumi on lobster tail night, but I didn't realize we had missed it until the end of the cruise. Oh, well.  Entertainment:  Wow! I expected "pretty good" (like the shows you might see at an amusement park) but the entertainment on Allure was top-notch. The aqua theater and ice shows were well done, but Mamma Mia was simply awesome. They did such a good job with it and we enjoyed it so much more than expected. It was as good as any Broadway cast I've seen. Don't miss it! 

We also enjoyed the live music more than expected, particularly Hugh Little and the High-C's Horns. We caught their big band show, the Earth/Wind/Fire & Stevie Wonder show and part of the Dixieland Jazz show (which was just the horns). The other bands were good, too, but I often found myself thinking "turn it down!" during the Promenade shows. Guess I'm getting too old! 

#1 hit with my kids: Vitality Cafe + Refreshment Plan = unlimited smoothies. I really enjoyed the juices there myself. 

Casino: I promised to provide a poker report. 

Poker cash game: The host in the casino said they had 2/5 cash games that started up around 9:30ish every night. $100-$500 buy-in.  I never ended up playing. 

On the 3 sea days they held a "poker tournament" at 3pm. I wasn't able to play this until the last sea day. The entry fee is $100 (1000 chips) + $50 add-on (1000 chips). You can "re-buy" for $75 (750 chips) during the first 4 levels. You could get several re-buys at a time and it wasn't clear if you had to bust out before re-buying. The blinds start at 25/50 and go up (usually doubling) every 10 minutes. This makes for a ridiculous tournament with very little skill involved. Between the slow, uninterested dealer/floorperson and the slow players (the guy next to me had to think about every starting hand for at least 10 seconds, and another guy never knew when it was his turn) it made this game agonizing. Some levels we only got 4 hands played. 
There were 11 people signed up, so they started two tables with 6 and 5 players. But when players got knocked out they didn't combine the tables, they just played to a winner on each table. The "final tournament" was at 5:30 on the last sea-day. You would bring whatever chips you had from the first round, so the winner from that 5-person table would be at a disadvantage compared to someone who might have played at a full table. The prize was a free cruise for 2 on Oasis in late November to play in the Royal Something-or-other championship tournament, where you would again take whatever chips you had won in the satellite. No cash prizes for poker tournaments (until the grand championship) on Royal I guess. 
They said we could take a break after level 4 but then they were in a hurry to start up play again. With blinds being high already, they nearly folded a guy on the big-blind for most of his stack... luckily they saw him coming and waited... ended up he had QQ to win.
When it was time to chip-up they didn't have enough black chips to get rid of all the 25s on the table. So after losing an all-in I ended up with a single 25 chip when blinds were like 800/1600.
Anyways, I don't think I'll play poker on RCCL again unless they change things up a bit. 

Craps: On day 3 I went looking around 8pm to see if the poker game was running. It wasn't, but they had opened the craps table on the non-smoking side ($5 min), and nobody was playing. I ended up playing for a while and others joined in, too. Down a little, then up a lot, then ended up about $20 ahead in the end. The dealers were pretty good and they got into it more when we started placing dealer bets. 

I never saw the craps tables go over $5 mins. Yeah, it's single-odds (2x for $25 bet, morex for $50 bet). It was a pleasant surprise and I was sorry I didn't have a chance to play craps more when the non-smoking table was open. 

Machines:  My wife loves the quarter-pushers, but the machine was broken (permanently?) on the non-smoking side and she doesn't handle smoke well, so no play there. Hopefully they fix that machine during the "amplification". 

To be continued... (this is taking longer than I expected to write!) 

It seems like a long time when I run out of clean clothes!

Here you go..  Pick and choose what you think you're going to need ? ON our first cruise, we totally overpacked lol.. now that we're 5 or 6 in, we've learned how to scale it back, and only take what we need ?
 
https://www.smartertravel.com/cruise-packing-list-what-to-pack-for-a-cruise/
 
 

Just disembarked from Rhapsody of the Seas and we had coffee and Continental served every morning at NO CHARGE.  If you order a Breakfast MEAL....they do charge you a service charge but the food is still free.  BTW....they were serving some of the best coffee!   

I stayed at the Best Western Fort Lauderdale Airport/Cruise Port a couple of times. It has a free shuttle to the hotel from the airport and free continental breakfast. There is a shopping center across the street with a Winn Dixie, liquor store, restaurants, and a few other stores (perfect for last minute things).
It's about a 12 minute drive to the port. However, they charge approx $15 per person for a shuttle to the port that doesn't leave until after 10AM. We never had a problem with lyft taking us to the port.

We just got back from a 5 night Bahama cruise on the Mariner of the Seas.  I am a 57 year old female.  If any of you are feeling hesitant about trying out the Flowrider and the water slides on the ship - DON'T.  Both were a blast.  I told the staff at the Flowrider that if I came over to the side I was done.  I didn't want to "wipe out."  I was able to ride it on my stomach, and even put my arms out to my sides.  I didn't get on my knees or even try to stand up.  Just being able to stay on it for a little while was fine with me.  
I did the blue water slide, and it was a breeze.  I didn't do either of these two activities until the last day we were cruising, and wish I had done them every day.
YOLO!

A video explaining my entire career at sea!
 
 

Crowds weren't a factor, although whenever a bus unloads there is a surge.  The locals are a bit aggressive after your hike in trying to sell you local crafts.  You'll probably find that everywhere in Jamaica due to high unemployment.

My husband and the boys are very active.  I'm the only one I think I'd worry about. ?

I'm new to this so I probably won't be any help since everyone else seems to know what they're doing.  When checking us in on the app I had a problem finding how to check in the next person and thought I was losing it but finally found it.  On the app click on the person icon on the top right.  On mine there is my cruise stateroom info then a time for embarkment.  Below that it says View SetSail Pass (I can see who I've checked in when I click on it).  Right below that in very small blue letters it says check in guests.  I clicked on that was able to see the next person to check in.  I still have one more person I need to check in and when I do I'm assuming that small link will go away.  Like I said, I'm new to this too and not sure if this helps.

Oh another thing they don't provide that I would really recommend is lotion. Both facial and body. I don't know if it's just me, but the sea air really dries out my skin. 

Independence of the seas dining venues:
Included:
Main Dining Room - Breakfast, Lunch (non port days), Dinner
Windjammer Cafe- Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks, Dinner 
Sorrento's Pizza-  Open 11 am to 3 am
Cafe Promenade - Snacks 24 hours
Soft Serve Ice cream station - Hours vary
Extra Charge:
Chops Grille
Giovanni's Table
Fish and Ships
Playmakers
Izumi Hibachi
Izumi Sushi
Chef's Table
Johnny Rockets
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
Sugar Beach Candy store

1. Arrive to the port early. You are paying for your day 1 and the sooner you get on the ship, the sooner you can start your vacation.
2. Bring a USB port outlet for more charging space. Do not confuse this with a surge protector, since it most likely will be confiscated.
3. Be friendly to the crew and chat with them. Room stewards, for instance, enjoy when we have conversations with them because their jobs are very repetitive and have to clean up after us. It can really make someone's day.