My 7-night cruise began today as my friends picked me up to drive to Port of Miami. The drive went easy enough and upon arriving around 12:30pm, my group dropped our bags off with the porter and we went to check in. The Port of Miami had five lines for comparing IDs to cruise documents and five lines for baggage screening, so everything moved very quickly there. My friends and I were able to upgrade to a Concierge Class, which provides a priority check-in line. We were taken to the next available agent and checked-in for our cruise. Another benefit of Concierge Class is the fancy gold keycard we get for our rooms.

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What's the main thing keeping you from taking more cruises?  Clearly it's not vacation time or money, it's a lack of beach gear!  Well your ship has come in because this time we're giving away a brand new set of canvas Royal Caribbean bags and a new Royal Caribbean towel (no, I did not steal this from the pool or my stateroom).

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Hey there CruiseHabit.com readers,

Ric Ross here, long time reader, first time author. Inspired by Matt and Michael’s live blogs, and in spite of Billy’s, I’ll be live-blogging my upcoming cruise December 3rd through 10th on the Celebrity Reflection. This cruise will leave from Miami and stop at Labadee, Haiti; Falmouth, Jamaica; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; and Cozumel, Mexico. I’ve sailed Celebrity once before on the Constellation. This will be my sixth cruise overall; two of those have been with Billy and his lovely wife, Larissa.

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Just a reminder that we're on Independence of the Seas for the next few days.  Follow long on Twitter, Periscope, and Facebook for live broadcasts and updates.  Importantly, follow our daily summaries on the live blog we're posting to www.RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com, your resource for all information Royal Caribbean.  Have a question about Independence or cruising in general?  Tweet out and we'll find answers!

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Packing has become pretty automatic for us, but as we prepare for a sailing on Independence of the Seas we figured we should slow down and take a look at just how we pack for a short Caribbean cruise... read more

Starting Thursday I'll be Periscoping, Tweeting, Instagraming, Facebooking, and Zlerping (I made that last one up) from Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas.  Importantly, I'll also be live-blogging, sharing a daily summary in words and pictures, on RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com.  One of my favorite sites on the interwho, RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com has a plethora of information on all things Royal Caribbean as well as helpful and friendly message boards - but starting today, they also have the sometimes-incoherent ramblings of yours truly.  

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Today in Saint Nazaire, France, Celebrity cut the first piece of steel for the 2,900 passenger Celebrity Edge, the first of the new Edge class of ships, to begin sailing in the fall of 2018.