My husband and I are looking to go on a cruise for the first time. We narrowed down to wanting to go the South Caribbean out of San Juan. We are not senoir citizens and are not partying 20 year olds (although we could pretend). We would prefer not a LOT of kids, one reason we choose San Juan (how many people really want to fly to San Juan with their kids?), and we don't want anything too stuffy or too formal. We're not stacked with money but not broke either. My travel agent, right now, is just gathering a list of what's available during the times we want to go (late June) and we will discuss with her our options then. But in the humble opinion of other cruisers - is there a particular line we should focus on? How do we judge a cruise line? It seems like I hear really bad and really good things about all of them. Thanks for your help! Happy sailing!

There are some books that outline each cruise line, provide ratings and give insight into prices and who frequents the lines. I looked through one yesterday at Barnes & Noble but can't remember the name.<BR><BR>Go to the bookstore and leaf through a couple of cruise guides (there are quite a few). I found this helped a lot.<BR><BR>Also, know yourself. My husband and I picked Windstar for our honeymoon because we didn't want to dress up, we wanted really interesting ports in Europe, we wanted a small boat and we wanted good food. <BR><BR>Don't let a travel agent push you into something that is not what you really want.

We wanted the southern Caribbean also but chose Celebs Millenium out of Fort Lauderdale - a ten night cruise with two sea days at the beginning and two at the end. This avoids the much higher priced airfare to San Juan and gives us three more days of cruising. It leaves on a Friday and returns on a Monday so you only need seven vacation days. The prices are cheaper on a per day basis than most of the cruises we have taken in the past and we are looking forward to seeing if its true about Celebrity's food!

Why go in June if you don't want a lot of kids? I would think generally speaking Royal Caribbean sounds like what you would be most comfortable on. I certainly would re-think summer, why not end of August of Sept, Oct, Nov and early-Dec are great times to cruise and have much better prices.

My husband and I are both teachers. We have no choice but to go during the summer.

Celebrity would be your best bet by far. The 10 day cruise is also perfect as someone already noted, and indeed, the cuisine, service, decor, etc. is outstanding. Have cruised about 19 times, 13 of which were with Celebrity and they continue to come out on top in my estimate.