Some will say that the food isn’t seasoned enough, but our family will completely disagree. I will clarify however that we had exceptional weather.įood - for the most part was excellent. Despite being such a big ship, or perhaps because of her size, I never really felt much pitch or roll while moving. Both my husband and son spent some time in the Shine bar on sea days just watching the waves roll by. We took our meals outside on the back of the ship whenever we used the buffet, spent tons of time on our balcony, time up at the Top19 Solarium in the afternoon and after our evening cappuccino, back up on 19 and 16 to enjoy the sea breezes. However for us, the main attraction of the ship was how much ocean you could see from so many places. The decor is all visually different, interesting and tastefully done. Gorgeous ship - the ship herself is gorgeous! I tend to choose more traditional decor and all the chrome and mirrors would give me cleaning nightmares in my personal space, however clever use of that chrome and mirrors makes the interior spaces feel much bigger than they are in reality.
I made a list of Pros, Cons and “When I am Queen of the World” items. Now for the things in between those two events…. They were complaining about several different things, so I think they were just not terribly happy people. This was the only time we encountered aggressively rude passengers. We quickly decided to skip breakfast and go back to the room and get our luggage. There was already a line from the atrium to the entrance to the Grand Piazza. We accidently hit the wrong floor on the elevator and ended up on 6 where walk off departures would begin. We had planned to walk off early to get started on the long drive home and accordingly set alarms for 6:00 thinking we would have time to grab a quick last breakfast. The process was quicker and smoother than we had had with either Princess or NCL.ĭisembarkation went smoothly for us with the exception of getting lost in a tangle in the Port of Miami. We were on the ship within a half hour of going through the ground floor security check in. He chose to stay with us and check in through the Aurea line. It felt weird that they would separate us that way, but perhaps it was to help with traffic flow. The only odd part during Embarkation was that my husband who has a Black card would have been the only one checked through expressly since the kids and I were only Silver level. My husband and children have only traveled in the Caribbean, I have done several student exchanges to Europe, so we were a mixed bag of international experiences.Įmbarkation was fairly smooth, we were checked in fairly rapidly. I should add, the kids had been with us on one previous cruise with NCL and my husband and I have cruised with Princess about 20 years ago, I had cruised with my family on a small luxury line when in college.
Obviously we went into the experience with open minds and minimal expectations. We were mostly looking for a soothing place to enjoy the ocean, eat some good food that we didn’t have to cook ourselves, an occasional show and a tropical beach or two. None of us tend to be “joiners”, my daughter being the biggest social butterfly of the lot of us.
We parked at the port and had no issues with our car while at sea. We are from the Washington,DC metro area and chose to drive to Miami so my son could look at a few colleges along the way. We travelled as a family and opted for the Aurea package due to the anytime dining, included beverage package and larger balcony.