We enjoyed our escape-from-Thanksgiving cruise on the Norwegian Sun. We arrived a couple of days early to enjoy Miami and had the world's fastest embarcation at around 2pm - no waiting at any point along the way, from dropping bags to getting set up with the credit card, to being onboard and finding our room ready and the ship awaiting our exploration. Loved that!

The Sun is a bit oddly laid out for the NCL freestyle setup. We have sailed a couple of times on the NCL Star, which was designed better, with lounge areas giving off to multiple restaurants, and generally making the alternative venues attractive and visible. On the Sun, it was as if you were venturing down unknown passenger cabin corridors to find the venue or bar in question. Same with the shops, which were all concentrated in one area and you had to cross the casino to get to them. I think this strange layout is because of the age of the ship and the retrofitting over the years. That being said, it's a nice small ship and it's easy to walk from one end to the other and our cabin was conveniently located forward and port, so we could enjoy the sound of crashing waves from the balcony and generally bask in the vastness that for me is the major attraction of cruising - our little balcony perch on the ocean.

The EXOTIQUE band in Dazzles was the best on any of the dozen-plus cruises we've been on. The other entertainment was OK - we didn't go see any of the shows. We went to a weigh-loss hypnosis presentation that was basically a guy with his powerpoint, but since the cruise I have bought pedometers and we are on our way to the 10000 steps he recommended. So I guess his powers of suggestion are fairly strong. However we haven't yet lost any weight! A common problem, I'm sure, in the cruise community!! Read more