We boarded on the 22nd of December to spend Christmas with over 6,000 people and folks is was truly wonderful. My husband and I are in our 50's and treated our three children (27, 22 and 20) to this cruise. We arrived close to ll:30 in the morning, dropped our bags off with a porter, checked in at the Gold counter and bang baby we walked onto the ship. Make sure you fill out your paperwork before going...sure saves times. We didn't have tickets for our bags but that wasn't a problem. Took just a moment for porter to tag our bags.

Our group had already decided to high tail it to try their famous roast beef sandwiches located on deck 8. We were about the first people there. Sandwiches were good but not "out of this world" good. Salads and chips rounded our first meal out. This was the only place that "soda" was...well lacking. Speaking of soda make sure you get at least one soda pass. Well worth it. You get a "take home" cup and the ship has at least two coke machines. One located on 5 and the other in the windjammer...and, it's a good coke product. You can also get soda at any bar. We cheated and shared between us.

Speaking of cheating...our "of age" children wanted to see if they could sneak a little alcohol on board and after "you're going to get caught talk from mom" tried anyways and they succeeded. But do realize before you try this it's really a cat and mouse game. We did see several people (all young) looking for their bags at 6pm....off to the "naughty" room to explain. Read more