First of all this was my very first cruise. I went with my 16 yr old daughter and church group of 40, including my pastor and wife who recommended this cruise. Since I knew the name of ship ahead of time I started doing some research to get familiar with this ship and what to expect. We were traveling in from Temple, Tx, and arrived at the port around 1:30 p.m..
Embarkation was a breeze, things moved smooth and quickly and I was very impressed. Since I knew the ship's first sail was in 1991 (15 years ago), I expected to see some "wear and tear" which made the ship's overall condition not a surprise, because there was lots of wear and tear all over, which was to be expected. We started sail at 4 p.m with a smooth take off, I didn't even realize we had taken off, it was so smooth. It did get a little uneasy at night with the movement of the ship but it was tolerable.
The food was very good, I think the chefs/cooks did a wonderful job. There were several staff members who stood out and made this cruise very memorable because of their courteousness; "brown sugar" (can't remember his first name, may have been Mariarta), he was our waiter at table 261 during the 8 p.m. dinner seating, and my daughter thought "Miguel" (also a waiter) did a wonderful job as well; "Christo" in the photo shop was so very pleasant also.