Background -- This was my 14th cruise  6 on NCL (in reverse order, Spirit, Star, Dawn, Sky, Sea and Crown), 4 on Princess, 1 on RCI, and 3 miscellaneous. I am in my early 50s. It was the first cruise for my niece, Mimi, who was traveling with me. She is in her early 20s. Originally, I was supposed to be cruising with my long-time traveling companion, Linda. Unfortunately, she had a last-minute family emergency that prevented her from going. Her cancellation came the day before the cruise. I immediately called my travel agent to see whether I had any good options, despite knowing that the manifest of passengers is supposed to be finalized several days before sailing (a rule imposed after 9/11 so that Homeland Security could do cursory background checks). I was prepared to sail alone but the thought of paying a double fare didnt thrill me. Luckily for me, my niece, who had recently graduated college, was in a position to go on a trip at a moments notice. (Also, much to my surprise, she had a copy of her birth certificate readily accessible.) My travel agent was incredible. Over the next several hours, she fought on my behalf and worked her way up the corporate ladder to finally reach someone who had the authority to approve a last-minute name change. By 5:30 pm the night before the cruise, she had pulled off a miracle, getting Mimis name into NCLs computer system.

Summary -- For those who dont want to wade through a long review, heres the bottom-line skinny  it was a very nice cruise. I loved the dEcor of the ship; the port stops were generally fun; I always found something I liked on the main dining room menus; the specialty restaurants were excellent (Le Bistro, Cagneys and Teppanyaki) or good (La Trattoria); onboard activities were good to very good; the production shows were okay to good; the guest entertainers (singer, magician, hypnotist, Second City) were very good to excellent; the ships musicians were good; and the service was excellent with one or two minor exceptions. My niece pretty much agrees with my assessment except for the production shows  she found them unacceptably amateurish.

Embarkation -- We arrived at the pier at noon by cab, quickly handing off our 2 larger bags to porters right on the sidewalk outside the terminal. The previous sailing clearly had gotten in early because the terminal was fairly empty. We were actually stragglers even though it was only noon. The previous sailings passengers had all cleared out, so only the late arrivals were getting in line at this point. Got to the security checkpoint to present passport/BC/DL but since our passenger ticket didnt match both our names, the guard directed us to the customer service desk. We went there and it took about ten minutes to resolve the name change. Their printed manifest of passenger names didnt list Mimi, so they had to walkie-talkie to their upstairs office where they found the confirmation of the name change. They wrote out a new, very informal ticket for Mimi and we returned to the first security checkpoint. It was all fairly painless since I was fearing the worst-case scenario of Mimi being denied boarding. Read more