Before we left, I read a lot of reviews as part of my researching process. We had never cruised before and had nothing to compare it to. We tried not to have high expectations after reading some of the negative comments. We were so pleasantly surprised!!

On May 2, we arrived in Bayonne. We chose to save a little money and use Premier Parking. It was a five minute shuttle ride to the ship, so we figured why not. Well, I will tell you more about that mistake later. Once we got to the terminal and dropped our bags off, it was like a tornado it was so fast. Here's your seapass, smile for a picture, here is the gangway, "ding" you are on the ship. I honestly didn't even get to see the ship before we got on it! I stuck my arm around a sheltered area and snapped a quick shot before walking on board. That was it! Before I knew it, we were on the elevator headed up to the 11th deck for lunch. The whole process was so organized and methodic that for those of us inexperienced cruisers I had a few "now what" moments. Poof, we were eating our lunch enjoying our first taste of what would become 9 days of pretty good food. Was it perfect, nope, but there was plenty of variety and if you found some favorites for breakfast and lunch, we were never disappointed. We went to the sailaway party, it was a bit windy and chilly and the party seemed to get cut short since there was a medical emergency that delayed our cruise. It was kind of hard to dance and celebrate when an ambulance had just pulled up to pick up the poor passenger. I am glad they were not disrespectful to them. It was very tasteful. Once we were underway, it was really neat to be up top to see the tight squeeze under the bridge.

We went to our cabin and found it to be plenty big. We had anticipated such a small space but it wasn't bad at all. Our luggage did not arrive until around 6:00 but it worked out ok. We changed and went to the main dining room. What a beautiful room! The staff was friendly and always helpful with questions. Dinner was great, and we were tired. We turned in early and it's a good thing we did. We were awakened early by loud crashes and lots of movement. Sometime during the night we encountered a nor'easter. Being on the second deck, we hoped to not feel the sway of the boat, but wow! We took showers, that was an adventure as we slammed into the wall. Standing was an effort! We left the cabin and found barf bags taped everywhere. I couldn't believe that this is how it was at sea. Why would people choose this for a vacation? Well, after asking around, I was told that it was not the norm. Thank God! After being awake for a while, my husband was starting to turn green. We had brought some sea sickness meds and he popped a couple and had to lay down. The upper decks were even worse. I think the entire ship slept for 24 hours. It was the only way to survive it! Waves were crashing into our window! Absolutely amazing! The captain would make occasional announcements reminding us to use hand rails and walk carefully around the ship while it got tossed around. Sometime overnight, the seas calmed and that was the end of that! Read more