I'll start this off by saying that ship is absolutely huge, in fact I didn't even go to/find all the little nooks and crannies the ship had to offer until my last couple of days on board, however it is rather crowded, but don't let that stop you from having a good time.

By the way, a quick fyi, I'm a 20 something cruising with my parents, as well as, my brother his wife and their kids (3 year old girl and a 5 year old boy) and his wife's parents.

After dropping your luggage off to the crew outside of the Pier 88 entrance, embarkation becomes a lot less frantic and incredibly smooth. You sign your cruise documents and the other usual hooplah and get assigned a number to board. I think we were number 32 or something up there and when we sat down they were only calling 9's up, however we were only waiting for about 5-10 minutes until our number was called. After being welcomed by the very friendly crew (don't let other reviewers get your keyed up and worried, all but one person I came acrossed didn't greet me with at least a hello) they announced that the rooms were open to drop your stuff off, however when we found our room the door was open and as we came in and started to unpack some of our stuff and freshen up (via our carry on baggage, our suitcases didn't arrive until we started to sail away from the pier) our excellent room steward Bhupesh came in very nicely said that the room wasn't quite ready yet. So with that we went to lunch at the Garden Cafe, which quickly became my mother's favorite spot and my least favorite. My mother liked it because it offered some of the more diet friendly food on the ship and I disliked it because it's one of the most crowded parts of the ship where no one really pays attention as they walk and I almost tripped over some random child sitting in the middle of the buffet line floor while dodging adults as they mindlessly would swing around or stop in front of you with a huge tray of food or hot steaming cup of coffee; it was a mad house 90% of the time. But I digress... Read more