My 26 year old daughter and I sailed on the 12/31/06 departure of the Sun. We arrived in New Orleans on the 30th and caught a taxi for 29 dollars to the Embassy Suites on Julia St. It was pouring rain when we arrived and we could not get any bellmen to help us with our luggage. Once inside, the hotel changed our room at the last minute so we would not have to go outside in the rain to the other building. Unfortunately, the hotel was very busy due to the holiday weekend and we again could not get any bell service so we lugged our luggage up on our own. We found our newly assigned room had not been cleaned and had only a king bed when we had requested double beds. A call to management revealed we could be moved to another room with a king bed but our double beds in the other building had already been given away to another customer. All double beds were taken for the night. After a 30 minute wait, a bellman arrived and escorted us to a new room. My daughter slept on the couch so she would not bump my leg which is in a cast. I am a platinum Hilton Honors member and the manager comped us dinner in the local hotel restaurant for our inconvenience.

The next morning we enjoyed the Embassy's cooked to order breakfast and checked out of the hotel but had our luggage held for later pick up. We took a cab over to the French Quarter and enjoyed the French Market and area shops. We walked back (daughter wheeled me in wheelchair) to the mall on the Mississippi River. After shopping in the Riverfront Mall, we returned to hotel on foot. We picked up a luggage and caught a cab to the port area. The cab kept dying on the way and the driver informed us it was bad gas. Finally, we arrived at the port for check-in.

Embarkation - This went very smoothly. A porter assisted us with our bags and we went through the guests with special needs line. We were in our cabin in less than 30 minutes. We arrived on ship around 1:30 but our bags did not arrive until a little after 6 pm. The mandatory disaster preparation was at 4:45 and was very short and efficient. In fact, the passenger assembly time was longer than the drill itself. Read more