I must let you know that this is not the first cruise our family has gone on, but it was the first time we booked a cruise on the Norwegian line. Our very first cruise was on the Disney Magic for just a 3 day short cruise to Disney's private island and back - it was a trip which was combined with a stay in Disney world and my husband's parents were the ones to arrange everything as the vacation was for my husband's siblings and their families in celebration of his parent's 50th wedding anniversary. It was another 10+ years before we booked our next cruise, and this time we booked a 7 day cruise out of Fort Lauderdale to the western Caribbean/South America on the Holland line. And, four years after that cruise we took a cruise out of New Orleans to the Western Caribbean on the Royal Caribbean line. Each trip has been so different and each cruise line has its "likes" and "dislikes" from our family's perspective. We have found that for us, sailing on the newest ships with all of the different special features, like rock climbing walls, characters, ice skating rinks, and water slides, are fun for a short while but they really do not make a cruise. Rather, we have found it is the staff of the ship and the ports that the ship visits which make or break a cruise vacation for us.

In looking for another cruise line to try this time around, we found the itinerary of the Norwegian Sun for the 10 day Eastern Caribbean to not only satisfy our desire to visit some places we had never been before (St Thomas - here we had been, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, and St. Martin) but also the reviews the crew of this particular ship had been given made us think we had found the makings of a memorable vacation. The other surprising detail on this particular ship was that they had rooms which could accommodate 5 people, standard rooms that is not suites. We actually unpacked 8 suitcases when moving into our room, two which where oversized, and everything fit!

Before when we have traveled on cruise ships we have always had to book two rooms and pay the adult rate for our two boys, but with this room set-up we only had to pay two adult rates and three reduced children rates. The only thing that concerned us about booking such a room is that no where on the Internet could we find a picture of what one of these rooms looked like, but we trusted that sleeping all in one room for 10 days would be fine and booked an interior room (something we have never done before either, always opting for a window or balcony) and started planning our trip. Read more