We flew into Miami early that morning and were at the port by 9:15am. We had to wait until 10:30am, before security would let us go in, but that's understandable. People were still debarking. Security was quick & easy, and the registration process was really quick & easy. We were in group 1 and were allowed to board at 11:30am. We had lunch and hung by the pool until our cabin was ready at approx. 1pm & we got our bags within a couple of hours, so that part of the cruise was a breeze.

We've been on 7 NCL cruises (2nd time on the Sky), and this was the 1st time we've had to keep reminding ourselves how cheap the cruise was so that we wouldn't be angry at times or disappointed.

We were in an aft facing balcony, which sounds great in theory, but it had some issues. When we 1st arrived, we found that since the balcony has a metal wall it prevents the water from escaping after they wash down the ship in port. We were standing in a couple of inches of mucky water. Yuck. We had to throw down all of our bath & beach towels to try to sop some of it up, and then we were disgusted to find a pile of cigarettes in a napkin that a passenger must have stuffed in a corner of the balcony. Great cleaning job Ms. Steward! We cleaned that up and called housekeeping for more towels, which never arrived. We kept waiting & waiting so we could get ready for dinner, and I finally had to flag down someone else's steward & beg for towels. After several calls, housekeeping finally sent someone to wipe down our balcony. We still got some water sloshing over from our next door neighbors' balconies, but not too much. Read more