This was our 16th cruise, we are in our mid-forties, and although not specifically cruising for our wedding anniversary, this is our 25th wedding anniversary year. We mainly cruise with P&O, sometimes ex UK, but also ex Barbados when they base some ships there in the winter. We have also travelled with Royal Caribbean, Costa, and once before with Princess on Grand Princess, so know a good cruise from an average one, we haven't had a bad one.

My wife is a business travel agent, and won 2 x business class tickets from the UK to anywhere in the US, so we chose Miami so we could tie the flights in with a Caribbean cruise. We flew from London to Miami on Saturday 10th February on American Airlines business class. We've been lucky enough to sample a few airlines' business class products and we can honestly say that the American Airlines product (on the outbound flight to Miami anyway), was about the worst. The crew were downright rude, did not want to do anything for us, came away with a few niceties, but on the whole we felt that we were a bit of an inconvenience to them. I don't mean to sound rude, but hey, they started it. The flight home, Miami/Chicago/London was a different matter though, fantastic crews, very friendly, maybe the difference is that they were all Chicago based, and the first flight was a Miami based crew, so something to keep in mind.

Anyway, the cruise! We were most impressed at the speed of check-in and boarding, Wow! We arrived at the terminal about 1230 and was in our cabin within 20 minutes. Cabin C231 with a balcony, and as I found out on this site, balconies on this deck are twice the size so great value and something to keep in mind for the future. We could stretch out on the balcony no problem, we had 4 reclining chairs and a table. The sailaway was disappointing. We remember with great fondness our sailaway on Grand princess a few years ago, when they played some great music and we waved to all the residents of the condominiums as we sailed past them on the way out to sea. This time, no memorable music, but the biggest thing was the rain showers. However, on with the cruise. We had a great table for 6, some lovely people from northern USA. I believe there were less that 100 Brits on board, the rest were mainly American and Canadian, but no problem, everybody was very friendly. We can honestly say that EVERY meal we had on board was delicious, we had absolutely NO complaints about any of the food, very well cooked and presented, amazing when you consider how many people they are catering for. We were on traditional second sitting which was 1t 2015, not too early and not too late. We have always been scared to try Anytime Dining, maybe one day, we just like to get to know our waiters. And these two were fantastic, no waits, perfect timing, very well done. We did dine in Sabatinis one night as we had on Grand Princess, and again it did not disappoint, the usual deal where we got to the main course and could only pick at it, just too much food, but all great. I can never understand people who want to save their $20 and not try it. I know the normal food in the dining room is great, but this is just different, and well worth the extra. Read more