We had a great new years eve cruise. This was our third cruise, second with Norwegian. We had previously sailed on Carnival and were not impressed but decided to give Norwegian a try. Our first sailing with Norwegian met our expectations but wasn't amazing. Still, we decided to give Norwegian another try and so glad we did.

We did a pre-cruise stay at the Springhill Suites in the New Orleans Warehouse District just blocks away from the port. The hotel was so close we were able to walk our luggage to the port. We arrived at the port for embarkation around 11 am. Dropped our bags off, and got right in line for embarkation. The process went so smoothly. Our boarding number was called before we could even sit down in the waiting room. It took awhile in the gangway but those ID cards only swipe so fast. We were on the boat within 45 minutes. Wow! That was record time for us.

Once on board we tried to stay away from the buffet as we knew that would be hectic. My mother wanted to try a specialty restaurant to dine in for lunch because she had heard that those are open for lunch embarkation day without a fee - that's also how it was for our last Norwegian cruise - however, we decided to dine at the Venetian which was great food and service. Read more