Background: We were aboard the March 16th, 2007 NCL Pearl 9 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise out of Miami, FL. Itinerary consisted of Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, and Tortola. The first 2 days were at sea as well as the last 2 days. The Islands were back to back 5 days straight. This is my second cruise, the other being Princess. This is not a comparison review, but simply facts from our experiences aboard this particular cruise.

Hotel: We did not stay at a hotel in Miami, we opted to fly our of Washington DC, where we did stay the night at the Marriott Crystal City. In case there are any travelers coming through DC, which seamed to be at the flights from cruisers on the return were completely booked and several on standby, so...please....stay at the Marriott Crystal City near Reagan National Airport. Fantastic hotel, food delivery from local restaurants as well as some on site and some within walking distance. The facilities were beautiful and probably the cleanest bathroom I have ever seen in a hotel. One complaint of the hotel would be that it was spring break for most of the month of March and the hotel was extremely loud through the wee hours of the morning so I didn't not sleep much, but I will chalk that up to the time of year. The hotel offered to have people removed, but they cant remove the whole floor!

Ship: The Pearl is a gorgeous ship. Please do not let the pictures online fool you. The pictures do not do this ship any justice. The colors are not as bright as they appear. Everything is in great taste and very fun. The layout is pretty easy to navigate throughout the ship. I did like that the Casino was way down on deck 6 at the front of the boat. I did not have a room near there, but even when passing by, I did not notice alot of noise coming from this area. Read more