I found this cruise online and it had a GREAT deal that I could not pass up. Without doing any research beforehand on the ship or the ports, I booked it. I am so glad I did.

First off, as a newbie I will say that I will always spend the $50 for the Faster to the Fun. I have heard some say it's not worth it, but for us, it was worth it and then some. Upon arriving at the ship we were brought to the front of the line for embarking and it took us maybe 15 minutes from handing over our luggage, to stepping onto the boat. I realize it also helped that I checked in online and filled out the health questionnaire prior. Our luggage was in our room within 2 hours. All intact. We were able to get priority boarding with Platinum and Gold members to all tenders, saving so much time, especially since we had excursions booked. When we left the ship, we were again with the Gold and Platinum and we were able to leave the ship and recover our luggage before the masses were released. Again, less than 10 minutes. A bit too efficient. You also have a separate line for Guest Services which may not seem like much until you see the line wrapped around the corner the entire cruise. We also decided to do the Behind the Scenes Tour which is $95 pp but again, we found it worth it. Our son loved meeting the Captain in the bridge and getting to see the entire ship took about 3.5 hours. Very in depth. You can sign up for this as soon as arriving on the ship, just go to the excursion desk, but there is only 2 groups of 14 so once they are sold out, they do not add groups.

We were on the Riviera Deck (1305) which is mid ship. I was very surprised at the amount of room there was and even after using one bunk and making the 2 twins into a King we still had plenty of space. There was no noise at all during our stay and little movement except when the seas were rough and then it was more of a sway. We loved the room. Read more