Having read all the negative reviews I was very tempted to cancel the cruise. But I know from experience that is not always a smart thing to do and boy was I right. Embarkation was pretty painless - we arrived at 12:30 ish and we were in our stateroom by 1:00. We quickly went to the 5th floor to the @270 area at the back of the ship and had a great roast beef and horseradish sandwich and a cup of coffee and overlooked the water and just relaxed. We then toured the ship and found a quiet place for a drink (or two?) . We had 6:00 tickets for Mama Mia - Wow is all I can say - I saw this show in NY and this was just as good if not better. We then wandered up to the Windjammer and had our dinner which was quite yummy. I must admit that I gained 6 pounds on this cruise - the desserts were SO good I could never pass them up.

Our arm bands worked perfectly thru out the trip -- very easy to use as was our sea pass card (I had read so many people had trouble - but I think they worked out all the kinks. Some shows were better than others but we enjoyed most of them - we didn't care for Starwater (not even sure what the heck it was all about) but we did see a very funny ventriloquist and a singer that was out of this world (unfortunately can't remember his name - sorry)

There was only one big glitch one night - the air conditioning went out in most of the dining rooms - - - at 6:00 - just when everyone is getting ready to go to dinner. Not good. So the only place that was open was the Windjammer and Johnny Rockets. BUT - they opened up all the bars and we had free drinks all night and ate for free at Johnny Rockets AND got 10% off our next cruise (which we immediately booked) - Read more