My husband and I took this cruise in celebration of our 10th anniversary. This is the third cruise we've been on. The first was the Carnival Sensation, the second on Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas. We are a couple in our mid 30s with no children. I chose this cruise because of the itinerary. It sailed from San Juan to Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Martin and St. Thomas. We flew into San Juan the day before our ship was to leave and had reservations at the Hotel El Convento. There was a big wedding going on, so Hotel El Convento obviously bumped a few confirmed reservations to make room for the wedding guests. We were one of them. They graciously paid our cab fare over to our new hotel The Gallery and assured us we could use the pool and still come back for the complimentary wine and cheese at the hotel. They also comp'd us breakfast the next morning and gave us a $50 credit at our new hotel. I thought that more than made up for it. I actually really enjoyed staying at The Gallery. I never would've picked that place our for myself but it was really cool. We arrived at the Pier about 11:15 and promptly at 11:30 they opened the doors so you could get on the ship. We had printed out our SetSail pass before we left and it was very quick to get on the ship. It was great actually leaving San Juan at night—all the other cruises I've been on always leave during the day. They didn't even really announce we were leaving port either, it was more kind of like "Oh hey, we're moving!" We sprang for a balcony cabin this time for our anniversary (previously we have only had an inside cabin). For this packed of an itinerary and since we are very much "get out there" people, I'm not sure we needed it. I was eye level to the balcony railing when I sat outside in the chairs and I'm 5'5 so anytime I really wanted to see the ocean, I had to stand up. My husband, who is 6'4, could see fine sitting in the chairs they provided. It was nice to hear the ocean at night & have the balcony door open, but a few times it was just too hot to leave it open at night & we closed it. Overall, I was happy that we got the balcony for our special occasion but I would probably go back to having an inside cabin if we needed to save money. The ship to me seemed very clean and well kept. I was afraid that it would be too close to what we experienced on the Navigator but the ports kept us so busy we really didn't have time to go climb the rock wall or play miniature golf on this ship.

Entertainment: We went to the ice skating show and had front row seats. Wonderful show and should not be missed. We also attended the Rock-A-Roki on the ship. It's Karaoke with a backing band. That was enjoyable and fun listening to everyone get up and sing. We went to the Newlywed game & it was truly hilarious. We saw the parade and the 70's party on the Promenade. Entertaining enough, but the crew members during the parade looked like they maybe had dressed up for that thing one too many times. The people watching though and especially the kids were eating it up. Service: Our cabin steward was very good and rarely seen except to occasionally say hello in the hallway. Yet he had our room spotless the entire time. The only odd thing was that we found a wallet left from the previous cruiser and when we called to alert him about it thinking he would take care of it, he asked us to take it to guest relations. We did take it up there, but I thought maybe he should have handled it after we reported it. Our safe was not operating correctly when we got to our room & he did call maintenance for us on that & it was fixed immediately.

Dining: We had the late seating at 8:30 and sat with 2 honeymooning couples and an older married couple. They were nice dining companions and we enjoyed their company throughout the cruise. We decided to do the wine package since I am a wine drinker and we bought the least expensive one for $125 or so for 5 bottles of wine. I wasn't able to drink them all and they let me share what I thought was my last one as a bottle of champagne with the entire table on the last day. The champagne toast was a really nice way to end the cruise. Then, they told me that I still had one more to drink. I asked if we could just take it with us to our room since it was the last night of the cruise & they let us do that. After looking back at my receipts, we had already drank our 5 bottles so somehow we got an extra one. Our waiter and assistant waiter did an outstanding job. No complaints on their service. I am a very picky eater and often don't enjoy the food in the dining room that much so I can't really comment how good the food was. Everyone else seemed to really enjoy it. I enjoyed the pizza and little sandwiches they provided on the Promenade and we ate breakfast every morning in the Windjammer and it was always very tasty. We also ate at Johnny Rockets using our free meal coupons we got from joining the Crown and Anchor society and it was very good as well. We did not try Portofino's. Read more