This was our first cruise, celebrating our 25th anniversary and my wife's 50th birthday. We have traveled to Hawaii a number of times as well as Mexico, Florida and Washington DC. We have experienced five star hotels and resorts as well as your run-of-the-mill vacation experience. We are timeshare owners as well as a vacation home in the mountains. This experience has sold us on cruising. Let me preface this review by stating that the cruise was, by no means, perfect. There were glitches and disappointments, but that's life. My wife and I are glass half full kind of people and have found when you don't sweat the small stuff, life if a lot more fun.

EMBARKATION: Chaotic - simple and concise. The staff at the airport had no plan and they were allowing people who hadn't booked a transfer to get on the bus. I'm assuming they had allocated busses based on reservations and now didn't have enough to handle the increased volume. After about 45 minutes we stepped in front of others who had just arrived and were being escorted on instead of our group and got on the bus. Lesson learned - next time we take a taxi to the pier.

Once we arrived at the pier it was orderly and we were on the boat in less than an hour - not bad when you consider they had to check in and screen over 2,000 passengers. We used the time to meet other cruisers, even meeting a couple who had the stateroom next to ours. Read more