This was our fifth cruise and our first on NCL. We went on the Grand Princes less than a year ago so I will be doing some comparisons with that cruise in this review.

We flew non-stop to Miami on American Airlines. Upon arrival we picked up our rental car at Thrifty and checked into our hotel, the Holiday Inn Airport West Doral area. The room was fine and we got a great price on Hotwire but the front desk staff left much to be desired. We asked for a different room because they first one they gave us was not the right room type. When my DH asked for a key card jacket with the new room number on it the guy at the front desk did not know what he was talking about! We then drove to Coconut Grove and had dinner.

Embarkation - We woke up to a cool drizzly day. After returning the car to Thrifty at about 11:00am we took their free shuttle to the port. It was very convenient as they leave frequently. We dropped off our bags and breezed through security. This was such a contrast from our cruise out of Galveston last year on Princess which took two hours for check in! NCL really know how to keep people moving. Check in only took ten minutes but they staggered the entry into the ship to avoid congestion. We were told cabins would not be ready until 2pm so we had something to eat and checked out the ship with our carry on in tow. Read more