My wife and I took our first cruise to celebrate a birthday and to leave the frozen North behind for a week. We were not disappointed with NCL and the Sun. Turns out, one of the best things we liked about the ship - the outdoor eating area at the stern on pool deck - was pretty much a rarity on other ships we have since checked out. We like eating in the great outdoors when it's warm and sunny. But I digress. We arrived in port a day early to make sure winter weather didn't cause us to miss the boat. It didn't, but there was a problem finding the NCL representative at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Only one small desk and we'd like to have known it's whereabouts prior to our arrival at FLL. Anyhow, the rest of the embarkation process was very good, and we were on the ship and eating our first buffet meal (pretty good food) at 11:00AM, more than an hour before the advertised time. We got to our rooms by noon and were in our warm weather clothes and beginning to check out our floating hotel/resort shortly after that. Began to sense the crew's friendliness already and this impression was enforced throughout the seven days. We liked the "germ balls" (hand sanitizer dispensers) that were everywhere you'd expect them. We tried all the free restaurants and one of the pay-extra ones. My wife is pretty critical of restaurant food and she was happy the whole cruise. She could get her simple, healthy breakfast every day, and enjoyed her lunches and dinners as well. I love just about anything, and found every restaurant to have very high quality food and drink and the service was great. The main reason we chose NCL was the "freestyle cruising" and we weren't disappointed. One problem, which was an optional one, was the high prices of the alcohol and sodas. We'd liked to have brought a bottle of our own stuff in our room for a private cocktail hour prior to dinner, but we felt stifled by the high prices. Shore excursions were OK, and not fair to rate NCL on these. Our stateroom was fine, the balcony was a real plus and I don't think we'd ever not have one again. We saw a couple of shows in the theater and in night club and found them adequate. I really enjoyed the guitar player/singer in the small bar on deck 11. I think the people working on the ship were really trying hard to please their passengers. The ship was clean and well maintained. Just about anything we needed was available. I'd have to summarize by saying we'd go with NCL again and even go on the Sun again. All in all, a happy experience! Highly recommended. (Given the reviews we read about the Sun a year ago, it seems they have been working hard to improve. I'd give them a lot of credit.)