Some background info about our cruise - Hubby, myself, daughter (13), and son (2). The weather was pretty cool on our cruise - I'd say about 70 degrees each day, even in Nassau. There were very few times we didn't have a jacket on while onboard. While we did see lots of people in the pool/hot tubs - it was too cool for us ! We met a few great Cruise Critic families at our meet and greet - Hi - Welikepalms, Loves2Stamp and Tinkerbell ! Hope you all enjoyed your cruise, too !

Embarkation at Manhattan Cruise Terminal - We drove from near Pittsburgh, PA. Took us about 7 hours - arrived at noon. And so did everyone else ! ( I took some "prizes" for my 2 year old son to open on the way and this really worked well.) I'd recommend getting there a little earlier or later ! Clearing security and check in probably took about 1 hour - we were allowed to board the ship directly after checking in. Went straight to our cabin, which was ready. We went on Deck 12 on Raffles terrace while leaving the port - how neat it was to go by the Statue of Liberty ! It was pretty darn cold that day though !

Debarkation at Manhattan Cruise Terminal - We arrived ½ hour late - at 10:30am. We chose to do the Express Debarkation - so did a lot of other people ! The line was the whole way around deck 7 ! Once they started letting us off the ship it went pretty fast through customs. We then just took the elevator up to the parking area, threw in the luggage and took off ! You pay for the parking on the way in, so you are just able to leave when you get back. We noticed the terminal was much busier on Saturday when leaving than on Sunday when arriving. There was also another ship there on Saturday - that could have had something to do with it. Also, my husband said when he parked the car on Sunday, there was no bomb sniffing dog, but when we left on Saturday, they were checking the cars coming in - go figure ! Read more