My wife talked me into booking a cruise. I had cruised once before and had a miserable time. I hated NCL's "Freestyle" cruising. I remembered standing in line for hours waiting for meals and very poor service. I agreed to a cruise as long as it wasn't on NCL. We booked our cruise on-line and I was surprised how good the price was. Less than $2000 for two people for a 9 night cruise.

We arrived at the embarkation port around 11am. It took us no more than half an hour to get onto the ship. They even brought out cookies while we were waiting in line. Everyone was friendly and things moved quickly. We had to wait until 1pm for our room to be ready. The Windjammer was serving lunch and it was a great time to walk around and get familiar with the ship. We got into our room and it was clean and comfortable. Our stateroom attendant was Lincoln. He was amazing. We are diabetics and have meds that need to be kept cold. Lincoln brought us ice twice a day. His towel animals were very creative. He took great care of us.

We ate in the dining room every night. The food, while not 5 star, was good and there were many choices. There were always choices for vegetarians, and low fat healthy choices. We were shocked to see that they offered sugar-free deserts! They were incredible! Thank you RCI!!!! Our waiter was Raul. From day 1 he knew our names and exactly what we liked. Raul is also an amateur magician. He was fantastic. Our assistant waiter was Roberto. He took great care of us. PT was the section chief in the dining room. He visited us every evening to make sure everything was perfect. On night one he asked what we liked. I told him I loved shrimp cocktail. Every single night our entire table had shrimp cocktail whether it was on the menu or not. After dinner Fabian the bar master visited with his after dinner shots. He had some fantastic creations. Fabian always knew how to cap off a great meal. Read more