First a little background on us so that you can get a better feel for this review. There were 7 of us traveling together on this cruise. My wife, 18 year old daughter and I stayed in a Grand Suite. My mother stayed in a handicapped cabin with one of my other daughters (27 years old). My other daughter also 27 and yes they are twins stayed with her boyfriend in a promenade view inside cabin. My wife and I were on our 10th cruise and were also celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. Our youngest daughter was celebrating her graduation from high school. Our previous three cruises were on NCL including twice on the Star and most recently on the Pearl over last Thanksgiving. There are some comparisons between the two lines through this review.

Embarkation We live in Fort Lauderdale so we did not have to fly anywhere. I had arranged for a Hummer limo to pick the seven of us up at my house. The others did not know about the limo, they thought we were just getting picked up in a passenger van. I brought a reggae CD with me with some champagne and OJ and we made some mimosas on the way down while enjoying the music. We arrived at the port around 11:15 AM. Since we had priority embarkation with our suite I figured we would be on board by noon. Wow, was I wrong. We did get right in and checked in quickly, however we went up the escalator to a holding room where we stood for about an hour and a half. We were told there were some problems with the computers. We did not get on the ship until after 1:00 PM. There were many behind us and I cannot imagine the hectic mess that they had to go through to get on. Out of the ten cruises we have been on this was the worst experience we ever had getting on a ship.

Cabin We had cabin 1578 which was a Grand Suite about mid ship. If some of you are wondering if the extra money is worth it for a Grand Suite, well it is. The cabin was better than many hotel rooms we have stayed in. It was spacious and comfortable. Originally we were going to book a Jr. Suite, but I decided to spend the extra money for the Grand. I am so glad we did. The bathroom was huge with two sinks, a large tub/shower and plenty of room. The balcony was huge also. We had a table and chairs with a couple of extra chairs. We had asked the concierge to arrange for us to get a lounge chair and before we could walk back to our cabin there were two of them out there. The bedding was very comfortable. My wife wanted me to find out what kind of mattress they used as she wants to buy one for us at home! The perks that come with the suite are nice too, especially the use of the concierge lounge and having the concierge services. Our concierge was Juan Diego. He was excellent! Any problems we had we would just tell him and he would take care of it. He emailed me a few days before our cruise to see if I wanted to book Chops or Portofino's. I emailed him back and told him we did want to eat at both places and he made the reservations for us even before we were on the ship. He also booked our excursions for us after answering all our questions about the ones we were interested in going on. The concierge lounge was great and we very much enjoyed meeting in there a half hour or so before dinner to enjoy a couple of drinks and snacks. The bar attendant in the lounge would have my beer poured for me before I had taken two steps into the lounge. I am one that does not like crowds and this lounge was never crowded. I loved it in there. Read more