This was our third cruise, though the first with Holland America and the first traveling with our daughter in tow. While it is difficult not to draw comparisons and contrasts with the other ships we have sailed on, I will try to avoid doing so here. We greatly enjoyed both of our previous cruises, but consider this one to be our best one yet.

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale a day early, and took a taxi van to the Embassy Suites near the cruise pier. The hotel was nice, with an exceptionally warm outdoor pool. There was free (albeit slow) internet access. And for those who are interested, both Total Wine and Publix are directly across the street from the Embassy Suites.

We took advantage of the hotel's free breakfast, then leisurely made our way over to the cruise pier around 11:30am. The line outside the pier was chaotic, as porters were hollering for passengers to stay behind a painted line, and there were no tensa-barriers (you know, the ones with the flexible straps) to form a line. Thus, there was a mob of passengers trying to enter the cruise terminal. Once inside though, the procedure was a piece of cake. We were slowed down a few moments by the fact that our daughter has one of the new passcards (rather than a passport), and the shore personnel also needed to find and affix a lifeboat wristband to our daughter (required for all passengers under 13, if I recall what they told us). In any event, we were on the ship by noon, and settled in a for a light lunch at the Lido buffet. Kudos to HAL for under-promising and overdelivering: They told us our cabins wouldn't be ready until 2:30, but an announcement was made at 1:45 that all staterooms were ready. Read more