This is our 18th cruise, the 4th on Norwegian. Since we live in Florida, it's so easy to cruise, and now we usually go for the ship rather than the itinerary. We are both in our early 50s and it's our vacation of choice.

We drove down from Tampa the day of the cruise. There was a surprisingly long line around 2:00 because they had just shut one of the entry ways and there were only about 8 people checking people in. We got on board and into our cabin just before muster at 3:00. We were hoping to get passes for Vibe, but knew our chances were slim since we were getting there so late. No luck :-( But next time we may go down the night before so we can check in earlier. We did know from past experience that it's best to book restaurants and entertainment prior to the cruise. However, we found that because we had pre-booked things and didn't know yet what was going on each evening, we missed a few things we would normally have done. We noticed that the specialty restaurants were never that crowded and it seemed like you could walk in at any time if you wanted.

We had a mid-chip balcony cabin on deck 10. The only complaint, as others have mentioned, it the smoke that floats up from the Waterfront area and cigar bar - it's not pleasant being out on the balcony. The air conditioning system was a bit tricky to figure out, but once our steward showed us how it worked, we were nice and cool every night. The cabin was clean and the more you looked, the more storage space you found. Read more