I was a little nervous at first in reading other reviews prior to our cruise and was concerned that we would not enjoy our trip, but overall I must say, we had a great time!

The first recommendation I can give is to warn you that the ship does its emergency protocol at around 2:00pm until about 2:30pm. I wish they would have informed us of that upon check-in because unfortunately, we were in the middle of our late lunch/first meal when we suddenly had to get up, leave our food, and find our assigned station somewhere throughout the ship. That set a negative tone for the first few hours we were on board. Once the drill is over, all the restaurants closed and everyone had to go to the pool deck to get food. That is fine--it just took us about 20 minutes to figure that out because no one informed us of that. So in summary, if you get on the ship well before 2pm, enjoy your lunch at the buffet; if you arrive closer to 2pm, don't bother, wait for the emergency drill to end and head up to deck 12 for the Sail Away party and uninterrupted lunch. Have your camera ready-you will sail by the Statue of Liberty!

Another early tip I would give is to explore the ship as soon as you can when you board. I did this late and missed out on some pretty cool stuff. Start at the top and work your way down so that you can see and take advantage of everything available to you. (human-size chess and checker boards, rock climbing, tennis, basketball, etc.) Read more