Here it goes...

Our Demographics- My husband and I have 6 daughters (3 to 12 years old) and are professionals. I travel internationally quite frequently for business as a Director in the Pharmaceutical industry and my husband is a Director of IT systems. We vacation about 3 times a year. We always take a "warm/hot" vacation alone in the winter to thaw out from the New England cold. We are in our late 30s (40 is knocking on the door). I can be fairly picky when it comes to travel as I live out of a hotel and airports some of the time... I like to be prepared and well educated before any trip.... I read numerous reviews about this ship before we left.... Many of the comments WERE TRUE... I will confirm some in this review... Most of all... Bottom line.... The trip is what YOU make of it... Was it perfect? No, but is anything perfect? Keep your expectations in check and you will have an amazing and wonderful trip...

Pre trip- We left a day early to not miss the ship not knowing what NE (New England) weather would be like. We stayed at the Springhill Suites. There was a problem with the shuttle pick up. We waited over an hour for the van... I was less than happy by the time I got to the hotel. The desk staff was VERY nice and hugely helpful... Many apologies for the delay in pick up. The lobby was Packed with cruisers leaving that day. Much noise and chaos. They didn't have a room ready for us yet (as I expected it was really early in the day) so she recommended a lunch restaurant that was Cuban (Las Vegas Cuban I believe) which was a short walk. They took our luggage and we had a fantastic lunch... I highly recommend the food and staff there. Super cheap my full dinner sized lunch with sides was only 6.95!! Big surprise for me... We returned to have a room ready for us. Nice room, clean, fairly new, comfortable. I would definitely stay there again. Compared to the other hotels in the port/airport area it was newer and inexpensive. The next day (cruise day) we had a big free breakfast (crowded be aware of this) self serve but decent food (make your own waffles, cereal, oatmeal, coffee, fruit, pastry, juices, etc etc.) We had signed up the day before for a shuttle which left on time with NO issues whatsoever. Very efficient... to the dock.... Read more