Overall, I found this to be the most enjoyable cruise yet. My most recent 2 cruises were on NCL, and I liked this cruise much better than my last cruise on NCL Gem. I liked the activities - RCCL is a much more active ship. Embarkation was fantastic. The food was pretty good, but since I'm mostly vegetarian I might not be the best judge of food quality, although my table mates seemed to really enjoy the food. The service was wonderful - I felt like the staff understood that this was my vacation, and went out of their way to make it feel like that.

This was a presidents week sailing, which meant that there were almost 1400 kids on board. It was definitely a full ship, which meant that some of the activities were a bit too crowded for my tastes.I loved the parades, the 'disco night' party and Quest (a crazy kind of game show/scavenger hunt). My son loved the dancing and the ice skating (he's 13), and developed a passion for the pizza in the Promenade.

I did find the spa disappointing - there was no 'thalassotherapy' pool, and there was no indoor quiet pool anywhere on the ship (kind of a necessity if you're going to sail out of NY in the winter). I like to go from the jacuzzi to the steam room, back and forth a few times and then relax in a chair, but there were no chairs for this in the spa. The massage, however, was great. Read more