I will start by saying this is my 5th time on this ship. I have cruised the caribbean on her plus a transatlantic plus a repositioning from New York to Galveston in November. I loved my first few cruises on her and not as much the last 2. I travelled from Canada with my husband, 2 kids dd 9 and ds 11 as well as my in laws who are Texas snowbirds. This cruise was probably the quickest I have ever checked in around 1030am. We had to wait probably 45 minutes to board in a temporary area as it looks like they are renovating the port facility.

We went of course to the Windjammer first and was excited to see honey stung chicken back on the buffet. Good sign of things to come. After lunch we did a tour to check out the new changes from drydock. My husband is a flowrider addict so we spend alot of time there. We knew what changes were coming but we were still shocked to see the physical impact of the waterslides. The structure certainly blocks the sun at certain times of the day. My kids enjoyed the waterslides. They were not scary at all so I was able to enjoy them as well. The water was also warm in them . What my husband liked best is that there is now a towel station by the flowrider and slides. The more adventurous slide is not open yet. We then went to check out the minigolf which we thought was very cute and creative. Another improvement is the waterpark in the kids zone. Its pretty neat as well but my kids didn't spend much time there. It gets closed a lot if its windy because they don't want kids up high when the wind is blowing I guess. One thing kids will notice is the amount of bracelets they will be wearing on this ship. They will need one for the kids water park area, the waterslides,flowrider plus their muster station bracelet. They were glad to rip them off at the end of the week.

Apart from the physical changes were some improvements in dining in both the dining room and the windjammer. One thing they took away recently was the jumbo shrimp in the salad bar in the dining room. Well they brought it back on this cruise and I was quite happy about that. Both the dining room and the windjammer also featured a specialty dish each day. There were pastas with buttered grilled shrimp(yummy) and freshly made gyros, stirfrys and texas bbq. A chef was always there creating them fresh for the passengers. Loved this especially in the Windjammer as I have found the food lacking there lately. Read more