We chose this ship because we wanted to experience a relatively new ship with all of the technological innovations. Also we live in New York and didn't want to fly (i.e. add airfare cost) to our trip. Plus we wanted to leave from the New Jersey port. There were five of us ranging in ages from 58 to 10 years old.

Embarkation:

The port has a dedicated parking facility which is great. We dropped off our luggage then went to park. It was $180 for the 9 night/ 10 day parking fee. After parking the car we walked to the cruise terminal. Checking in was a bit confusing because they don't have counters, just people with tablets. Kind of hard to form a line behind free standing people. I opted to have a cash account on board while my husband elected to use his credit card for his on board account. We also opted to use cash for our daughter's on board account. Sounds easy right? NOT. Although we selected different methods of payments they kept grouping all of our charges onto my husband's on board account. I was at Guest Services on deck 4 EVERY SINGLE DAY about the onboard charges. The person at check in advised us to go directly to Guest Services to give them the cash for the account which we did. The person at Guest Services accepted the cash but was quickly reprimanded by another person and told not to accept cash. So I was able to set up my account and my daughter's account but the person standing right next to me, who was my aunt could not give cash for her account. We were then told that everyone has a $500 limit for onboard purchases by default whether they secure with a credit card or not. That didn't make sense to me but oh well. With all the "technological innovation" there were reoccurring issues with the onboard charges and how they were displayed on the television versus how they looked in the system Guest Services used. Read more