This was a fascinating cruise, and fortunately we did not experience any of the kinks with immigration that the people on the voyage before us did. Please know that everyone needs the multi-entry visa for India, NOT the e-visa. There was a group of travelers who had the e-visa and they were not allowed off of the ship in 3 of the 4 Indian ports.

Prior to sailing, we stayed one night at the Jumeirah Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi, which was wonderful! I found a Groupon for the Buffet breakfast, which was also excellent.

We took a cab from the hotel to the cruise terminal, during which the driver initially drove much further out of town to the airport rather than the ship port, with his meter running. He claimed that we had said the "crew terminal," although I had actually said Mina Zayed Port, the formal name of the port. Long story short: this is a scam and it happened to others on our trip as well. We ended up talking to one of the helpful pier attendants so we could learn what the correct payment from our hotel should have been, and then we paid the driver the appropriate amount. Read more