We are regular cruisers on Royal, first cruise on this ship. We also cruise on Norwegian. This was the first time we cruised from Ft Lauderdale for our winter vacation, usually leave from New York or Bayonne but we wanted to avoid the two days of cold weather and rough seas. It was a great choice as we had awesome weather for 12 days. The ship was very nice, clean well kept and the service was very good. We found the drink prices were higher than we remembered, drink of the day $11 ? The only other complaint we had was the lack of things to do after 11pm. The casino was open till 1:30 but that was it. If you are looking to party after hours this may not be the ship for you. The dinning was very good, we had purchased a package for specialty dinning and even did the "chef's table" which was excellent. Don't think we will ever cruise out of New York again!