I like this ship and had been on it before. We had a good time, but the cost-cutting measures and heavy emphasis on trying to get you to shop were definitely evident.

Embarkation was quick and easy (but we later had problems with our keys). We had stayed in Miami on our own before the cruise so we took a taxi to the pier and got there at 11:15. We were on the ship by 11:45, but the cabins weren’t ready until 1:00 (this seemed reasonable to us). They played classical music in the foyer and it rose up through the atrium to public rooms on upper floors, which was a very nice touch while we were waiting to get into the cabins. It later became clear that the pierside staff at checkin must not have known what they were doing, because we had to have keycards fixed 4 times before they worked properly at the pier (I think they had the wrong pictures associated with the wrong passengers) and at the bars (they didn’t have our drink package recorded properly).

The cabin and the balcony were great. The balcony chairs reclined (yay!), the bed was comfy, our room steward was very good. The pillows were horrible, however – very thin and firm. There was also not enough drawer space. I thought smoking had been banned on the balconies but we could sometimes smell smoke when we were out on our balcony. It was nice that the balcony doors worked in a way that made it so that you cannot be locked out. It was also possible to turn the handle down from both sides to stop the wind from whistling. Read more