My husband and I decided that we wanted to take a cruise this year to celebrate my 50th birthday. We found a small gay group online that had this ship and itinerary and this being our first cruise, we thought it would be better to go with a group of people that while we did not know, we would be familiar with.

We initially were in a mini suite with balcony, but about 45 days before departure, received an email to bid for an upgrade. As this was a big birthday, we decided to bid and bid on 3 rooms, aft penthouse suite, deluxe owner's suite and spa suite. While I won't tell you the amount of the bids, we bid in the lower part of the suggested bid pricing. To our amazement, we got the owner's suite! The final cost was approximately twice what our original cabin cost was.

As I am a total nerd, I read this forum and others to find out about Norwegian as well as the ship. I admit at first I was a bit concerned because of quite a bit of negative reviews and feedback about this ship, food, staffing, etc. I will tell you about our experience from the moment we arrived at the docks in Barcelona: Read more