Flew from CVG to MIA 12/18, stayed overnight @ Doubletree Grand Biscayne Bay..wonderful hotel and has several restaurants/bars, small grocery/deli and liquor store on site. From our bay view room, we could see the cruise port and ships from our balcony. Good choice for overnight stay. This was our 4th cruise and this was the newest/largest ship we'd sailed upon..1st=Carnival Holiday from Mobile, 2nd=Carnival Fantasy from NOLA, 3rd=NCL Spirit from NOLA, which are all western Caribbean destinations. Also 1st time on the Atlantic/eastern Caribbean. Took an outside company's shuttle service provided at the hotel for $7.50 if you allow the hotel to put it on your room bill. The shuttle was on time and we were the only one's in the van @ noon departure. Embarkation was smooth, quick and the staff was very informative & friendly. Were told rooms would be ready by 2pm and they were. Nice, clean ocean view room, mid-ship on 8th deck. A lot of drawer and closet space..no problem having a his/her side in the cabin for our clothing and clutter. Bathroom was very sleek and modern..liked the small turquoise tile and Scandinavian design. Our cabin steward was very helpful and was always working somewhere within site...I could always get more ice, towels or whatever I asked. Dining...only ate in the buffet, Blue Lagoon and room service. My hubby refuses to "dress up" on vacation for any reason. Now you don't have to dress up on NCL..but to him a polo and slacks are "dressing up". He also refuses to go to the fee dining. I know, I know..but that's him and I don't care. The buffet was GREAT. I lived the 1st 2 days on "A" food..fresh avocados, asparagus, artichokes, arugula..you get it. I realized I hadn't eaten any meat for 3 days and did on the night they had St.Louis style ribs..YEAH! They were great and the shrimp cocktails were also YUM. Room service was also very good. I always got extra coffee and a small breakfast via room service. The Greek salad via room service is very good. I can't remember getting anything that was not good in any food venue. The Blue Lagoon would even fix orders "to go" if you wanted to wait. The staff was always very friendly and they endured some real abuse at the hands of late night drunks and unruly teens. Which leads me to my next item..this was a Christmas cruise so there were an large number of children on-board. Actually a staff member said 978 children to be exact. I have never been away from my family during the holidays so I had a personally difficult time on the eve and day of Christmas. Seeing all the little ones dressed up made my heartache for my own grandchild. I love kids and all were fine except one group of teens that were visibly drunk on several occasions and made fools of themselves by yelling and cursing across the sun deck, dining room or hallways. Enough of that... Ports : Samana DR - had researched this one and based on that info decided to take excursion = Cayo Levantado beach break. This was great and the beach was wonderful. Great views, authentic music, pictures for sale were very reasonable and my hubby book/did a para-sail there toward the end of the day for $50 USD! Very reasonable..it was for 12minutes and they said he went higher than anyone else that day. He wanted to go longer and higher but they reeled his daredevil ars on into the boat. I ate lunch at the grill there and it was very good. Finally, my husband bought me a Laramar jewelry set before we left for Christmas..don't know if this was a good deal or not but it is a very nice set. St.Thomas was very nice..and an amazing site. Took excursion to Coral World. Very interesting if you like nature and museum kind of things. There was a beach there but it was packed so we stayed away from that. St. Thomas is a good place to not take an excursion and just spend the day shopping or enjoying lunch in the port. Tortola...I wish we'd taken an excursion here. Not as much to do in port that we knew about...walked to Sunny Carribee shop (interesting shop but very expensive for what it is) and on the way there a police officer told my hubby to put his cigarette out..no smoking in public there.??? Back on-board a cabin steward told us to go to a certain bar that look over the harbor but we didn't go back out. Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas..well okay but nothing to rave about. We left the ship later on to let the droves of people get out of the way, course that left us look for a lounge chair and taking sloppy seconds. We purchased snorkeling equipment but they didn't have our size (which we were credited by the shore excursion staff on ship for that), so we didn't snorkel. The water was too cold, it was quite cloudy and the water was choppy. So just as well. But how can any day at the beach be bad when you left 20 degree weather? It can't...so despite the bit-o-whining here..it was a relaxing day. Days at sea were fine..we lounged on the sun deck with buckets-o-beer or watched football at the Sky High bar. Evenings in the casino were fun and I took in the 2nd City comedian show, which was hilarious. We left the ship on disembarkation day around 9:45am and handled our own bags. There was a pretty good line and port authorities asked the ship to stop people for awhile. Once the port said go again..the line move quickly. We were at the airport by 11am. I enjoyed the entire cruise and I like NCL because it is a little calmer and more subdue than say Carnival. My hubby however prefers Carnival's louder/rowdier atmosphere. To each his own... The Pearl was a very nice ship with a very professional, friendly staff in my opinion. We enjoyed each port and encountered no problems in any of them (except the cigarette thing). All excursions were as promised if not better and the one that was not was refunded once I explained the situation to the shore excursion staff. Sorry I'm so dang long winded.....