Here's some background on us. We are a married couple in our early 60s and we've been on 10 previous cruises together (I was on 4 prior to meeting my husband, so I've now been on 15). We've been on just about all of the mass-market cruise lines, and we like them all. This was our first NCL cruise, although I was on the Norway more than 20 years ago.

I admit it: I wasn't expecting to be impressed by NCL. I picked this cruise because 1) our scheduled Carnival Pride cruise was canceled (the ship was drydocked) and my husband could only take that week off; 2) we wouldn't have to fly to the port; and 3) the price was right. My expectations were that we wouldn't care for the included food very much or Freestyle in general and we'd be nickel-and-dimed to death. I'm so happy to say I was wrong—we loved everything about this cruise!

Things didn't start out great—the Greyhound bus my husband and I were taking to the port from our home in South Jersey was an hour late. Not an auspicious beginning! But things looked up quickly: we easily and quickly caught a cab outside of the bus terminal and were at the port soon after, where embarkation went smoothly, in spite of fairly long lines. Read more