Hotel/Embarkation: We flew into FLL the night prior and stayed at the LaQuinta FT Lauderdale Airport. Very clean, friendly staff, super cheap. Steve from SAS picked us up at 11:00 Saturday morning and we were on our way. We arrived at the terminal right at noon, entered the terminal...and stopped. Almost 3 hours later we were on board. I know that arriving at noon was going to put us right into the thick of things, but wasn't expecting it to be quite this long. Online registration/check in seemed to have been an exercise in time wasted, as we had to fill in the same information all over again in the terminal. Finally just before 3 we were on board with our champagne, and headed directly to our stateroom.

Stateroom: Our home for the week was AQ1551, port side, next to one of the bubble cabins. Very convenient to the elevators and spa. Cabin and bathroom were both big, with plenty of room for us and our belongings. Limited drawer space, but the overhead cabinets above the bed made for plenty of storage. Balcony was nicely sized with two chairs/footstools, and a table. This cabin was of the bed-near-the-door configuration. Flat Screen TV was on a swing arm which allowed us to watch free movies in bed -- a luxury! Our cabin attendant was generally absent -- and not in the good 'the cabin fairies visited while we were gone!" way, but rather in the "strange that he never introduced himself, cannot be found for ice, doesn't seem to pick up consistently, and leaves odd notes" way. Housekeeping was really the only service quibble we had, and we weren't going to let it ruin our trip.

Public Rooms: The last email I sent before shutting off my phone in Miami was "this ship is gorgeous!" and I still felt that way a week later when we left. From the art to the furnishings you could see how much thought was put into every detail in every space, making everything comfortable and elegant. All areas were always clean, including the public bathrooms which were lovely and well-used. We were sailing full and rarely saw passenger logjams -- the flow seemed to be working. Read more