Let me begin by saying that reading some of these reviews was very helpful to us in selecting this cruise, which was our first. As first time cruisers, we were a little wary. My wife and I have traveled a lot in Europe, Africa, Central America and South America, but we've always been very independent travelers, usually renting cars so that we could go when and where we wanted. I was concerned I might feel "trapped" on a ship, and since I really don't like crowds at all (especially crowds populated by many unruly children), I thought we might end of hating a cruise...but we didn't.
We selected the Norwegian Sun for several reasons: (1) it seemed to have larger staterooms than the competition, (2) we wanted a balcony and on the Sun there were plenty to choose from, and (3) the sailing dates and port of embarkation (Miami) was convenient.
Now if you don't want to read a lot, I can summarize everything here by saying the Norwegian Sun surpassed our expectations in every category. It is a well run ship, clean, comfortable and generally well planned (with a few exceptions noted below).