We booked this cruise in June 2010 to celebrate our youngest son's high-school graduation. This would be our 7th cruise [all RC], 2nd for son Matt and 1st ever for older daughter Jen. Nice thing about booking 13 months in advance was that sometime between then and now the prices jumped by close to $400 per person [which did not affect us]. So naturally, I figured I could ring up a $1600 bar tab and still break even.
We live on Long Island so we drove to Bayonne on Saturday morning. Ginny [my DW] was concerned about traffic etc [it was 4th of July Weekend] so we ended up in Port Liberty about 9:00 AM which is way early as boarding starts a little past noon. On the plus side though, parking and check-in were a breeze, coffee, juice and cookies were plentiful and, between looking through our borrowed Bermuda tour book and people watching, the time passed quickly.
We were on, I think, the second bus taking us the 200 or so yards to the gangway and having lunch in Windjammer before 1:00 PM. We toured the ship and found it, as many have noted, a little the worse for wear but overall well-kept and beautiful. Out balcony cabin was adequate but not impressive. We were on the hump and I had heard the balconies were a little roomier but ours seemed cramped to me. Also there was a notable [though not overpowering] sewage smell in the bathroom. I also noticed it in one or two other places on the ship. I've heard of this but never really experienced it before. You'd think they would have dealt with the issue by now.