For the last seven days, my husband and I were fed, pampered, entertained and welcomed on the Norwegian Sun cruise headed to the Eastern Caribbean. We had an amazing experience. Going into it, I figured I would have a million stories about how it changed our relationship to be on a trip together without our children for the first time ever. Well, I did come away with those stories, but I have also decided to share our cruise story from the point of view of a first-time cruiser. What can you expect upon embarkation? Where can you save a little cash? How much should you pack? I will address our trip in detail to provide you with some information that will hopefully help you have the best cruise experience possible.

We decided several months ago that in honor of our fifth anniversary, we were going to take a trip sans kids. In the late winter we began researching locations and it became pretty apparent that in order for us to truly relax, we were going to have to be out of the touch. We needed a place where we couldn't use our phones or iPads or even be tempted to pay for these services, so a cruise it was.

It took us away from cell towers, allowed us to explore several different locations and gave us downtime on our sea days just to hang out together. Read more