This was our first cruise (wife); I was originally going to book on line, but I decided to go with an agent. I booked this tour in early February for a departure of 3 June for 7 days. I read many of the posts on cruise critic to give me an idea what to expect. We are about 50 miles from pier 91, so we drove up and parked in the provided parking lot for a sum of $177.00. This was a good deal when you consider many of the passengers had to fly in from around the country, and some stayed in hotels before the shipped sailed. I received my room assignment one week before departure. I did not get an upgrade or any offer to upgrade. So, we got our assigned room.

On the day of departure, it was relative easy going through check in and security. We both carried passports. It took about 15-20 minutes for security and check in. We had to wait over an hour in this large room for our number to be called to get on the ship; we were in group nine.

After bordering the ship, we went to our assigned room and put our carryon in the room. My wife luggage was already there. It was about 1330, so we went upstairs to the 9th deck Lido, and we ate in the CANALETTO RESTAURANT and the food was good. After lunch we went back to the room and began touring the ship on our own. I brought 4 cameras with me if you include my cell phone. I had a hand held camcorder, Nikon 9100, and my Nikon 5100 with telephoto lenses; all my cameras are capable of taking still and videos, photography is one of my hobbies. We were assigned to sit at a table of 8, I got that change to a table for two; I could not change my scheduled meal time of 1945, I would have preferred the 1730 time frame, I tried to get this change at the time of booking; I was told it was filled?????? Read more