As a heads up as to how I am writing this review, two years prior to this cruise we had gone on Norwegian Dawn and liked it, so throughout this trip we were always comparing the two ships, there positives and negatives.

We found embarkation to be oddly easy and stress free. While we did wait a bit in the waiting area for our group, the lines never seemed to get long and when we finally did go through security it took less than 5 minutes to get from there onto the ship. As we entered the ship we were all pretty taken aback by the many colorful decorations and art since it was the complete opposite of any cruise our whole group has been on. We decided to not take the main glass elevators (pretty cool elevators) and took the aft elevators since it was closer to our room, and no line. I would recommend doing the same to get away from the crowds.

After exiting the elevators we had trouble even towards the end of cruise of knowing which way our room was since you could have gone 4 different ways and after exiting a different elevator each time, it only got more confusing. We eventually decided to look for the direction with the Phantom and followed such. We had room 5299 which was an Aft Extended Balcony. The room was about the same as Norwegian: a bed, a couch, a flat screen, closets, and a bathroom. My cousin and I felt the shower was bigger than Norwegian but the rest of my family felt it was smaller. We didn't like that it had a curtain rather than doors but we were fine with it. Another negative about the shower was no shelves so all of our shampoo, conditioner, and body wash had to go on the ground which was a bit annoying but still fine. The only other negative was the lack of area to dry and hang clothing. There was a line above the shower but it could hold two or three items of clothing tops. The balcony was a HUGE plus to this room because it was definitely bigger than the one we had on Norwegian. We had two chairs and a lounge chair but could have easily fit two lounge chairs with enough room for the table and to walk. During the trip it was our personal serenity area because it was so quiet it creeped us out the first night! Read more