We drove to NYC on February 1st. For those looking to drive and not pay the outrageous port fees, we stayed at the Wyndham Garden in Newark, New Jersey. We chose the "stay & fly" package which was $155+tax and included 14 days FREE parking.... that's right, completely FREE! To get to Manhattan, we took the hotels free shuttle service to the airport, then took the NJ transit train into Penn station for only $12/person. It was incredibly easy and worth every penny (to save us from driving in NYC traffic)

Embarkation was incredibly simple and fast, we were on the ship by 11:30am with absolutely no issues.

We had lunch at Tsar's Palace, which was good but not the same "incredible ship food" I was expecting. Read more