Introduction: We sailed on the 5-day cruise to St. John and Halifax on July 10th. There were 4 of us in our group. 2 adults, 2 children. (Ages 9 and 11.)

Embarkation: Getting to the pier and the embarkation process was SO much easier than we had anticipated. We have family who lives near the city, so we had visited with them for a couple of days prior to our cruise. We took a train into the city, and grabbed a taxi from Grand Central. Even with a weeks worth of luggage in tow, we managed just fine. We actually got to the pier a little after 10:30am. We were seeing passengers from the previous cruise still debarking.

Right as we pulled up to the curb in our taxi, there were people there to take our luggage. We tipped them well and were off to get signed in. There were probably about 30-40 people already sitting in chairs, signed in and waiting to board. There was no line at all and we walked right up to the next available attendant. We got our sign and sail cards and got all registered. It took about 5 minutes, and then we joined the folks waiting to board the ship. They made an announcement shortly after we sat down that we would be boarding very shortly. We then went through security, had photos taken and were on the ship around 11-11:30am. Read more