This is the seventh cruise that I have been on, the first on NCL. The Pride of America is a very nice ship; the crew is friendly and works hard. After reading all the negative reviews about this cruise I had low expectations, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The ship was in great shape.

Embarkation was slow, but we were on the ship by 1:55 and made it to the Skyline dining room in time for lunch. My chicken dish was really good and the service was fine. While we were eating they announced that the cabins on decks 7 and 8 were ready, so right after lunch we headed upstairs. Our luggage was waiting for us in the hall outside our cabin. The first impression of the balcony cabin was how small it seemed, but we unpacked and got everything away.

We headed to the aft pool on deck 12 and got a lounge chair right by the really tiny pool. We found that during the week we spent a lot of time on the aft decks 11-12, since our room was in the aft of the ship as well. There was a nice bar on deck 11 aft and we ate breakfast most mornings in Moderno, a supplemental breakfast buffet, also aft. As we were not traveling with kids this was a great location. In fact I never got in the Main Pool all week. Read more