I sailed this ship with my husband and two young boys the week prior to Christmas. We had a fantastic time! My husband and I have visited Oahu before, so we only spent one night prior to the cruise in Waikiki Beach at the Hilton Hawaii. It was our second visit to this hotel and it has yet to disappoint. My kids loved the large swimming pool geared towards families. Of course, there is an even larger pool for all adults. And the beach is large and not too crowded. We arrived Friday night, just in time to catch the weekly fireworks display from our balcony. It was hard to leave the hotel on Saturday, but we couldn't wait to get to the ship.

We arrived to the ship about noon. First, you need to get in line to drop off your luggage. The line was long, but moved very fast. I had not pre-printed my luggage tags, but they created them for me with no delay. Then you get in line to go through security and to the main check-in. The wait to get through security took about 1/2 hour, but the wait to check in was pretty quick as they had a large number of employees on hand. Overall, the process was just under an hour, which was not bad given we were probably at the peak of the boarding process. Personally, I would have waited at the Hilton pool another 2 hours and likely faced a shorter check-in, but my family was anxious to get on board.

Once on board, it appeared all services were open to guests. We had lunch at the buffet, which was very busy (again, I would have had lunch prior to boarding the ship). Just as we finished eating lunch at about 2pm, they annournced that all state rooms were ready for guests to enter. That was fast, and much appreciated. Our luggage showed up within two hours of that (except one bag that somehow got lost and arrived about 7pm). Read more