We drove from CT to the port. We followed pot hole alley. Just kidding, but wow the pot holes in NJ!! My DH and 2 17yr old girls traveled the week of school break February 16th. We had a balcony aft on the 9th floor. While there were over 1000 kids on board, it really wasn't that noticable. We have all traveled on RC, the Explorer before and found the food to be much better than in the past. After the first night, the girls found others their age and commenced having the trip of a lifetime, coming in late every night. The cruise is great for this age group, my only advice would be to have a nightly dance party for kids this age. They aren't old enough to go to the bars (18) and too old to really do the typical scavanger hunts. But they did have a ball even though they were always trying to find places to dance. Most parents can attest that if the kids are having a good time, the parents are having a good time. There is nothing worse on vacation when kids are looking at you with glum faces telling you they are bored. Didn't happen here so we had a great time.
We enjoyed most of the nightly shows. We are not fans of singing and dancing but thats just our taste. The comedian was good and the magician was perfect for the family audience and was entertaining to all. I had already seen the ice show but the girls went and thought it was great. The marriage show and Quest was a riot. The activities director Leigh was high energy and was perfect for the job, really ad libbing and cracked jokes constantly during the game shows. He couldn't have been better.
Our servers turned out to be extremely nice and we got really lucky with our wonderful tablemates: Walter & Phyllis, Meme and John who turned out to be perfect new friends.