The Emerald is huge so lots of activities are available every day. In fact, I almost enjoyed the days at sea more than the destinations because we were able to relax, enjoy the sun, and not stress about food or transportation. The ship is luxurious and the service was always great. I loved the convenience of the pizza, burger, and ice cream bars near the swimming pools, and when we wanted a bit of quiet, we really enjoyed the adult pool area. I liked that I could go to the sauna and steam room whenever I wanted, didn't have to pay extra to enter those. We were pretty lazy the entire trip, so I don't know much about activities, but I know there were tons. One thing I loved was they played movies on a huge outdoor screen right above one of the pools every night.

We were lucky enough to get a private table at dinner, not sure if that was because we were on a honey moon. The food was delicious every night. It kinda sucks that you're on a schedules dinner and ours was kinda late (8:30pm I think) but we would get late afternoon snacks at the buffets so we wouldn't be starving. We paid an extra $35pp for unlimited soft drinks for the week, which I thought was a fair deal. We watched the night entertainment presentations in the theater every night and enjoyed those, except one night when they had a dirty and not-funny stand-up comedian, so we left.

Embarkation/disembarkation were always a pain. I guess that's how it always is. To avoid long lines, we would eat at the buffet during disembarkation (to the islands) that way we also wouldn't spend money on food at the islands. I remember thinking the safety instructions before we set sail were so annoyingly long, but that's how it always is. Read more