All in all we had a great time. If you can go Haven you should, it is more expensive but worth every penny. Embarkation was great, it took about 20 minutes from the time we arrived at the Port of Miami to be inside our cabin and exploring the ship. The reception staff was excellent. We dined at The Haven restraunt the first night and had breakfast there by the Haven pool every morning. We brought our 2 children 11 and 13, they hung out at the kids pools and waterslides mostly. The Haven pool is a smaller plunge type pool surrounded by a shallow wading pool with lounge chairs in it. No fighting for pool chairs here there are plenty and it is not as crowded. We called it our "morning pool" AKA "hangover pool" as it is much calmer and quiet compared to the "party pools". The service and staff were great. The food at the Haven restaraunt is good as is all the food we tried. We went to Tepinyaki the Japenese steak house, the kids enjoyed it so much they went twice,we preferred a changing menu so we did go to Tropicanna and Savor as well. We also tried the Italian and Brazillan options, we went to ocean blue but the menu did not appeal to us so we did not eat there. All the food was good I read some reviews claiming there was no lobster, and the only place we found lobster was the Japenese steak house, my 11 year old son was the only one that ordered it, but he gave it a thumbs up.

I have to say the muster drill on this ship was the smoothest I've ever gone through. As a former travel agent I can tell you I have been on many different cruise ships and cruise lines. NCL does a very nice job. There are plenty of activities to participate in, the staff is friendly the service was good and the food was good. The drinks are reasonably priced and the upcharge dining options are reasonable as well.

I have one very important piece of advice for anyone traveling with older children, DO NOT LET THEM GO TO THE ARCADE ALONE. We made this mistake assuming that the arcade on this ship would be similar to others where the kids could buy 10 or 20 bucks worth of tokens on the ship card and would limit the amount spent in the arcade. HA joke was on us, now I take partial responsibility for this because my husband and I were doing our own thing and not really paying attention, however the kids do not buy tokens to play the games. They simply swipe and play, some games are .50 some are $1.00 but apparently the best ones are $6.00 per play...yea I said $6.00 PER PLAY. Anyway my husband is kind of a freak about money so I made him promise not to look at the accumulating cabin charges until halfway through the trip because he would start to drive us all crazy. So half way through the trip he looked and darn near keeled over, our beloved little angels had racked up an arcade bill of nearly $800.00. Yea that is $800.00 US dollars. No he did not feed them to the sharks or drop dead of a heart attack, but we did prohibit any further trips to the arcade. By the way they also have vending machines in the arcade so they can also swipe and get candy or soda as well. It's like a kiddie casino without limits, beware you have been warned. Read more