My wife and I sailed out of New York on Monday, April 23, 2007 for a 11 day cruise to the Southern Caribbean. We live only about 15 minutes if there is no traffic from the port. This was our third trip on the Dawn and fourth overall with NCL (one trip on the Spirit) in the last two years.
Embarkation Getting on the boat is a nightmare. Extremely bad. Poorly handled. People waited for hours. As previous cruisers with NCl, we are Latitudes members which helped only at the final stages of the boarding. The Latitudes area is so crowded that you can't get into it so you end up waiting with everyone else. For hours. Only at the final check in can you use the Latitudes lines. Royal Caribbean which departs out of Bayonne handles Embarkation much more efficiently without huge lines. If New York can't handle the embarkation move the boats to New Jersey because there is nothing worse then starting your trip off being annoyed about waiting 2 hours to get on the boat.
The first night the water was very rough, as always around the Carolinas. 60 mph winds and several outside decks closed.