We sailed from San Juan on Sunday 3rd June 2007, following the "Southern Caribbean" itinerary that took in Barbados, St.Lucia, Antigua, St.Maarten and St.Thomas. My wife and I are both 50 years of age and while we are regular vacation-takers, we were first-time cruisers. We flew in from Scotland for the trip, staying at the Marriott Stellaris resort in Condado for one night before the cruise, and a very relaxing four days afterwards. As this is a Cruise Review, I will stick to the events of the seven days on board, and won't cover the flights, hotel etc. Basically, I will summarize our views in six main categories - Embarkation, Accommodation, Dining, Entertainment on board, Excursions and Disembarkation. It's going to be long, so if you want to look at only one or two sections, I'll try and make it easy to do.

EMBARKATION: After watching our ship arrive in San Juan early in the morning from our hotel balcony, we checked out and set off for the Terminal around 11:45am. Around fifteen minutes later we were at the dockside which was relatively quiet. We unloaded our luggage and possibly made one of our few mistakes on the trip as I did not follow the "Express Check-in for Suite guests" which directed us to the left, but instead gave our luggage to the first available porter who offered his services. He quickly took our bags and pointed us in the direction of the main entrance. While he did a good enough job, we were one of the last to ultimately get our luggage (at 8:45pm), though whether we would have gotten it sooner had we gone to the sign-posted spot for Suite guests, who knows? Anyway, we quickly went through the doorway, was asked to fill-in a questionnaire about flight times for our return, and proceeded to the counter to hand over our pre-printed SeaPass forms, and get our Sea Passes. As part of this process, they also validate the credit card you use to get your SeaPass account, and you are done. A quick detour to sample some free Bacardi shots, a quick photograph for "security purposes" and we were walking up the ramp to the ship. One quick "souvenir photo" later, and we were walking onto Deck 4 of the ship at 12:10, less than half an hour after leaving our hotel and only ten minutes or so after arriving at the pier. If anything, it was possibly too efficient as we did not have time to take it all in. But, you have to say, it was efficient - though one warning. Despite the fact that they validated my credit card, and gave us our Sea Passes, and even though they worked for the first day or so, at one point (on the evening of Day 2) the waiter pointed out to me that my card wasn't working as no credit card had ever been registered, so it was being treated as a cash account, and I would have to go see Guest Services. One very quick visit to the desk sorted things out and I had no further problem, but I was advised by Guest Services that in future even if they tell you at the dock that they have added your credit card details to your record, there is often a bug in the system and it doesn't transfer correctly onboard, so you should always double-check that the card has been registered with them as soon as you board. As we stepped onboard we were told that the cabins would be ready at 2pm, but we were free to "join us for lunch" in The Windjammer and explore the ship until then. Since our Wedding Anniversary was on the Tuesday, we wanted to book Portofino's for Tuesday, so we immediately took the elevator up to Deck 11 to make our booking; we also tried to get tickets for the Ice Show from Guest Services, but was told that they would be given out for both evenings at 10:30 the next morning, which they were. So, we then went back up to Windjammers and had a very enjoyable, leisurely lunch. Overall, a remarkably efficient embarkation.

ACCOMMODATION: Just after 2pm, the doors opened and we were able to go to our Staterooms. I was a little anxious as I am used to staying at good hotels on business, and even though I had researched the cabins thoroughly, I was worried about its size and location. Given that we had travelled so far, and we would be staying in San Juan for four days after the cruise, we had three large suitcases, and I was worried about storage space also. However, as soon as we got off the elevator on Deck 10 and turned into the corridor, we sensed all would be well. We were in a Junior Suite, Aft on the Starboard side - 1340 to be precise, about 4 suites behind "the hump". When we walked in we were immediately impressed. The dEcor was very fresh and the room seemed very spacious. A Queen-size bed, three-seat sofa, a couple of armchairs and a coffee table, all nicely spaced with no sense of anything being crammed into a small space. The glass doors opened onto a good-size balcony with two more chairs, a sun-lounger and another small table. Very impressive. Even the bathroom - which included a bath with an integrated shower unit - was decent sized, though the slightly stale odor in the bathroom was one of the few minor irritants we encountered. For closet space, there was a large walk-in closet that had more hanging space than even we needed, with ample room to store our three suitcases when empty - though I discovered almost at the end of the cruise that all three cases fit comfortably under the bed. It didn't matter, there was so much space in the closet that the cases were not a problem there. I must hand it to the designers of these staterooms - there were so many drawers, cabinets, etc in the room that we had several storage spaces that we did not even use. There was way more storage than you get in an average room in a good hotel. We loved our Stateroom and would never even think of sailing in anything other than this type of room again. Lastly, the bed was so comfortable, the AC worked really well, and the location was good too, directly under Portofino which meant we were close to Windjammer, while on the right part of the ship to get up and down quickly to the main dining room - it was just wonderful. DINING: We were assigned table 318 in the Vivaldi room, on Deck 3. In fact, we had the table immediately alongside the Captain's table. We were assigned to a Table of ten (can't recall what I requested), though only on one night were all ten of us there. Sometimes there were eight, but mostly there were only six of us. All of our tablemates were interesting and good company, and we enjoyed their company very much. We ate in the main dining room every night except the Tuesday (our anniversary) when we ate in Portofino's. In the main dining room we had Robert (from Romania) as our waiter, with Pamela (Peru) as his assistant. They were very efficient, friendly and knowledgeable, without being over-bearing or pushy. Robert always gave good recommendations, and they were both willing to help whenever he could. In fairness, I think we all gave them quite an easy time, for while lots of people at other tables were asking for extra portions of this or that, or multiple different options, we all pretty much ordered one starter, one main, one dessert each - with one or two rare exceptions. We certainly couldn't fault the service. The food was generally of a high standard, though perhaps did not have as many options as I expected. However, there was always a Steak dish, a Pasta dish, a Fish dish and a Vegetarian option as the main entrees which varied each night, as well as another one of each that remained constant every night. The quality of the dishes was all as good as most good restaurants in any major city in the world, though perhaps for the bigger appetites, portions might be a little small - but, as I said, you could always ask for more. For me, it was just about perfect. We ate dinner in Portofino on Tuesday and were very happy to have done so. Even though it's an extra $20 per head, the extra-personal service, and the slightly higher standard of food was well worth it. Again, top marks for service here. As for Windjammer, that scores high marks also. We ate lunch a few times, as well as breakfast most days. The selection was always good, and the quality surprisingly high given the amount of food they had to prepare. I was impressed with the cleanliness as often in a buffet-style restaurant serving large numbers, hygiene is an issue. I felt that because everything was "under glass" it seemed to be more hygienic, and even though this made it slightly more difficult to access each item, it was a worthwhile trade-off. One last point on the buffet is that they did not seem to be slow to replace items. In many buffets they will wait until an item is almost completely finished before replacing it, but here they seemed to replace a tray with a fresh one when there was around 30% remaining in the existing one - and they seemed to discard the old one, not add it to the new one! I should have checked them out for dinner just to see how it was then, but I am sure it would have been equally good then. While we ate Breakfast in Windjammer most days, on two occasions when we were going off on excursions we ordered room service for "7:30-8:00". On both days we got a telephone call at exactly 7:30 to tell us that our order would be with us "in two minutes" and it was. The quality was very good again, and there was something special about having breakfast on our balcony as we slid into port. Lastly, we had Pizza and sandwiches a couple of times in the Cafe Promenade. As stated in previous reviews, good quality at all hours. The only possible complaint is that the pizzas are quite small and they only have three out at a time, which means you might have to wait a little to get what you want. It was never a big delay, but it just seemed like they could put out possibly a few more pies, and perhaps bigger ones, simply to cut down the waiting time. Read more