We left on December 29, 2007. The boarding process was quite easy, and we were met with champagne in several areas on the ship. Since we couldn't go to our cabins yet, the first place we went was to the buffet lunch. Once again, lots of free champagne! The lunch was pretty good. The hamburgers that are cooked out on the deck grill are excellent.

However, we were quite surprised not to find hand sanitizing stations in the eating area. We have cruised several times, on three other cruiselines, and we've never been on a ship where there was no hand sanitizer. Also, we were dismayed at that point to find that the public restrooms were not very clean. There was toilet paper and paper towels on the floors, and the doors were scraped and needed painting.

We were allowed into our rooms in the early afternoon, and were happy to find that they were spacious and clean. We knew ahead of time that there were no blowdryers, and so we brought our own. Read more