Five of us DROVE from New Hampshire to Port Canaveral! The secret to a happy drive that long is plenty of bottled water, snack food and separate DVD players with a bag of cheap DVD's from Wal-Mart. Our party consisted of myself and my husband along with our 17 y.o. son, his 17 y.o. cousin and our 9 y.o. daughter. My husband and I have cruised four times, once on the Explorer and twice on NCL ships; our kids have cruised three times. We stopped the first night at the Hampton Inn in Wilson, NC, which was excellent value for money. The next day we drove to Port Canaveral and stayed at the Residence Inn, which is very close to the port and was very nice.

Embarkation was a breeze compared to our experience on the Explorer out of Miami two years ago. We unloaded the bags around 12:45 and then my husband parked the car. Very easy port compared to Miami. We were on board not more than 20 minutes later. We had an oceanview cabin for my husband, daughter and me and an inside across the hall for my son and his cousin. The cabin had ample storage for our stuff even though I always overpack. The bed was not very comfortable, but not terrible. The linens were nice and the cabin service was excellent. I never saw any room for improvement in the way our cabin steward performed his job.

The ship is beautiful, both inside and out. Watching it from shore is a pleasure. Even though there were so many passengers on it, I never felt cramped. Few lines of people, plenty of seating, plenty of lounge chairs on deck. There were lots of families with kids on the ship, lots of elderly people, lots of Europeans and Canadians as well as Americans. Read more