This was supposedly the first itinerary for this ship and there were a great deal of teething pains. I traveled with my husband and fifteen year old son. The embarkation in Brooklyn was very quick, we got there around 1 pm and were on the ship in about fifteen minutes! The cabin was a huge disappointment. It was listed as a minisuite, but it was more like a deluxe balcony room. There was a foldout couch for the third person, the usual beds and the bathroom had a tub. The room looked like it was decorated in the 1970's. It was in need of a huge face lift. The couch was very stained, the carpeting by the balcony was coming up to the point where the tacks could have gotten in your feet. We are all non-smokers and the smell of smoke was coming in our room several times each day throughout the cruise. The beds must have been bought from Alcatraz when they closed. The pillowtop on my mattress at home is thicker than the entire mattresses on the bed. The foldout couch had wooden slats you could feel. There were two tv's and two remotes that operated each tv, that led to a lot of yelling when a channel was changed on the wrong tv. The tv had the usual fare, the first day we must have watched Hairspray five times, they had the usual Princess channels, a few cartoon networks and two movie channels with only four movies or so a day.

It seemed like the majority of the cruise was over 65, there were about 300 children and couples that were in their 30's. Not too many teenagers or 20 year olds.

The activities were sparse, especially if you are used to Carnival which usually has ten things going on at once. There was maybe a trivia game, some board game, a bingo and at night, music, dancing and karaoke. One activity that I really enjoyed was, instead of singing karaoke, you sang with a live band playing behind you. I was one of the few that tried it, and it was really fun, the band was great and they would sing back up on the choruses. The only problem was they had a very limited list of songs and they were almost all by male groups, and being female, I sing more female songs, but I managed to get through Summer of 69 without people leaving. A few of the movies under the stars were ok , but they ran out of blankets every night. Read more