We drove from New Jersey arriving at the port in New York at 10:45am. Upon arrival, we learned that the ship arrived at 10:00am due to a storm. Coincidence, but when we finished our cruise, we too were late arriving in New York due to a storm. I suspect there was no storm, that there were other factors making the ship late.

We waited about half an hour before we could go through customs. That part was efficient. Since the ship was late docking, the passengers could not leave the ship on time, and therefore, we would not be able to get on the ship in a decent time. We received our ship cards and were assigned numbers, according to our deck. This number would determine when we would board the ship. We were in group 4. The first group called were the VIPs and those with mobility problems. They were herded onto the ship like cattle. This was my first cruise, but I thought that the VIPs would have been treated better than that. In any case, all the groups were herded like cattle onto the ship, so I felt no different than the VIPs. As well, while the first groups of people, I would say about 1200 people were preparing to board the ship, another 800 or so were in the queue line waiting to receive their ship cards. They could not be processed until we and the other early arrival groups would board the ship. We finally boarded the ship at 1:45pm and proceeded to our cabin to check it out. We then went to the buffet for lunch.

We can honestly say that the food during the entire cruise was pretty good. With a wide variety of food, every meal was different for me. Me and my wife were considering trying Nick and Nora's once during the cruise, but in talking with other passengers, we soon found out that you only have a choice of 1 entree and if you do not like that entree, there is no alternative. We decided not to try Nick and Nora's, due to that reason and also because the food in the buffet and in the Bacchus was good. The only issue me and my wife had with the food was that there could have been more tropical fruit in the morning (watermelon, pineapple, mango, papaya etc.). There could have been more Caribbean dishes since we were on a Caribbean cruise. The boys especially enjoyed the warm melting chocolate cake, the 24 hour pizza and 24 hour ice cream. Read more