A little background. My husband and I are both 49. Our daughters are 13 &18. I love cruising, my husband not as much. We were traveling with my sister, her husband and 14 year old son. They are diamond in a junior suite. We were staying in a Grand Suite for the first time. We are gold. We were on the ship the week before Easter. Hotels are much more expensive during spring break. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Airport/Cruise. Very nice. Excellent staff. Easily arranged for transportation to port for $7/pp.
Shuttle picked us up at 10:00. We were at the pier by 10:20. We were through check-in in about 20 min and went to the suite waiting area. Very nice area to wait before boarding. We began boarding at 11:00 am. This all went very smooth.
The ship - a definite WOW. We loved the neighborhood areas. They were very clean and we never felt that there were over 6000+ passengers on board.
We loved our Grand Suite. Deck 6. Boardwalk neighborhood. Conveniently close to elevators and easily stair accessible to other neighborhoods. We did not have any outside noise. Excellent room attendant, Eddie. I am going to find it very difficult to go back to a balcony room after experiencing the suites. We spent a fair amount of time in the suite just enjoying it and the large balcony area.