We live in New York so we were drawn to the option of leaving from the city. It was quick and convenient. The price you pay for booking the cruise is a starter price. The service charge per day went from $12 to $12.95 which were were able to avoid by pre-paying. Room service is $7.95 per order (why? we're still trying to figure that out). EVERYTHING, whether you pre-pay or not has a 18% gratuity charge. Only bad part is if the service is bad, your still paying 18%. I've traveled twice before on Carnival and our travel agent from Norwegian said this would be a different class of ship and promised us a bottle of wine that we never got.

The Ship: Very big and clean! There is a lot on the ship and you may not see all that it has to offer in the 7 days (A lot of walking).

Dining: Uptown Bar & Grill, Garden Cafe, Shanghi Noodle Bar, Taste, Savor, the Manhattan Room and O'Sheehan are complimentary. The food in Taste, Savor and the Manhattan Room are the same. We went to one specialty dining which was Moderno, not so nice experience. We never got our cheese bread and our waiter was m.i.a. most of the time. Food was good for the most part, really enjoyed the breakfast food and ice cream. Read more