Our group of 5 arrived in San Juan the night before sailing. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Condado, which worked out perfectly as we were close to restaurants and beaches. The 5 consisted of myself (55 y/o female, my best friend, and our 3 college-aged kids). There were some children on this trip, but not as many as I'd expected.

The ship was quite clean, but the decorating left me cold. At one point, my son mentioned that it looked like it was done by 6 different decorators, all in the same spaces. It was hard for me to look past how gaudy it was, but that was surface. The crew was terrific, and the food was some of the best I've had in over 180 days at sea, in both the dining room and the buffet.

We had adjoining rooms (1422/1424) and that worked out well. Close to elevators which would take us directly to the buffet and the adults-only pool. The flow of the ship was also well thought out. As usual, once we embarked and had a bite to eat, three of us did my usual tour of the ship....Go as high as possible via the elevators, then walk the entire decks, walking down stairs to keep the elevators free. We did skip walking on the cabin-only decks (why bother?), but got our bearings during the hour or so it took to see everything. Read more