We drove down to Houston a few days early and spent some extra time there. It was a family vacation and a party for a new life as my sister in law was moving to Alaska. We started in an inside stateroom. As the date towards the cruise came closer I called and upgraded to a balcony suite. (9516) Best decision ever. That ocean breeze is nice and sleeping with the balcony open I liked a lot. My husband is always hot, so it worked well for him too. The thing I didn't like is you couldn't hear announcements from the inside of your room.
We purchased excursions at each port through NCL. Their phone customer service reps were great. I printed off all those and took them with me, I also printed off the beverage package verification we bought through NCL. The passion beach excursion was probably the worst. It was terrible. The beach was cloudy and you couldn't snorkel unless you got far enough out. Seaweed was all over and they had one man shoveling it and using a wheel barrow to move it. I felt so bad for the guy. Everything on passion island was overpriced. Save your money for the other ports, in the city it might be different I don't know. In Belize it rained, we did the Bacab Jungle, though it rained we made the most of it. It did let up some. The bad part was the trails were closed due to flooding. Now they did offer us a refund upfront but we had come all this way to make Belize the family day so we all went. Even with the rain it was more fun than Mexico. The best excursion was the dolphin swim encounter and snorkel. Anthony's Keys staff were very informative one tiny downside, no cameras allowed WHILE snorkeling. Bring your waterproof camera and video camera you will have times to use them. Also I invested in the $55.00 cost for photos they took, which was over 20 photos emailed to you. I received mine with no problems. They were good photos.
Watch your spending before the ship leaves international waters or you will pay taxes even with the beverage package. Hit the international waters and shop.
Really great! I suggest balcony for all cruisers. It's sort of like first class for airplanes.