My wife and I did a trans-Atlintic cruise two years ago and we really enjoyed it. We have never been to the Azores or Ireland before so we decided to do this cruise. We flew from DFW to Tampa a few days early, rented a car and enjoyed various sights in FL. The embarkation process was rather painless and we were on the ship within the hour. Our cabin on deck 11 was a mini suite with a balcony, very roomy for the two of us. Only complaint about the room was the extra high bath tub walls. My wife could not negotiate the climb into the tub but the cabin attendant did supply us with a small step stool. This was our 15th cruise overall and all of them have been enjoyable with only a few complaints here and there. This cruise was for the most part fun and memorable except for one terrifing moment that I will mention later..

The staff from officers down to the cabin attendant were helpful and attentive. The nightly entertainment, for the most part was enjoyable and there was a lot to do on the ship to keep one occupied. To me the food was not very appetizing, the buffet offerings on deck 12 were mostly the same every day, curry and Asian food. Got tired of that fast. The up charge restaurants, especially Cagny's and Tappanyaki were excellent, was not that impressed with La Cusina. The other restaurants were OK but nothing to brag about.

The first port was Key West. Key West is always a fun place to visit. Miami the second port did not seem that interesting so we just spent the day on the ship. We reached the Azores 8 days later. At Ponta Delgado we took a tour of the island using a local taxi driver, beautiful place, photographing the craters and the countryside was a lot of fun. We also toured a very old tea factory. At the port of Cobh/Cork we took a local tour bus to Blarney castle and a few other small towns. The next stop was Falmouth, UK. At all of the previous ports the ship was able to pull right up to the port facilities, The water around Falmouth is too shallow to accept a large cruise ship. Here we had to use the ships lifeboats as tenders to ferry passengers to shore. The tender ride took about 30 minutes and the waters were calm and the ride was smooth. At Falmouth we took an excursion provided by NCL to the quaint village of Polporro, well worth the cost. Now for the horror story. On the tender ride back to the ship the seas were high and very choppy. The tender driver proceeded at high speed toward the ship ignoring the high seas, the ride was very rough with water coming into the boat through the seals in the windows, people were screaming and were rather scared. While we continued at high speed, I noticed another tender to our port side. It seemed to me that the two boats were racing each other back to the ship, ignoring the comfort of the passengers. A few moments later the other boat turned to the starboard and rammed our boat at high speed, the impact was directly at the window where my wife was sitting. The screams from the passengers reached a high pitch. I heard that a few people were hurt but I no not know the extent. I feel that the actions of both boat drivers was very unprofessional and dangerous to the passengers, they should have slowed down. That was a very harrowing experience and at no time did any of the crew or officers apologize to the passengers for putting them through that, there were a lot of elderly people aboard both tenders. I am sure that I could never talk my wife into taking another tender ride again. The remainder of the trip to Southampton was pleasant. Debarkation was easy. We took a tour to Stonehenge and a few other places before going to the airport for the flight home.