Day One My DW and I live in San Francisco, so it was a breeze to get to the Norwegian Sun, docked at Pier 35. We left the house at 10:45 and were dropped off by 11:30, very heavy traffic on King Street because it was the final home game of the Giants, and of course traffic was heavy as we got closer to the pier. The weather was perfect, must have been in the 80"s, I was expecting it to be cool, but it was a beautiful day, not a sign of fog. We were greeted by a porter as we unloaded our luggage, and he happily took our luggage and that of our two friends, I gave him a five dollar tip, because he was very nice. The check in process was long, it took over one and a half hour to finally be checked in and on the ship. I overheard that three of the computers were down for a while. They broke the line up into two parts, with a chance to sit for a few minutes before continuing to line up for check in. The actual check in was very quick and was over in a matter of minutes. The security check was quick and they seem more concerned with any metal you might be carrying, that with what was in your bags, no one even looked twice at our carry on bag full of soda, it could have been alcohol for all they know. So even thought we didn't carry any on board, I don't think that it would have been a problem bring any aboard. After we walked up the ramps, very long ramps, at the end of which we were greeted by the first of the picture takers. We passed on this and proceeded on the ship. We were greeted by hand sanitizers before we arrived at the id card scan to board. There was ample orange juice and sparkling wine being offered to welcome us aboard. We were directed to head for the Garden Cafe for the welcome aboard lunch, no one offered us the Seven Seas for a sit down lunch. We found out that this option was available later in our Freestyle Daily. The lunch at the buffet as very good, with carved roast beef, rotisserie chicken, salads, hot dogs and hamburgers. However the lines were very long. I remembered from CC that there was a buffet sit up also at the rear of the ship at the Great Outdoor Cafe, we got hamburgers and hot dogs and salads there and there was no line at all. It was still early and there was ample seating. All in all a very good beginning to our 11 day cruise. After we ate, at 1:45, we started for our rooms, and were told by quite a few people that the rooms were not ready yet, but as we were trying out our key cards, the announcement came that the rooms were in fact ready. We had booked an inside cabin, category JJ and got room 8318. The room was next to the atrium elevators, but was very quiet. We liked the fact that it was very easy to get to any floor by either elevator or stairs. We brought a night light with us because the room is very dark, and it came in really handy. We went in, the room was in good shape and not as small as we expected an inside to be. We unpacked our carry on luggage and prepared for the 3:30 mandatory life boat drill. We got to our muster station just to heard that because of the slow boarding, the muster was moved to 4:00. The muster, once it got started, went quickly, about 20 minutes, although we almost got heat stroke, standing in the not sun! Our luggage arrived at around 4:30 and we put everything away until we went back upstairs to watch us go under the bridge, it got very cold, remember to bring a jacket next time. It got colder and colder as we got to the bridge. We had dinner in the Seven Seas restaurant, and service was quick and efficient. The food was good and the portions was more that enough. They still had cold soup, it was peach and delicious. I had the mahi-mahi and it was moist and very tasty, my DW had the leg of lamb, but found it a little too rare, so we switched and both were happy. The vanilla soufflE for dessert was delicious. After dinner, we checked out the casino, signed up for the player's card, and I paid $10 for $20 in slot play. I won $73, wow! We went to Stardust Lounge for the 9:30 show. They sold crackers before the show and sold quite a bit, but we did not see anyone jumping and shouting "I won!". The show was very good. The Jean Ryan dancers were beautiful and the singers were good. The comedian, John Pinney was very funny, and he only made a couple of "how small the shower was" jokes, it was a relief. Our cruise director is Pedro Serra. We never did see our room stewards this day and they did not refill our ice nor turned down our beds. The room did have a slight cigarette smell, but not too overwhelming. All in all, a very good start.

Day Two Had breakfast in the Garden Cafe, which was very crowded, so again went out to the Great Outdoor Cafe, no lines, eggs cooked easy over, bacon, croissants and fresh fruit. The coffee up here was fresh brewed and very hot and fresh. Taste like Columbian so not for those who like their dark roast. You don't have to brew your own, because the coffee was very good. We went to our CC meet and greet and had a lot of fun putting faces to the people we talked to on our roll call. Five of the ship's officers came to speak a little about the ship, very interesting and informative. We did the sit down lunch at the Seven Seas dinning room, they had cold pineapple soup on the menu that was refreshing and delicious. My DW had the meat loaf and I had the sweet and sour grouper, both the dishes were excellent and the portions were just enough to fill us without overwhelming. At 1 pm was the Latitudes cocktail party, the captain was there with some of the ship's officers, there were prizes given out and all in all, again it was interesting and informative. For dinner tonight we again went to the Seven Seas, it was a formal or not night, so quite a few people were dressed up in formal, but the majority of the people were dressed resort casual, one man was even in shorts and sandals and he was seated. We had the soy sauce duck, lobster and groper and Beef Wellington. Yes, lots of food, but we wanted to try everything. The duck was overcooked, dry and way over salted. The lobster and groper was excellent, but only half a lobster tail. The Beef Wellington was good, but the crust was soggy. There was carrot and orange cold soup, my only complaint about the cold soup was that it is never cold, only slightly cool. Dinner was good and the service as usual was excellent. The Seven Seas was the restaurant to go to, Four Seas was full by 6. The coffee in the dinning room is really hit or miss, sometimes we got served coffee that sat in the carafe too long and it tasted it. On the other hand, the coffee in the buffet was good even at 11 at night. The show tonight was the Jean Ryan dancers doing "Nos Nocias". It had a lot of energy, but in the end, it was a little boring. The music in most cases was canned, the band just pretended to play, makes you wonder if the singers were actually singing.

Day Three Breakfast at the Great Outdoor Cafe, same things, I guess they don't really change the breakfast offerings too much. Will have to try the sit down breakfast to see if there is anything different. Watched the Wii archery demonstration, interesting. Lunch was at the Seven Seas, today they had the fried calamari, very good and crisp. The cold soup was blueberry, and for the first time, it was actually cold. We had the undon noodles, very salty, the beef curry, very tasty but the Nan bread was over salted, the ginger fried rice was very good. Dinner tonight was at La Bistro. We had received two free dinners from our travel agent. The meal was as other Ccs pointed out took almost two hours. We had the escargot, rack of lamb and the boullibyse and for dessert, we had the vanilla Crème Brule. All in all the service was good and the food was more than good, although we did enjoy the main dinning room and probably would not have paid for this. The coffee here was very fresh. The show tonight was the Amazing Brenda Kyle, hypnotist. It was funny, but you wonder how many were actually hypnotized and how many were just going thought the motions. In the casino every night about 11:30 was the lite bites, fresh fruit, egg rolls, pastries, cookies and sandwiches. I guess this is for the late night gamblers and is in place of the midnight buffet. Read more