A friend and I chose this cruise to get away from a Canadian winter. We spent a few days in NYCbefore heading out into the wilds of Brooklyn to board the ship. Once our taxi found the entrance to the port, some decent signposting would help, we entered the cavernous terminal and eventually made our way to the desk. The agent helping us seemed confused as two people with different names where sharing a cabin and we wanted separate bills, but eventually it seemed to be sorted out. We made made it on to the ship and were greeted in the lobby by singers belting out Christmas songs at full blast. The lobby is suprisingly small for the size of the ship and was extremely noisy. We were pointed in the general direction of the elevators and made our way to our cabin. The steward seemed surprised to see us and told us that our cabin was not ready due to a leaking pipe. By this time my friend, who has mobility issues, needed to sit down, so I had him open the cabin and we discovered that ceiling tiles had been taken down, the carpet ripped up, and what remained was soaking wet. No way was this cabin going to be ready by the time we sailed! I went down to the pursers office and managed to make myself heard over the singers who were right in front of the desk. Eventually we were assigned to a new cabin, managed to get ourselves settled and had a bite to eat in the Kings Court buffet, whereupon it was time for the safety at sea talk. We were assigned to the Kings Court mustering station and the place was packed, glad we already were seated

Things did improve and certainly the dinners in the MDR were good. I am lactose intolerant and my table appreciated the fact thar I got the menu a day early to make my choices. You had a choice of very early or very late dining. If the latter you usually couldn't make the late show...so didn't see any . Reasonably good series of lectures on history and cultures of the Caribbean.

Did three excursions, one, tall ship sailing in St Maarten was excellent. Enjoyed the cooking class/lunch in St Kitts. The aquarium trip in St Thomas was terrible, complained via letter to the tours office re behaviour of accompanying staff member. Got a discount. Read more