EMBARKATION:

Okay let me start with the stats: I'm 22, BF is 24. Neither of us have any kids, both first time cruisers. We're from South Jersey just a romantic trip vacation with the BF. Anyways, to put it mildly, I was STRESSED out with the Blizzard coming. I'm a total snow/ice phobic person, so it was a nail biter for me. We had originally planned on leaving Sunday morning about 11 am, as we're only about 1 ½ hours away from Baltimore. Once we got wind of the storm, we debated on leaving early, but completely couldn't. BF's job had him on a tight schedule, and he couldn't take off a day earlier without being penalized. As everyone knows, we got SLAMMED. We stuck with our original plan and left Sunday morning, except we left about 9am instead, in hopes maybe since I-95 is a major highway it would take major priority. AS IT DID I-95 was beautiful! If it wasn't for all the salt on the road, you wouldn't be able to tell it snowed. I SERIOUSLY commend all road workers, they did their thing with this one! Anywho.... Since we left at 9am, and the roads were good, we got to the Port of Baltimore about 10:30-11.... LOL.... Better late than never I guess. The parking lot at the port was still being shoveled, and that made the line to get into the port REALLY REALLY long. By the time we finally got into the port, paid for parking, and got on the boat it was about 2pm. We didn't drop any of our luggage to the baggage people, we carried EVERYTHING on with us, and took it all to the room ourselves. I wouldn't advise anyone to do this that has a lot of luggage, BF and I only had about 2 suitcases a piece, so we managed, but for someone else it might be a big hassle. The rooms weren't ready yet, they kept repeating that over the PA system and told everyone to go to the Mermaid Grille for lunch, but we dropped our stuff off in the room anyway (I know we're bad) and then went to lunch! After we ate, we walked around for a bit, got acclimated with the ship, and then went back to our rooms to unpack.

DÉCOR: I've heard soooo much about the dEcor on the ship, and it really is up to the individual and their own preference. I thought it was beautiful, art is art. All the ships can't look the same, and I thought they did a nice job with the dEcor. BF said he thought it was a bit much, but I thought it was nice. Read more