This was a short 5 day cruise out of Vancouver with stops in Victoria and San Francisco before disembarking in Los Angeles. We don't normally take short cruises, but we wanted to experience a brand new ship. We had a wonderful time. Although this is one of NCL's larger ships we never felt overcrowded or overwhelmed. We have preferred smaller ships in the past but this changed our perspective.

We arrived in Vancouver two days early to explore the city. We stayed at the Marriot Downtown Pinnacle. This is a perfect place to stay precruise because it is walking distance to many spots as well as to the cruise terminal. Unfortunately on embarkation day it was pouring down rain, so we took a taxi for a five minute ride. Because the ship arrived empty from Seattle, we were able to board early in the morning, about 10:00. There were no lines at all and were able to get to our room immediately. We immediately began exploring. The ship is easy to get around and all restaurants and bars are easy to locate. We had lunch in the garden buffet. Excellent variety of fresh food. We then checked out the rest of the ship. There is a giant screen TV at the main pool where live NFL football was on. They also show movies there at night. Very cool. Our bags were delivered to our room promptly and we met our room steward who was very pleasant.

We are "Platinum Members" and we also had a meal plan so we dined at specialty restaurants each night. We ate Cagney"s which never disappoints, Ocean Blue, La Cucina, Los Lobos and Q. A little disappointed at the selection at Ocean Blue as they did not have lobster. They also dropped my wife's favorite tea that she had on the Getaway. La Cucina has been updated and was very good. Los Lobos and Q are both new restaurants. Los Lobos was upscale Mexican complete with table side guacamole preparation. The rest of the menu was excellent. Q is the new barbecue restaurant and was excellent as well. As far as bars, the new District Brew Pub had a great variety of micro brews on tap. Read more