We flew to LA a day prior to the cruise, took Super Shuttle to San Pedro and spent the night at the DoubleTree hotel. They provided a free shuttle to the ship.This was my 32nd cruise, 2nd on NCL. Embarkation went smoothly and wait time to get on the ship was not too long but waiting for the staterooms to be ready took way too long IMO. The ship was clean and well maintained except the glass panels on our balcony were dirty on our arrival and never cleaned. The muster drill was the shortest one I've ever had to attend.

BTW : NCL no longer allows you to bring any water or beverages [except bottled/sealed wine] on board and confiscated our 2 store bought small water bottles when we went through security.

My mini suite cabin 11176 was under the Garden Cafe [as are most 11th deck cabins] and the noise from chairs scrapping the floor was loud and annoying especially during sleep hours.The cabin was large with good lighting, had USB ports in the 2 lights over the headboard and 2 by the desk near the balcony.Storage was not great,only 2 drawers, only 1 bedside table and several shelves. The closet was small for a 14 day cruise, 2 people could not have hung all their clothes in there [my spouse used the shelves for most of his clothes]. The safe was in the closet and extremely hard to access. The bathroom was a good size with good pressure shower head in the bath tub which had sliding doors to contain spray.The lighting was not very bright.There was a magnifying mirror but it was permanently affixed about 4.5 feet high off the floor so I was not able to use it since I'm 5'8. The toiletries did not smell very good to me......seemed to be a stale odd scent which did not connote clean. Read more