This was our 6th cruise, but first one in a few years as recent vacations have been to beach resorts. This was also our first cruise with NCL. We picked this itinerary based on sailing date, 10 day duration and sailing from New Orleans. We spend 4 nights in New Orleans pre cruise which definitely put us in vacation mode prior to boarding the ship.

Embarkation was smooth. We had heard a lot of cruisers had issues but we must have missed it all. For our New Orleans stay we had booked an AIRBNB on Common just off of Canal. So we walked to the port, it took about 25 minutes. One note here. we wanted to hit an ATM for some cash before boarding. We couldn't find a bank in that area, but we walked right past the casino so stopped there for a break and hit the ATM. Wife had setup checkin for 12:00 noon and was told not to arrive at port before 11:00 am. We got to the terminal about 10:45. Checked our suitcases with Porter outside, walked right in and into first line. Right away we heard them announce boarding group #1. The line moved at a good pace and we were given group #8 at checkin. We only sat in the second area for about 10 minutes before our group was called and we were taken to the ship. We were onboard, well before 12:00 noon.

We headed to O'Sheehan's Bar & Grill for a cold beer or 2 and some wings. This tended to be our go to spot for a quick snack and drink throughout the cruise. About 12:30 the wife ran up and found our cabin was ready. So we headed to deck 12 to check it out. Read more