So we chose this cruise because I liked the idea that it was refurbished and it looked beautiful with lots to do. We are 5 people in an oceanview room. First, embarkation was fantastic! We parked in the manhattan terminal parking and from the time we parked to the time we got on the ship was maybe 20 minutes all together. Easy! Our room wasn’t ready yet since it was only around 12:15 so they tell you to go hang out near the buffet they are serving lunch. First of all I’m glad we check our luggage and didn’t bring it with us while we waited because the buffet area was PACKED! I mean really bad and my first thought was this is going to be a miserable 8 days with all these people here. We finally found a seat but didn’t bother getting food because the lines were outrageous. Finally our room was done around 1:30. We get to our room after waiting for the excruciatingly slow elevators and we are on deck 2 aft. First thing I notice is our room is very very warm! I like a nice cool/cold room in the summer and this wasn’t even close. We met our room steward and immediately tell him about it thinking he would see if I didn’t have the ac on the proper setting (we did, it was as cool as the ac would go). Ok so I’m thinking once the ship actually starts and we leave it will get cooler in the room and the ac will actually kick in. So we decide to go exploring.

The ship is beautiful. But yes extremely crowded. The pool area is WAYYYY too small for the amount of people, that the only times we were able to go and enjoy it was after dinner (we had early 6pm dining) so it wasn’t too crowded at that point. I guess most people were at the later dining or your time dining or at shows. Our youngest loves the pool and was what she looked forward to the most and we didn’t want to disappoint by not going so it was the only time we could really go. Any earlier and there were no seats at all and no room in the pool. The dining room was great our wait staff was fabulous, we thought the food most of the time was wonderful and the chocolate melting cake was insane!! We looked forward to going there every night. Guys pig and anchor located on deck 10 was fabulous as well and barely ever a line. Also guys burgers was great and the line moved fast, the deli always had a long line but worth the wait and also moved pretty fast. Never had too long of a wait. Overall we were pretty happy with most of the food even the room service which always said 45 minutes to an hour wait but it never took that long. We never ate at the buffet the lines were just ridiculous. I mean really bad except for one afternoon right after we got back on the ship from one of the ports we went right up to get lunch and there was hardly a line. The entertainment was great, the casino was fun, the kids enjoyed the game room although expensive and they spent too much money in there. The Dr Suess breakfast was adorable and worth the extra $5 a person. If you have little ones with you def take them to it.

Back to the two worst parts of this cruise for us...the ac in the room never got better. It was always warm in the room. They came in twice to to check, had some little device that checked the temp of the room. The first guy just said he will fix it but never did so we complained again. The second time a woman came and said that the device was reading higher than 74 degrees and that she herself felt warm just standing there so she was going to have maintenance fix it and she was going to come Back the next day to check again. She never did. The ac never worked properly the whole cruise. She gave us a fan which I can’t stand but had no choice and used it anyway. After a long hot day of sitting on the beach at the ports or walking around shopping or just about anything, we like to come back to a nice cool comfortable room to unwind and relax before dinner but we couldn’t even do that since it was too warm. Read more