NCL booked all of our flights and transfers. They booked us a non-stop from Boston to Orlando, but our return flight stopped at JFK on the way back. There were dozens of non-stop flights from Orlando to Boston that day at a similar price - not sure why NCL picked the flight thru JFK that got us home hours 2-3 later.

We flew into Orlando the day before our cruise and stayed at a Hampton Inn near the airport. The hotel shuttle picked us up and dropped us off at the airport the next morning so we could catch the NCL bus to Port Canaveral. We got to the airport at 10am and were passengers #204 & #205 waiting for the bus. At about 11am we were called to board our bus. Our bus left at 11:20am and we got to the Port Canaveral terminal building shortly after noon. Lots of NCL people were there to direct us and security & registration was fairly quick. On the ship about 12:45. After fixing some dinner reservations at the customer service desk, we headed up to the Garden Cafe to meet-up with other family members that were already on board. We checked out our balcony cabin at about 2 and had the lifeboat drill at about 3pm. Our assembly station was D1 which was somewhere on deck 7. Lifeboat drill was a bit confusing as the crew waited until hundreds of people were wandering around on deck 7 before they brought out the assembly station signs and people knew where to go. Also one crew was walking around talking thru a bullhorn - I couldn't understand a single work he said. Dinner for our group of 10 was in the Manhattan Room at 6pm. Food was good, service was slow (took 30 minutes for our orders to be taken and dessert was served 2 hours after we were seated.) We missed the 7:30 show.

Next 2 days were at sea. We attended the Cruise Critic Meet and Greet and got to chat with other cruisers. We enjoyed our balcony cabin. We had most of our meals in the Garden Cafe. We went to Moderno for an Asian food lunch. Dinners were in Savor and Cagneys. We attended the Burn the Floor show but the drums were too loud for my wife (she has ear/hearing issues) and we left the theater after about 15 minutes. Because of my wife's hearing issues we generally don't spend much time on the pool deck or other loud public areas. Read more