Boarding began rough, with a long line caused by equipment malfunction in the port of Manhattan, NYC. By the time we got in, it was nearly 4 PM, an hour after the listed sailaway time. The ship only left port at 5:40 PM, nearly 3 hours late. Buffet was less crowded than usual on embarkation day, and stateroom was ready with luggage by the time we boarded the ship. Sailaway party was cancelled due to rough weather, and we did not hear about a muster drill but sure there was one, just before we boarded.

We dined in the MDR Taste at 6 PM, before the show "First Night". Food in Taste was excellent but slightly delayed service than normal for a ship this size. The buffet also had an ice cream stand, something I either never noticed before or there never was on cruise ships, but nevertheless great feature. We also tried out MDRs Savor & The Manhattan Room, located on Deck 7 Aft, a deck above the Taste/Savor MDRs. Food was of equal quality but service was more expedited in The Manhattan Room, where we celebrated a birthday.

Our ports were Orlando, FL, Great Stirrup Cay, and Nassau. The ship did unfortunately skip Great Stirrup Cay due to weather, but the 2 stops we had were fabulous. We got $28 OBC per person (port fees). Since we booked through the CruiseNext program from our previous NCL cruise, we had OBC from that as well. Unfortunately, on both the 1st sea day and the last sea day in/out of NY harbor the ship had encountered rough weather causing her to rock hard. The crew had put out barf bags on all the stairwells too. Read more