Embarkation/First hours on board: We got to the pier around 12:30. There were long lines but it moved quickly. We were on board by 1:30, and went directly to the Bimini Bar above the pool to get a drink and burgers. No one was there which was nice. While we were still eating they announced that rooms were ready so we didn't have to wait very long. Also the lifeboat drill was the least painful of any I have ever done. You didn't even need to wear the silly lifejacket which was a nice surprise. The whole thing lasted at most 15 minutes.

Staterooms: Our stateroom (inside, 8th floor) was ok. Not the biggest in the world but I have been on 4 other cruises and didn't expect much from an inside cabin. The bathroom was pretty big, plenty of room to maneuver. It was bigger than any others I had seen before. Although they do not have conditioner in the shower or anywhere to buy on the ship. If you need any, bring your own. We had to buy some in Bermuda. Our luggage was delivered to the room relatively quickly so we were both happy about that. We unpacked immediately and there seemed to be more than enough room for 2 people's clothes for a week. One major downfall was that we NEVER saw our room steward. On past cruises I was used to getting to know them and seeing them several times a day. Ours seemed like a ghost. When we first got to the room we discovered the beds were separate and we wanted them together. I couldn't find anyone to help so we pushed the beds together ourselves hoping to give the room steward a "clue" that we needed him to change the sheets to queen size. Upon moving the beds we discovered that the room wasn't very clean under the one bed, we even found an old can of sunscreen. That didn't leave us feeling very good about the cleanliness of anything else. That night (even after seeing the beds pushed together) he simply turned down the beds, didn't change the sheets so one of us was constantly falling in the crack throughout the first night. I did find someone in the morning to ask to fix the bed and he seemed annoyed that they would have to do this and claimed it wouldn't be done til later because they had to go downstairs to get the bedding. Didn't matter much to me because we weren't going to be sleeping anymore that day, but still it seemed like something they should have done immediately. Also later in the week they took our two beach towels (which we had left on the floor, meaning replace) but never brought new ones. Since NCL claims you will be charged if they aren't there at the end of the week, I had to write a note to the absentee steward to ensure we got new ones. I feel like on other cruises I could have literally poked my head out of the room and gotten new ones, not had to write a note. We also only got a towel animal one night, which isn't a huge deal, but is a nice touch. I think only a few of the days did we receive the newsletter for the following day, so it was hard to know what was going on. The last day they should have left us disembarkation directions, but none were to be found. Luckily this wasn't my first cruise so I knew what to do. Otherwise we would have been lost. So overall room service was poor. The tv is small, and there isn't much to watch. Most people don't go on vacation to watch tv, but there were times where we were getting ready for dinner etc that it would have been nice to have some sort of entertainment on. There are no clocks in the room, and if you have an inside cabin this can be tough because the sun doesn't wake you up. I brought a portable little alarm clock that really helped with getting up, and figuring out what time it was when you wake up and its pitch dark.

The ship- Overall the ship is decent. Not the nicest I've been on, but certainly nice enough. A lot of the public areas seemed too small for the amount of people. Two of these being the Blue Lagoon restaurant, and the pool area. The pool is just way too tiny for 2,000 people. Every day it seemed like just a sea of heads in the water. It was also impossible to get a chair, even early because people definitely were placing towels and other items down to "save" chairs, and not coming back for hours. Thankfully I had read that the front of the ship was a) quieter (adult only hot tub) and b) had open chairs. We went there the first two sea days.. the first being completely empty, but by the second day people had figured it out. We still were able to get chairs tho. Generally we would go to the pool for a few hours, then hit the gym, and then return to the pool later in the afternoon. By 3 or 4 o'clock the pool area was much emptier and we were able to sit in the main area and enjoy the sun, hot tubs and a much less hectic pool. The drink waiters definitely push and push for you to buy drinks but you just have to say no thanks and they move on. We did get to know one waiter and it was nice for him to call us by name (the only person on the whole ship who took the time to get to know us!) and it was convenient for him to know what we liked as well. One negative was that they always seemed to be fixing something on the ship. I know it it's out and about 7 days per week, but it seemed like there were always ladders in our hallway, area's closed due to construction, men ripping up carpet etc. While it didn't bother us too much, it just felt like the boat was coming apart. The gym was pretty nice. Some of the machines had issues, but most seemed to work fine. Mornings were too crowded but afternoons it was easy to get a machine (even next to each other). We are both swimmers and had considered paying to use the lap pool in the spa but upon looking at it, we realized it was way too small to actually swim laps and wasn't worth the extra money. Read more