The following is all our experience and opinion only. Your's may vary. We arrived at the port at 10:40, just 30 minutes after leaving our home in Jersey City. My sister drove us so we could avoid parking charges. Surprisingly there was no traffic from the main road to the pier, a first for us. This was our 15th cruise. We've sailed all the major lines and have never had a bad cruise. Princess is our favorite with Royal Caribbean coming in a close second. We also like Carnival, which in our opinion has the best food. NCL is another line we like, but their food is weak, just a notch above Cunard which, for some reason has food that is just not good.

Dropped of our luggage, cleared security, got our key cards and had our photo taken all in 15 minutes. We had boarding number 39. Boarding was posted to start at noon. Just 15 minutes later, at 11:15 boarding started with number 36 being called. At 11:30 we were in the Windjammer getting lunch. Throughout the cruise they would be installing new carpets at night on the starboard side of the Windjammer. BTW, we never had trouble finding a seat or table though out the entire cruise. For a ship sailing full, it never felt crowded.

Lunch was good with pasta selections, fish, cold cuts, soups and an incredibly tender carved beef roast. Lemonade, a fruit drink and water were available if you chose not to buy a soda card. That was fine for us. The dessert tray was also nice with fresh cookies, various cakes, jello and more. The first thing we noticed was the service which was superb. Read more