About us: Husband and Wife - early 50's taking our 3rd cruise, first on NCL and first time in a suite - we had an SF Penthouse Aft suite on the 10th floor. Previous cruises were on RCL (ocean view stateroom) and CCL (aft balcony cabin). We originally booked this cruise a year ago in a mini suite. In April a Penthouse Suite became available to we decided to upgrade ourselves. It was about $1200 more to do so, and in the grand scheme of things, it was worth it and afterall you only live once!

Embarkation: We arrived by car service to the NY pier at about 11:30am. The porters were waiting and our luggage was taken right away and we were able to walk right into the terminal. Once inside, we were shown the line to wait on for VIP check in. This was painless, very quick and absolutely awesome. There were a few hundred people on line already waiting to check in - so this suite perk alone was well worth it!!! We were then brought into the VIP waiting area where there was cold/hot beverages, cookies and small sandwiches to pick on while waiting to board. After about 30 minutes the concierge, Ryan Rabe introduced himself to the group and said that he would be taking us on board to enjoy lunch in Cagney's in about 15 minutes. We were not able to drop off our carry-on luggage in the room prior - so we had to lug it with us. We did not yet meet our butler and that was the last time we saw the concierge except for sitting in Cagney's on his lap top during breakfast hours.

Lunch at Cagney's was great and it is available to only Suite guests for both lunch and breakfast thru-out the cruise. We ordered the French dip w/fries (delish) and the Shrimp/Scallop dish (not so delish). By the time we finished our meals, our suite was ready - just about 2:00pm. (On a side note, if it wasn't for Cruise Critic, we would have never known about this daily suite perk). Read more