Due to previous problems with Norovirus and the fact that the ship was returning for the first time from Europe we had a delayed boarding that did not start until 2 pm. In addition to doing extra cleaning the ship was dealing with a coast guard inspection and immigration (we later found out from a crew member that they had all been up since 4 am, many getting very little sleep the night before). We had been notified by Celebrity about a week before that the sailing would be delayed. We were staying at The Atlantic Resort and we waited until noon to check out because of the delay and then went to a leisurely lunch. We waited until just after 2 pm to actually show up at the port. Unfortunately they were still not checking people in and the line now snaked out in front of the building twice. We just took our place and made the best of it, we had also packed minimal carry-ons, just a backpack each, anticipating this, which worked out great. Celebrity was handing out water, snacks and making sure older people who needed to sit where taken inside. In my opinion most people seemed to be in good spirits about the whole thing, although it did seem like there were a lot of people who did not realize the ship could be so delayed even without the noro, which only added to delay, because of returning from Europe (Thank you CC members!). Once inside check in was a breeze. The Aqua Class line was pretty short and we were on within 15 minutes.

Once on board we found out the cabins would not be ready until 5:30 pm. No worries though, we had purchased the premium alcohol package and headed up to the lawn club bar to meet up with other members of our roll call. We also did a little exploring around the ship, making sure to avoid the buffet area! YIKES! I was so glad we had already eaten when I saw that place. The cabins were ready around 6 pm and because of it there was no dress code the first night. We also left port late. I believe it was almost 6:30 pm by the time we finally headed out. We dropped our stuff off, met our room steward and then headed off to Blu.

We had cabin 1610 and my parnters parents had cabin 1608. Both cabins are on the hump and had huge balconies. We were also able to get the room steward to open up the divider which made the balcony even bigger! It was great. The rooms were also in a great location midship and just a short walk to the elevators. We'd heard of people having noise concerns in that location, but we had no problem whatsoever. Read more