I was traveling with my wife and 5 of our friends. We had go to the Philadelphia Airport to pick up the RCCL bus which would take us to the NYC pier. There was a bus already there and I asked the driver if he was the only bus going to NYC. He didn't know. There were 7 of us in my party and at that time, only 4 of us were present. Another bus finally came and the remaining 3 from our party arrived. We got to NYC by 2:00 and we made our way up the elevator in the terminal to get to our ship. There weren't many RCCL personel around to instruct the crowd where to go. We made it to the embarkation line and even had a little snack while waiting to board. As we boarded the ship, we had our first encounter with the ship's photographer. We did end up buying that picture later in the cruise.

The ship is very nice. It is not really too small and it is in good shape considering it is 10 years old. We went down to our rooms which were on the 3rd deck. The rooms were small, which we expected, having been on Premier a few years ago. We had a window and what a large window it was!! The 2 single beds were pushed together and that left only a small amount of room along one side of the bed. There wasn't enough room for us to open our 2 suitcases at the same time. The bathroom was extremely tiny. We found out later that when drying off from a shower, you had to open the door in order to turn around. But anyway... We explored the ship. The main showroom, Strike UP the Band, was very large and it had 2 floors. If you are upstairs, you'll have trouble seeing the stage if you sit away from the railing. The casino is nice and it takes up 2 floors with a couple slot machines on a 3rd level, along with the Internet Computers. The main diningroom was very nice also. It is in the front of the ship and it is also 2 floors. We had table 19 on the top floor and our waiter/assistant were very nice and funny. I think he enjoyed our group a lot--we were always making jokes with him and he was talkative and social, and provided us with excellent service.

The food was good. I had some of the best steaks I've ever eaten and I think we all enjoyed our meals. I will say that the desserts were not as good as they looked. It took us until Saturday night(the last night) for us to get a really good chocolate dessert. The cakes all seemed to be a little spongy. The food in the diningroom was definitely better than the food in the Windjammer. Everyday they had hotdogs, hamburgers,fries and salad in the Windjammer. We made it to lunch in the diningroom once or twice and we had breakfast almost everyday in the diningroom. It was open seating for breakfast and lunch except on the last day--breakfast was served at your reserved table.

Bermuda is a very nice island. The main drawback was the Dockyard stop. There is not much in the area although I heard that the area has been built up--built up from what, I don't know. You really need to take a bus to get anywhere. The bus system seems to be ok. The drivers are polite and I think the locals are all used to the tourists causing delays. The buses get very crowded and there is a lot of 'standing room only'--the buses are small to begin with and there is no rear exit door. When people have to get off, everyone must squeeze in between the seats to make room. The ferry system is pretty good--we did take a ferry to Hamilton from the Dockyards and it was very convenient.

We went to Church Bay to snorkel and it was a nice beach. We saw plenty of fish and the beach was not very crowded (unlike Tobacco Bay). We are not really beachgoers so we only went to the beach one day. Hamilton is nice. We went there the day before the ship did and there were two ships in port that day. The port is right there in the center of town. We did the normal tourist stuff--walkin up Front Street and in the side streets to do shopping. Plenty of stores and souvenier shops to visit. One of our gang even got a haircut while we were there. The weather was very hot. We didn't think it would be this hot and even the locals said it was unusual. There was no rain, of course we have no control over the weather, but luck was on our side this trip. Make sure to visit the Gibbs Lighthouse. You will get some excellent views of the island and you can see all the ports.

We made the mistake of staying on the ship when it changed ports. We should have gone to St. George's that day but we decided to sail with the ship when it went to Hamilton from the Dockyards. We did get to pass the Pacific Princess along the way though. Everyday there were activities on the ship to keep you busy. The cruise staff was very good and we became buddies with one of the staff, Bobby Brown. He is good at his job and very entertaining. We did get his email address and hope to stay in touch with him. He also taught some line dance classes. The entertainment on the ship was also top notch.

Debarkation was a bit of a disappointment. We were supposed to be back at Phila. Airport by 12:00 and here we didn't get off the ship until "of-12". Everyone just sat around the lounges until they finally got us all off the ship. And the port people did not check luggage tags or ID, nor did they check us at customs.

I'll wrap this up by saying that we had a great time and would definitely recommend this ship to others. As long as you don't have high expectations as far as room size and can deal with the lack of activities at the Dockyards, you will enjoy it. Any questions, feel free to email me.