We chose this cruise for the itinerary at a reasonable price. There were 3 stops and 3 full sea days. We were originally planning on leaving from a more northern port, but decided that we would have a better chance of good weather from beginning to end, leaving out of Fort Lauderdale. That proved to be the case. Fort Lauderdale had great weather from the time we arrived at the ship. Embarkation was very smooth and we were on and eating yummy food and drinking the beverage of the day by 12:30.

The first stop was Princess Cays, the private Island and we elected to do the snorkel excursion there. It was a little cloudy during the excursion so the beauty was diminished slightly, but we still saw quite a variety of fish, and it was my first experience seeing and following a stingray on a general snorkeling trip. We both enjoy snorkeling, but I had seen no reviews for this excursion so was worried, but my husband and I both thought it was worth the expense. It was also well run and a lifeguard was with us to keep us safe. We then returned to the island and spent the rest of the day there. We were on the quiet side so never really felt overwhelmed by crowds. In all, it was a very nice day and it did become sunny and beautiful later.

I will talk about sea days now. Our cabin was on the same deck as where all the pools are and a variety of food venues so we spent a lot of time there. It was a short walk down the hall and then we were out enjoying the day. Deck 15 has a lot of area to enjoy pools and sun and fun. One thing I would say is that sometimes it was hard to find a shaded area that wasn’t “saved” for the day. We noticed some lounge chairs would have personal items on them and the people saving them would not show up for several hours. This seems a little unkind to the people searching to get out of the sun. If you’re not going to be there, should you be taking the chair all day? We both had several hotdogs from the Salty Dog in the afternoons on ship and we highly recommended them. The back of the ship had a nice deck area for people too. It was fun to sit and watch the wake. We did that a few times and those seats were in high demand. There is also a large screen for under the stars movies in the evening. We did not partake of that as we had late dinner seating and show times did not work for us. But on walkthroughs it looked like people were enjoying the movies and were provided with comfy chaises and blankets if it was cooler. The large screen also had presentations by the cruise director during the mornings. Read more