Awesome starter or quickie cruise

Cruises: 1 cruise (first)

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 43

Review summary

This was our first cruise. I'm sure other boats do nicer things and are bigger and have more amenities, but not knowing means this will blow you away. The food was great and always available. The staff was extremely kind and friendly. People outside NY will think the drinks are outrageously priced, but as a NYer, it was pretty average ($7-$15). There were always activities for both adults and children (we have none though). Trivia, karaoke, dancing, shows, mini golf, food tasting, arcade, comedy, and more. The casino was great, more than enough room for all the guests and a nice sports bar for watching the games. The room was certainly big enough and the bathroom had everything you wanted (including water pressure, which surprised me), except space - one at a time only. The pamphlet each day was super helpful with a complete schedule of events and a few highlighted items. I snapped a picture with my phone to have it handy. But the bad: We took a room on deck 2 at the back. It was SUPER loud. The whole room shook when they spun the engines up or down. As long as they did this while we were out, it was fine. But on docking days, it was usually early in the mornings and woke us up. Avoid the lower decks at the back. Pay the extra for a higher deck. You should explain the tip thing beforehand. Short story: they autotip $12 per person per day unless you go stand in guest services to cancel it. It's not bad, worked out to $100 for us, we were happy to pay it given the amazing service we received. They don't reload the cards in the continuous shufflers in the casino during the cruise. For you blackjack players, that means that by day 3, the cards are sour and you should avoid the tables like the plague. Just having continuous shufflers at all is usually enough for me, but there are no non-continuous shuffle tables on this boat. All the whirlpools were off. I find it hard to believe it was mechanical since they are all over the boat and don't use a single pump or anything. No decent explanation was given. If you're not married, don't bother going to the love game - it's only for married people. There was no pool over 20ft long. I like to swim laps, not stand in water. Other boats have 40 and 50 foot pools but not here. Leave the bathing suit at home - you can tan in shorts. The pools were constantly packed, and one drained at 11pm every night - rather early if you ask me. Bring a surge protector - there is exactly one outlet in your room. One. The TV was showing news and weather from Miami but the boat left from NY and went to Canada. Useless. No cell service - it's not surprising, but maybe you don't know your phone will NOT work. And it's $2 a minute to use their phones (retarded - it's 2013 - it should be $0.25 tops and still a huge profit for them). No Internet. Unless you want to pay through the nose. Literally 6 months of my Internet at home or 4 days on this boat. The cheapest plan is for just a few hours and costs 2 months of my Internet at home. Not worth it. Wait until you dock somewhere and find a place. For example - in St John New Brunswick, there is a bar just up the street from the port called Saint John Ale House - great food, great prices, free Wifi. Download Talkatone and Google Voice and you are all set. The galley is always in the middle of the ship (as I understand it) and therefore, there is always a deck you cannot pass through to get from front to back. You have to go up and over or down and under. Keep this in mind.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Ports of call

New York, New York

Saint John, New Brunswick

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