Awesomeness!

Cruise was the best vacation we ever had and we have been on a lot of vacations and 6 cruise ships including 1 Royal Caribbean  cruise.  To start from the beginning,  embarkation was smooth, the whole process probably  took about 20 minutes at the most and that was for 4 people.  We had 2 cabins on the 8th floor.  The cabins were made up the way we requested previously online,  me and my wife had the 1 full size and my 2 boys had 2 twin beds.  Rooms were very clean and typical for a cruise ship.   Lido deck was fun, of course we all hit Guy's up for burgers.  The blue iguana was nice too, soft shelled tacos on one side and taco salads and burritos with all the trimmings on the other side.  Buffets were kinda bland though.   What they would do basically was 'rename' items that were offered in the dining room and serve them up fresh.  Buffet wasn't too bad but I  would hate to be on a ship that only had buffet cuisine and no special eateries. The fresh fruit kinda saved the buffets in my opinion. Breakfast was decent but my boys complained about the pancake  syrup. Said it was  watery.?  Seafood Shack was excellent.  My wife loves fried shrimp and is very hard to please when it comes to them,  these were fresher and better than your typical fast food restaurant and they weren't the breaded panko shrimp either that they sometimes serve in the dining room.  These were actual hand breaded and fried, fresh shrimp.  Definitely worth the extra money.   We only done the dining room 3 times out of the 8 days we were on the ship.  There were just too many other choices to be confined and a constant presence in the dining room every night.  But when we were there the food was good, decent quality  The lamb chops were good and somewhat memorable.   The Italian resturant ,i think it's something like Cupina cuchina or something similar to that was very good also.  I had the Garlic shrimp fettuccine Alfredo  and my wife had the meat lasagna.   Worth the small upcharge also but on some days it was free, a scaled down version of there offerings.  My favorite restaurant on the whole ship though was the Guy's Pig and Anchor joint.  Delicious!  I stayed away on the first sea day because i thought all they served was pork until someone told me they had beef ribs and  chicken.  Barbecue  was some of the best i ever had on sea or land.  Macroni and  cheese was really good.   The sauces were great too.  The restaurant was only open on sea days and only for a couple of hours and there was always a line but it was worth it,  they even could have charged and I wouldnt have had a problem with paying, it was that good.  Entertainment on the ship was always great.  They had the Nba finals playing on the Lido deck and we watched every game and made new friends.  Game shows were awesome, we really liked the Hasbro and the Quest Game show.  My wife really liked the cruise director, he was entertaining and full of spontaneous energy but i didn't like his Scottish accent.  Layout of the ship was not a problem and it was always clean,  the staff were always picking up plates  and trash.  The gym was kinda small though for a ship that size in my opinion.  The ports of call were great also, with my favorite being the Dominican republic . They all were good though. Beaches in Aruba are a must see.  All in all this is a really nice new, up to date ship with a nice southern Caribbean itinerary.  If you can afford it,  book it.  Worth every penny.