Fun cruise for the family on a budget!

Embarkation was easy. We parked right at the port, 5 night cruise for $150. This is a pretty decent price for Manhattan. The parking is so close to the port building you can just walk right to it, though they do have a shuttle. There is also a handicapped lot even closer but you are required to have a tag. We dropped our luggage first, then parked and walked in. We waited about 10 minutes until we actually walked onto the ship. we arrive about 1145 for our 12-1230 check in.

The buffets were decent, i think we went twice? Though it seems a bit unorganized with the buffets all along where the cooks are and then additional island buffets. So there is no actual line really for anything. I do wish they offered trays or something, considering it gets so crowded in the buffet, it was hard to hold my kids plates, make sure i didnt lose them, and search for food all at once. My kids are a bit too young to go sit at the tables themselves or get their own food. The MDR was pretty fast, we had early seating 515. we did MDR on two of the 5 nights. The variety was good. I do wish they had better options for the kids, i believe it was just mac and cheese, a burger or chicken fingers. My kids often ordered off the adult menu. the other three nights we did specialty dining. Went to Giovannis twice, and chops once. The first night we went to giovannis was the first night we were in bermuda. We came off the island and by the time everyone was cleaned up it was about 730pm so we missed dinner, and my husband really doesnt like going to buffets. We walked over to giovannis with no reservation and they sat us within 10 minutes. i cannot get over how amazing the food was here. if i could have eaten here every night i would have. incredibly accommodating, quick service, and everything was delicious. i ordered a filet and a half serving of one of their pastas. also a dessert and app of course. we went here again the next night but had a reservation this time. were lucky enough to have the same server (Ben) and hostess (i forget her name). the last night we went to chops. the food was good, the service was much slower. i did have to remind our server a few times we had been waiting on drinks. our experience here was about 2 hours but i think it was just because they were so busy. they did comp our drinks for the night which was lovely and unexpected. I do want to mention the breakfast in MDR and buffet is just......ok. its the same thing every day, and really just a very basic breakfast. Don't expect anything fancy.

Believe it or not the pools were not overly crowded. There were multiple times we got into the pools and hot tubs with no issues. The rock climbing seemed to kind of be at weird times so we never got to try it. The kids splash area is getting pretty worn out, the paint is wearing away, and the colorful slides are very faded. I'm not a huge fan of having to check towels in and out, and only one towel stand in the whole area. we did watch some people doing flowrider a few times. They had this activity going pretty often, however the time slots were based on age, which i found kind of weird. like early afternoon for a few hours would be for kids, and adults couldnt get in line until like 4pm. they are very strict about height requirements for this as well. it is a minimum of 52" to go on the boogie board, my son who is 9 is exactly that height, however they refused to let him get on. Our two full days at sea, the water was a bit rough, so sometimes the flowrider/pools/and waterslides were closed unfortunately.

We went to the Saturday night show, which was ok. the dancing was great, there was mostly all singing and many song with just that and no dancing. If there wasnt dancing, it didn't seem to keep my kids interest lol we stayed for about 30 minutes of it and left. We went to the ice show........you NEED to go to this, it was SO good! those people are incredibly talented. the music around the ship was good also. not too much, not too little. We also went to a magician/comedian as well which i thought was great, and would definitely go again.

Unfortunately i couldnt convince my kids to go to the clubs until the LAST day. But once they were in there they didnt want to leave! It was wonderful. i have a 5 and 9 year old and they were nice enough to let them stay together! they went from 2-5 then went back from 7-10. they close during those in-between hours for meals.

our room steward was wonderful. always so sweet to the kids. the waitstaff every where were kind and accommodating. i mean you really could go on and on about the staff on this ship they are truly amazing. i did not have an ounce of disappointment with any one of them.

everything was always clean, and maintained. The one thing i constantly felt myself running into though, was the casino. you have to walk through it to get to a few places which was irritating with kids and i smells like smoke. we regularly were going up a floor and then back down to get by it.

we had an inside cabin for 4 people. the cabins are really showing their wear. we had a queen bed with two upper pullmans for the kids. my only complaint..........you cannot fit your suitcases under the bed. the room is already small and now we had three suitcases and had no where to put them.

the only bad part about the disembarkation was that i had to actually leave :(