Returned from this cruise this morning. I sailed with my mother, one of my girlfriends and my 20 month old daughter.

We chose this itinerary specifically because we live in MA and the NYC departure appealed to us. It was SUPER easy to get to, but even with the three hour drive, we opted to stay in a hotel the night before just to make the morning we boarded much easier. We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Yonkers and it was the perfect pre-cruise hotel. Nice, safe area. Less than 30 minutes to the port with little to no traffic - and we avoided dealing with Manhattan parking and prices. We even went through Yonkers on the way home and avoided a ton of traffic that would have been on 95. We did park at the cruise port though, that was $320 for the week. But again, not dealing with airfare and flying made that well worth it for us.

We were in Cabin 7317. It was a suite with a balcony, which we spent most of our time on. For a suite, it seemed small. I've been on 6 cruises now, and this was the smallest suite I've seen. The balcony was a good size, but we found mold under our deck chair cushions - along with a pacifier that was NOT my daughters. Thank goodness SHE didn't find it or that thing would have gone straight into her mouth, ha. Read more