Here goes with my stream of consciousness review, and it may be ridiculously long and chock-full of positives and negatives. I call 'em like I see 'em. Agree or disagree at your leisure. When I read reviews of a ship, before I sail her, I always prefer the cheerleading mega-positive reviews. But this isn't that. And, obviously, these are just my experiences. Your experiences may/will be completely different.

Embarkation stress (this obviously isn't the norm, but it happened to us). Had air with Azamara and arrived in Newark at 1:20 - granted, a bit later than ideal, but Azamara had approved the flight so we didn't think there'd be any problem. As soon as we arrived, on time, and were waiting for luggage, the guy shows up with the "Celebrity" card (they might want to put Azamara on the card too, as I'm not sure everyone knows Azamara is owned by Celebrity). So it's like quarter til two, got the luggage, good to go. The guy says they're waiting for two more people. Fine. We wait, and wait and wait. Now it's 3:15. Uhm, excuse me, I believe the ship sails at 4:00. He says not to worry. Finally, after all this time, he figures out that the two people had taken an earlier flight and were already on the ship. So, we finally get on the shuttle and make our way to the terminal (yes we have to carry our bags to the ship, because the porters are long gone). They're about to close the doors at the terminal. There was a bit of an attitude from the check-in people, as if it was our fault we were woefully late. We get shuttled to the ship. We look up to see all the other passengers in the middle of muster drill. Well, at least we missed that. We finally get on the ship.

I was only mildly annoyed. I was on vacation and I was on the ship. I thought about saying something to the front desk people, but decided it wouldn't really serve any purpose. Read more