We are a couple in our early 40's (on this sailing putting us into the "younger" category), and this was our second "modern-era" cruise. I hesitate to go to the effort of a review since the Journey experience will doubtless change in a post-Bermuda context, but I want to get my 5-rating into the mix. This was my first cruise as a CC member, and onboard I quickly experienced two drawbacks to cruising in the CC context; 1) my initial experiences and impressions were colored by the prior weeks of research and discussion about the ship, and 2) I spent much of the first days on the Journey writing mental sentences to be included in my post-sailing review, not simply enjoying the increasingly wonderful experience.

I feel we experienced the essence of some of the apparent discrepancies between prior reviews: the Journey offers both a "sum of the parts" experience (which in our case would have put it in a 4+ rating zone) and a "whole", which we found to be magic. In assembling notes for this review, at the end I was surprised to see quite a number of minor quibbles, which didn't seem consistent with how we felt leaving the ship, waving goodbye as though leaving a loved one. Perhaps the difference for each traveler is how well his/her experience captures that magic.

For the sake of a balanced review, the following are the quibbles I noted, in no logical order: Read more