We chose this cruise because of the itinerary as it would check off all the islands we hadn't been to yet and it was overnighting in Aruba and it was a two week cruise which we have never done before.

I am going to start from the beginning and I will tell you our thoughts on this cruise as I know some of the topics are very subjective:

EMBARKATION/BOARDING: The ship was docked at Terminal 25, which is the newest terminal and was built for the Edge. This a very large terminal and had a very long desk with more agents than I could count. We got to the terminal at 11:40 and we were on the ship by 12:10 pm. It was one of the easiest embarkations I have ever had! There was plenty of staff to direct us to the correct line and each greeted us with sunny smiles and hellos. Even the security people were pleasant!! There were waiters waiting at the entrance of deck 5 with champagne for us and there was plenty of seating in the lounges for us to wait until we could get to our cabins which was announced that they would be ready at 1:00 PM. We sat in the Ensemble Lounge for a bit and Murano was open so I went and made our specialty dinner reservations for the trip and then we went to Deck 7 to wait to get into our Stateroom. There is a lovely area called the Hideaway on 7 midship which had very comfortable chairs and little nooks to sit and they have fresh coffee service there from early morning until late afternoon, which many of the other decks can take advantage of. We used it quite a bit on this cruise - along with our balcony. As promised, the staterooms were ready at 1 PM and we were able to drop our carry ons and go do some exploring. Read more