We embarked in Venice after spending the previous night there to get some tourist time - highly recommended. Embarkation was painless. Or cabin was on the lowest deck at the front and suffered a lot of noise from various mechanical bits - especially when the ship was underway. The random nature of the noises made it hard to sleep. After two nights it got so bad that neither of us could get to sleep until after we docked in Piraeus so we missed out on Athens. I complained and NCL moved us up to deck 11 which was slightly smaller but much quieter, full marks to customer service.

The excursions were all hugely expensive so we did our own thing - fortunately we only wanted to see the local ports so walking was fine. Dubrovnik was the only problem since its about a 25-30 minute walk to the old town from the port but its a pleasant enough stroll through some quiet streets with only gentle hills.

Food quality was adequate in the buffet with a good selection, reasonable in the main restaurants (which were very busy with 30-45 minute waiting times at peak periods) and quite good in the speciality places. We tried Le Bistro (French), the Papa's Kitchen(Italian) and the Brazilian meat feast in Moderno. The latter was particularly good and, since you good eat as much as you wanted, was very good value. One thing that surprised us was how early breakfast finished in the main dining room - we only made it on time once. The fact that the time changed on a daily basis didn't help either, one day it closed at 8:30am, on others it was 9 or 10. Read more