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Processing to board in New Orleans was about what we anticipated - 1 hour start to finish.
Stateroom: Recently retired so decided to downscale a bit and take an obstructed view rather than a balcony. It was fine and the size of the room was what we expected. The bathroom was actually a bit better than expected, the bed average and the pillows flat as pancakes.
Ship: A good size with 2350 passengers. Ship seemed to be well maintained. The retrofit to add additional cover charge dining options actually put some of the salad bar in the passage-way as guests travel around the ship.
Cruise: Four ports = great. Added benefit to explore New Orleans if you add a day on either end of the trip.
Better: We felt the entertainment was a bit better then on several of the other cruises we've taken.
Not better: Main dining room actually cold and while everyone from the passengers to the crew new of the problem there didn't seem to be any effort to correct the problem. Since the configuration of the ship has two separate dinning rooms we chose the second but less distinctive room.
Food - plentiful but with some odd food combinations. Anticipate asking for what you want. For example, ordered pot roast and it came with two starches and no (zero) vegetables. We tried the Italian cover charge dining option and it left our group of four ready to go back to the main dining room.
Final observations. Nothing about the cruise exceeded our expectations. Don't expect a mint next to your bedside table at night, no "high tea" once or twice on this cruise.
The "free style" cruise option is actually a better mix on some other cruise lines where you can choose to free style or pick a set time for dinner. We found that the "free style" can be taken a step too far with the hats on and T-shirt/flip flop guests actually detracting from our dining experience.
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