We had a nice trip on the cruise. I don' think "freestyle" is as easy as NCL wants you to think it is. Thank you to "travelhound" for tipping us off on day two to book all our dinner reservations for the week then or we would have been in the Garden Cafe every night! We loved Cagneys and Tangos, thought Chin Chin was O.K. and the other main dining rooms were very good. I liked the atmosphere in Tsars best.
The Garden Cafe was nice too, good selection, ample seating. The shows on board were o.k., "Cirque Bijou" was definitely the best from the Jean Ann Ryan Productions. The male singer was really cheesy. During the crew talent show there was far more talent than the main male singer in the production company had. Unfortunately there are always lounge chair hogs on ships who put a towel on a chair before 8:00 am and never return again. I'd watch a chair if I saw no activity after an hour I'd move the towel and get comfy. I did this several times and nobody ever approached me about this.
Our cabin was in the front of the ship, it was noisy, not form people but the sounds the ship naturally make and quite rocky, not the fault of NCL though. I think NCL has several hidden costs which I didn't agree with: $60.00 a week for the steam/sauna rooms unless you booked a spa treatment then it's free for the day, $40.00 per hour for the Karaoke rooms, maybe you got something additional for this I don't know. The fitness classes were $10.00 per class.