I will start out by saying I have never been on a cruise so had nothing to compare to. We booked an inside cabin but ended up upgrading to a balcony after reading reviews. I'm so glad we did. It was nice going out on it and watching us take off, pull in and just watching the ocean. The cabin was a decnt size with room for myself, hubby and 2 small kids. We never felt cramped. I loved that there were always activities going on throughout the day to go to. We ended up staying onboard in marseille and it was so nice to enjoy the ship. My husband loved the buffets and room service lol. My son is only 2 so he did not get to go to kids club and they don't have babysitters so that was a major letdown.

The worst part of our cruise was the spa. I won the gift card on the sail date and they would not give it to my husband. Then we made an appt to get my haircut and they said to be there before noon so we went at 11, the appt was 1030. Then they had us come back at 3 and ruined my son's hair. I was livod! Other then that terrible CS the rest was amazing.

We flew ryanair to barcelona 2 days before, stayed in an apt booked through airbnb, used the trains to get to the port. The embarkation desk was pretty empty so we were onboard in no time. My 5yr old loved the kids club. We all really enjoyed blue man group and cirque de soleil. My daughter still talks about BMG. Our cabin was roomy and cleaned and our cabin guy was so nice and helpful! The kids gave him high fives everyday. We did our own excursions and used viator for rome. We ate at