My wife and I are both 50. This was our 18th cruise together. We have cruised with all the major lines. Our 11 night Southern Caribbean cruise on the Opera, from 1/14/07 to 1/25/07 was by far the WORST cruising experience we have ever had. The idea of cruising with an Italian based ship and experiencing a different shipboard "culture" sounded appealing, but was terribly disappointing in its execution. The only positives on this ship were the entertainment and the pasta. Everything else was far below our expectations, and far below the level we have experienced on any other cruise.
Embarkation: A disaster. More than 2 hours in line with hundreds of extremely elderly people. SLOW, SLOW, SLOW, with only half the agents you would expect for a ship of this size. We were told that the Opera was not using their usual embarkation facility due to the high number of ships leaving Port Everglades that day. Still, this experience set the tone for the rest of the cruise, and was consistent with all the other areas of poor performance.
Our Cabin: Adequate. Nothing particularly good nor bad. It was a bit smaller than our cabins on most other ships, but had enough storage space. The shower was very small and irritating because the curtain always stuck to your body.