We flew into Ft. Lauderdale to start our cruise on 2/18-the trip from airport to cruise terminal was very close and easy-unlike the check-in we experienced. It took close to two hours to check in and get our rooms, and luggage arrived for the next six hours. All in all, it was a very disappointing cruise-the food from the buffet to the dining room selections was, at the best, pitiful (one night a fellow passenger remarked it was like ordering the least of all evils) and the hours, to an American, were simply awful. We were assigned late (8:15) dinner, but the buffet didn't even open until 7:30, so if you missed lunch due to a tour, you basically had nothing,a very poor attempt at pizza (for an Italian ship, perhaps they need a refresher course on Italian cuisine!), or sad, dried-out sandwiches, hamburgers that had been cooked hours before or dried-up hot dogs. There was no off-hours offering of juice, or iced tea, you had a choice of water or coffee, and usually the coffee urns were drained shortly after breakfast. There was also no complementary room service, in fact, no room service apart from a limited breakfast selection and if you were sick, they would bring you limited selections from the dinner menu.
The rooms were standard, nothing special, the beds were simply awful-the mattress might have been four inches thick-really nothing more than an thinly padded board. The television was not special, and a listing of what was on and when would have been very helpful. If you needed lotion, a shower cap or sewing kits, you had to hunt down your room steward to obtain one-I mean, what does that cost the cruise line to leave a sad little shower cap in your room? I had brought some candy bars from Walt Disney World, and even through they had the price tag from a store in Epcot, and they were not available on the ship, my room steward tried to charge me for them! The floor directions are horrible, I would bump into people daily looking for a restroom, and the crew was not helpful, friendly or cheerful. I was shoved four or five times by crew members, and one afternoon fell on the floor crossing the room in full view of three bartenders and two cocktail waitresses (no, I had not been drinking!), yet no one offered help or even asked if I was alright.
After our experience on this cruise, I can say we would probably never sail this cruise line again, and never on this ship again.