Where to start? Lets begin at the beginning, embarkation, Amsterdam's port facilities are quite good, but there was a large queue and the time it took them to process people was annoying, it seemed to take significantly longer than other cruises I have taken and seemed to be due to the speed at which they were checking people in, it seemed disorganized, a theme that continued through the cruise. This then lead to the next issue which was the original stateroom they gave us had an overwhelming odor of bleach, which seemed to be covering a sour odor and an overwhelming cigarette smell in the hallway, this seemed to be a problem in the front of the boat. They gave us a room that clearly had an issue and then gave us a song and dance when we requested to be moved about the boat being full, eventually they moved us, but not without some vociferous complaining and first telling us repeatedly it's not possible. If there was a problem with a stateroom they need to fix it properly and not attempt to put someone in the room until it is fixed. I'm sure the oder has something to do with the showers which really could use a mildew and mold cleaning as I'm sure that is the source of the fowl odor and seemed to be in most staterooms. Staterooms are also a little small compared to other ships we've been on but nice nonetheless, the ship itself is in good shape and has nice spaces.

There are a few things key about a cruise, one is ports, one is at sea activities, and finally the food. First the disembarkation process and the excursions, the excursions offered tended to be not great and they are very forceful in their sales pitch, trying to scare people into taking there excursions instead of offering something people want. They seemed to miss attractions in port and we had multiple trips I call restroom trips, where they load you in a bus and drive from rest stop to rest stop for 3 hours while you see almost nothing. Port time seemed too limited on our itinerary in general. On sea days I felt like they used it as a time to try to sell you stuff, which to some extent is understandable but the activities are far too limited on board, no attempt to keep the passengers occupied, in port or at sea they seemed to have the same lack of activities, no additional classes or entertainment on sea days. Now onto the food, I'd say the San Marco(main dining room) was fair it wasn't great, but also not bad, quality ingredients were used but the preparation was not wonderful. Specifically they could not deliver steaks properly prepared, and fish was not prepared well it always tasted baked. Service in the main dinning room was very good, waitstaff goes out of their way to get the passengers what ever they want. Ocean Liners was actually quite good, a shining star on a boat of mediocre or downright bad food, service was also very good and attentive. We went to Tuscan grille once found the Italian food to be very disappointing(Lasagna was bad and the lobster pasta was bland) and the service to be downright inattentive, pleasant enough but we felt ignored, it took 2.5 hours to eat and it was 45 minutes before we got any food. The buffet was not very good, quite limited most times and the quality of the breakfast food was subpar, it was almost exactly the same everyday. The staff did not do a good job of keeping passengers from violating all kinds of sanitary rules, and it seems like food safety was not taken too seriously which is disconcerting. I could accept the main dining room issues, the meat and fish served was good quality and on formal nights it was good(steak, fish, lobster), options were weirder on other nights but that is consistent with other cruises. The poor quality breakfast in all venues(main dining and buffet), bad buffet, questionable food safety practices and downright awful specialty restaurant(Tuscan Grille) make me give this cruise a D+ for food. Really not enough in the way of choices, the buffet was a non-option at mealtimes based on what was served, which leaves main dining and ocean liners, which we did 5 times but it gets old fast.

So in summary, the boat was nice enough, but they need to address the bathroom issues. The food needs some help they need to revamp this. The entertainment options on sea days need to be revamped. Besides the waitstaff and the cabin stewards who were excellent, the rest of the staff treated you like a dollar sign only interested in what they could sell you. We would probably not go with Celebrity after this trip and would likely not recommend this ship to our friends.