Our embarkation in New York was fast and pleasant. When we arrived in our cabin we were a little disappointed in the decor and the general appearance. The room was clean and in good order but the bed spreads had seen better days. The TV was so small it was difficult to see it from the bed. The remote control didn;'t work well. You had to be standing in front of the tv for the remote to work.There was no refridge in the room which made it difficult to keep ice for longer then an hour or so. As one guest remarked to me, they make the room uninviting so you spend more time in the bars/casino spending money. I have cruised 7 other times and I have found this cabin to be the least appealing. The cabin stewart was very nice and he did what was asked and then some, but the cabin is what it is ! The food was a mixed bag. On the first night of the cruise dinner in the Windows dining room was impossible. We waited over an hour for our dinner. We did not see our server from the time he took our order until we were served our food an hour later. He then showed up to see if everything was ok. When our dinner arrived it was very good. The rest of the week we ate dinner in the Garden Room restaurant and found the service to be much better, Again the dinners were very good.

Desserts were not tasty except for the Sheet cake served at the lunch buffet I would say dessert were a big disappointment. Well at least I saved a few pounds. The chocolate buffet was really bad. The buffet was beautiful to look at but tasteless. They could have saved the money they spent on that buffet and put it towards some really great desserts each night with dinner. I am not a big drinker so I can't remark on the bar service. I can however tell you the the soda cards are too expensive. You have to drink a lot of soda to justify 53.00 for a soda card for a six night cruise.( Next time a will just sneak in a few cans of soda in my suite case) (only kidding) I usually enjoy the casino for an hour or so a night but I was disappointed because I like to play the roulette wheel but the box that shows what numbers and colors that have hit recently was not working. I played the first night and lost interest quickly. Because we have cruised before, we were not in a hurry to sign up for shore excursions. We thought that the excursions were expensive but not out of line for what one expects to pay on any cruise line. We pretty much did our own thing and saw what we thought was important to us. Because we were in very safe ports we used public transportation and managed very well. One thing I would like to add is that the Kennedy Library is not offered as an excursion when in Boston. I highly recommend this to anyone who may have an interest. It was a 10.00 cab ride to the University of Mass. and a 10.00 admission. One thing to remember when in Boston is the traffic. Make sure you allow at least 1.5 hrs to travel back to the ship b/c Boston traffic is really slow moving. Our overall expectations of the ship were a little disappointing but the cruise was fun and the price was reasonable. The ports of call were nice and the people in Canada were GREAT.They were very gracious and I would go back to Halifax and St.Johns again. Boston is always the same. Nice town to visit but I wouldn"t want to live there. Marthas Vineyard wa also very nice but I have no desire to rush back.