We live in Florida so we drove to the ship. Arrival and boarding was fine. We departed on 8 December and returned on 15 December. Our cabin with balcony was OK. Our steward was very good but hardly ever seen. I must say I usually travel Royal Caribbean which I feel is much better than HAL. This ship was dead. Music was rare and hard to find. There were fewer passenger/cruise director events on this ship than any other I have ever been on. Regarding food, I feel the food aboard this ship is sub average to average. Food service was very bad. In the Lido buffet the crew serves, you do not help yourself. The servers are obviously understaffed. For instance one man serving the entire breakfast or lunch then moving to serve toast or other items at lunch and then finally back to the next person in line. All the other stations were also understaffed. The food itself was not very good. As far as the dinner meal in the dining room, due to the location of our table, right next to the aft bulkhead, our waiter was unable to supply ice tea or other drinks, refill the rolls etc. because his assistant was always away getting the food from the kitchen. One of our table mates got the ear of the dining room head steward during a kitchen tour and relayed our story to him. The next night we had the services of a low level steward in addition to our waiters. Finally a third man was assigned to our waiter.

I will not make much of it as it is not HAL's fault but we were caught in tropical storm Olga and on Monday night and Tuesday we bounced around in 60 mph winds and 20 foot seas. We could not dock in Grand Turk, our first stop, so that port was missed. Additionally there were two minor fires aboard, both on A deck, and both handled well and fast. You could hear in the Captains voice when announcing the last fire which was on Friday I believe, he was thinking What else can go wrong on this trip. Leaving the ship was handled well. I will never sail HAL again