Embarkation - We arrived at the dock to drop off our baggage around 12:30pm before returning our hire car. The ship sailed at 6 pm & there were already nearly 1000 people at the dock. We came back at around 2pm & the queue had pretty much gone & it took only about 20 mins to embark. The room was ready. We had a queen bed & a sofa bed for our daughter. The room was nice & the bathroom was clean & roomy. Storage was adequate with plenty of drawers. The bed was nice & comfy, much nicer than the Golden Princess we were on last time. My husband was complaining about the air-cond on the Golden & this time there was no complaint at all.

We had a late lunch at Lido Buffet. It was quite disappointing. The food weren't hot with not much variety. We were in the 1st seating dinner at 6 pm at the Metropolitan Restaurant. Our waiter & assistant waiter were v nice & attentive. The food however were pretty average. They all tasted pretty much the same. They served lobster on the 2nd last night of the cruise & for some reason, my husband & I both tasted something mouldy in the lobster. After the 1st few nights, we got sick of the food & had dinner at the Lido. They served sushi & freshly cooked pasta & noodles every night. The sushi were pretty average with the same variety every night. The pasta & noodles were freshly made & were the only food that were hot. They provided a 'Casual Dining' alternative - they made part of the Lido into a restaurant setting & the menus were different to the Metropolitan. However, we were told by the assistant Maitre D' that the menus there were the same everyday except for the Chef's special. We tried there for dinner 1 night. The food were ok, nothing special. There was a US$2 gratuity per person added to our account.

For breakfast, we went to the Lido everyday. Again, the food were the same every day. However, the omelette, pancake & waffle stations were pretty good, at least the food were hot. They provided orange, apple & o'guava drinks. The fruit selection was good at breakfast. There were oranges, melons & Pineapple. On a couple of mornings, there were strawberries but they were pretty much all rotten. Only fruit salad was served at lunch & they weren't fresh at all. Apart from that, they had whole oranges, apples & bananas. I was shocked to see some oranges were rotten with moulds all around them. I tasted an apple & it tasted mushy & was the worst apple I've ever tasted. Read more