Ok, where to start? Overall - the ship is great eye candy. It is simply beautiful. Try to find a spot of rust, I dare you. Art gallery was well laid out and not crowded as on other ships and so was fun to walk through and view. Shows were great, in fact "After Midnight" was the best show that I have ever seen, on or off a ship and that includes the fabulous shows on the Allure. On sea days, don't even think about using the pool or slides. I've never seen anything so crowded or noisy. However, the trick was to do a shore tour early and beat it back to the ship on a port day. Pool and slides were close to empty. All in all, however, it is a fairly crowded ship. Public places were great, bars were great (except the "5'Oclock somewhere bar" which was never open no matter what time it was anyplace. On the opposite side from "never at 5 O'Clock" was the beer bar, which was cozy and if'n you liked beer, they had it. Best drinking venue aboard.

Now for the food...

The specialty restaurants are simply the best restaurants at sea. It does not get much nicer (or pricier). All of them were eye catching, had great service, and the food was a "10" at every one. That said, the complimentary restaurants served swill. We tried breakfast at one. Belgium waffle could not be cut without using a power saw. No toast, muffins, or jucies unless you asked for it. Even then, no matte what muffin you asked for, they were all the same and not edible. The turkey sausage was apparently Alpo in disguise. Lunch, inedible fish and chips (I mean, how in the world can you screw up Cod so that even pepto does not work. We tried one dinner in the Manhatten room. Yes it had a band and dance floor, but you can't dance to progressive jazz. Nothing on the menu appealed to me, so I ordered a New York Strip, medium rare. It came out medium (no biggie) but you could not make a dent in it with the steak knife. A chain saw might have worked, but it would have to be sharpened when you got finished. Coffee was not drinkable (same as at breakfast, in fact). I ordered a Cosmo. Now, how in the world can you screw up a Cosmo? They could. I actually had to send it back and I've been mistaken for a functional alcoholic. Even that was hard to do. Four different people came by to inquire about the drink, but it took 20 minutes to actually get the foul thing off my table. The molten lava cake was actually good. This ship has a plank, as in walk the plank, as part of the ropes course. This chef should have been made to walk it. Yet, the specialty restaurants were as good as you could get. Go figure. Read more