I went on this cruise to accompany my son, his wife and my 10 mos old granddaughter on a week's vacation together to celebrate the holidays. This ship was chosen because it's one of the very few cruises that offer baby child care for children over 6 mos old. Their group, childcare services were reasonably priced at $6 hr during days [$8 hr at night] when ships were at sea, but no services offered for babies when in ports. I found the child care area and workers to be very nice and clean and supplied with plenty of toys to keep babies happy and busy. They also offered bags of toys to be taken to cabins to entertain babies when not in childcare area which was very nice. Childcare programs are free for toddlers and above when at sea, but infant care requires hourly payment. This particular cruise didn't seem to have that many children aboard, but the child care programs did seem to have some very happy participants when I saw them in their areas.

Breakfast buffet food was fairly good and dinners in main dining room offered a nice variety of foods that were nicely prepared. We were offered lobster once and prime rib twice with fish and pasta always on the dinner menus. Escargots was available every night, but salmon only twice. I'd say it was fairly average in their offerings and quality. Good but nothing spectacular. Lunch buffets were about average. I did like the addition of flavored waters offered at juice machines in buffet area. I only ordered room service once, but it was hot and good and came within 20 minutes which was shorter than they told me to expect. Soft ice cream was available pool side most of the day, but hard ice cream only at dining room during meals or for sale at specialty coffee bar.

The specialty coffee bar had all the usual offerings and some hard ice cream which you had to pay for, but all their great pastries were always free. If you bought the soft drink package, they gave you a big tumbler which could be quickly filled at soda machines all over the ship. Read more