This was our first cruise and overall, we had an excellent time. We're in our low 50's and empty nest. We celebrated our 30th anniversary (actual date last August but wanted to celebrate in sun in Feb).

Food: In my opinion, the food was as good as the better restaurants in our town (which is a medium sized city of several hundred thousand). It was not 5 star, but certainly very enjoyable and exceeded my expectations after reading some of the posted reviews here. In addition to dinner, one pleasant surprise was the AquaSpa Cafe (breakfast and lunch) which has some exceptional "healthy" offerings including salads, organic fruits & breads, poached cold fish (sounds bad but tasted excellent), and many other choices if you're into that type of food (we do). Of course, there was also the very large buffet seemingly available almost always, which was also very good for a buffet. Overall, I was very happy with the food offerings, and I'm moderately fussy. One of the best parts of the cruise was getting to know the people at our table of 10. Many of them were seasoned cruisers and they indicated that the food wasn't quite up to standards of past, but they were still fairly happy overall.

Dining: We selected early dining (6:00 PM) same table/same people every night. That worked well for us because we prefer to not eat late and eating at 6 gave us the whole night to do whatever. You can also chose flexible dining and have the option of going at either early or late times. Service: Our stateroom attendant was excellent. She was always friendly and seemingly appeared when we needed her. She kept our room spotless. Everyone else on the service staff was always very friendly and accommodating. Overall, service was excellent. Read more