My husband and I became serious cruisers with our first Transatlantic Cruise on the NCL Dream. We left Barcelona for Miami in October, 2007. Having only done a 7 day Alaskan cruise on Celebrity in 1999, we were almost first timers. We were so impressed by the service, food, high quality and varied entertainment, guest speakers, comfortable cabins and beds,the friendly, helpful, and highly motivated crew,free cappuccinos at the back of the ship, and free in-room entertainment. This included free recently released movies which were repeated on different times and days. News shows were basically limited to Fox News and BBC when it came in. A paper TV schedule was provided for your convenience. The Ports of Call (Marojca, Alicante, Ceuta, Madeir, St. Thomas)were well-planned and organized. Being pleased we booked another Transatlantic cruise in September, 2008. This is when the cutting back seems to have begun. There were no longer any recently released movies only a couple of Turner Classic type movies which were recycled the entire trip and never changed In April, 2009 we sailed on the NCL Gem from NYC to Barcelona with stops at The Azores, Lisbon, Cadiz, Malaga, Corsica, Civitavecchia, Livorno, Monaco. It was on this trip that the cutting backs became more obvious. There was no longer any free entertainment in the cabins. There still was Fox News and the occasional BBC, but movies were $12.00. On April 10, 2010 we sailed on a back to back transatlantic cruise to Venice to the Greek Isles back to Venice. The wonderful free cappuccinos were gone, BUT you could now pay for them. NCL had added CNBC, MSNBC, and CNN to Fox and BBC so that was an improvement, but movies were still $12.00. There were no guest lecturers as on previous cruises and the big shows such as Colorz, World Beat which are lavious shows were shown in 2009 and then repeated twice during this last cruise. Another talented entertainer, Edmundo Rahme, was repeated four times. For those people who do not gamble, want to participate in art auctions, or drink at the lounges, varied and new entertainment is one of the reasons to cruise. Having also sailed the Queen Mary 2 in 2009, we know that in-room entertainment is free and that interesting guest speakers are provided on other carriers. We enjoy relaxing in our cabin when we are at sea and not having to pay such a high fee. NCL needs to take notice of this or will find that their customers will locate other ships that meet their needs.