We boarded the ship after driving to New Orleans from our home town & were excited about going on a cruise with family members. We checked in, found our balcony room & opened the door. The smell of secondhand smoke almost knocked us over. We had requested a nonsmoking room because my husband has asthma & I am allergic to smoke.

We returned to Guest Services where we were told by employee Rebecca Bruton that the ship did not have nonsmoking rooms. We asked for a different balcony room or to be upgraded to a suite. We were told that there were no vacant balcony rooms & that they did not upgrade customers. We told them this was unacceptable & that we wanted a room like we had requested when we booked the cruise 3 months prior to sailing. Rebecca Bruton told us that if we didn't like our accommodations, we could just leave the ship right then. We told her that was ridiculous & returned to the room.

This was not a good beginning to our eagerly anticipated vacation. We began dealing with the cabin steward, who tried to help us He told us the people who had the room the week previous had smoked cigars in there. For the next 3 days he put a machine into our room when we weren't in it to defumigate the room. He also gave me a spray bottle of something similar to Lysol to spray the drapes, bedding, carpeting & everything else in the room. On the 3rd day the smoky smell mostly was gone. Other than that, the cruise was fun. Read more