We travelled with our adult children and their partners, all in their twenties an all of whom have cruised at least once. We had sailed on the larger RCI ships previously and had also done this cruise with NCL 3 years ago. We arrived at Harwich at 10.30 just as the car park opened. We had pre-booked our parking but many people had not and this slowed the process down. As Platinum members we had priority check-in but due to computer problems this was a slow process and we would have been quicker in the non-priority queues. However, we were on board by noon and in our cabin just after 1pm and the luggage arrived not long afterwards.

We had an inside stateroom on deck 4, near the Centrum but there was no problem with noise. The cabin was handy for Guest Relations and the dining rooms. It was a good size with plenty of storage space and the usual comfy bed. The TV was old-fashioned and a bit temperamental. We had chosen My Time dining but booked each night on the grounds that it would be difficult to get a table for 6. The dining team, faced with three vegetarians and a meat-eater who prefers plain food, were brilliant. We also ate in Windjammer, and the SeaView Cafe at various times and never really had a problem finding tables in Windjammer: we especially liked the open part at the back,and enjoyed our evening meal in the open air on the sail out from Stockholm. We did notice that there weren't as many hand-sanitizers round the ship and it was possible to get into Windjammer without using them depending on how you approached the restaurant, so that was a bit of a concern for us.

The solarium was always busy although the pool was quite often under-used so we were able to swim pretty much when we wanted to. The pools are (usually) warm but are salt-water. We could also almost always find somewhere to sit and watch the world go by or play cards. The entertainment was mostly very good although the films were out-dated. Read more