This was my first ever cruise but a friend recommended it and I went along. I had a big cabin with balcony by myself and it was very nice and comfortable but for two people I find it too small. The cabin boy was excellent, his first cruise, his name Wiso. I found the food in the Lido so bad that I stuck to salads. My friend and I ate most nights in the jRotterdam which was o.k. but the food in the Italian restaurant was excellent as well as in the restaurant where one pays an extra 29,95. Good atmosphere and food. I went to the gym every day it had plenty of machines for everybody but I liked the conditioning class which was daily and pilates which was offered twice on the cruise with an additional charge for $15 which is high for just 40 minutes. Swimming was impossible since there were 300 kids on board. When I returned by 4:00 pm from the cruise I felt like a dip but kids would jump from all the sides and I fled. There should have been one hour in the afternoon where adults could swim but nobody interfered so I stayed away after 3 tries. The excursions were dull and without much to see, for example to Kristiansand past and present. We went by bus to an old church from the 1700, white and wooden but could only trample through the cemetery to get a photo from the outside, the church was locked. Then we went through a little village with houses and flours very pretty but nothing special and then an old former farm village which was nice but $60 for that. The worst was the excursion which took 5 1/2 hours mostly driving. I had expected going on a small ship through the fjords but we went to an information centre and saw a 20 minutes movie which was interesting flying over the fjords this hamlet had three or 4 houses a restaurant and nothing and we had a whole hour to sit and wait for the bus to take us to a water fall quite nice but that was it the restaurant with gift shop and we had another hour to sit around. The trip left the ship at 08:20 and we were there at 10:00 but only got back around 3:00 to the ship. The cost was $200. So I had paid in advance $339 for the three excursions and could not get out of them but I was told by my agent to sign up because they would be filled fast. This is not true most people did not take any although the last one had two busses because people expected more of the fjords to see. I would never take an excursion again in a country where almost everybody speaks good English but would find out what it entails before taking an excursion again. It is only good for people with a handicap but for somebody who likes to walk and get around it is a waste of money. The entertainment was offered every night but I went once and found it second rate so I returned to my cabin and read my book instead. I would have liked to go to a movie but most of the time they started at 6:00 which was too early with coming back from excursions an exercise classes from 5-6 nearly and my friend wanted to eat dinner at 8:00 and we had to be on time especially at the Rotterdam restaurant where we sat with 4 other people and you had to be there.

Disembarkation ran smoothly and the organization was very good. I had problems with my cabin card three times on a day of excursion they told me my card had a fault and I had to get back to the front desk so after three times running back and forth I had enough and I told the desk if I did not get another card I would scream and I finally got one always having to queue up it was very frustrating, I wanted to buy a robe as a souvenir but the one they brought was too big so they told me they would try to get me a smaller one. I never heard from them again. I wanted to have a questionnaire because my friend got one right away after returning so wrote on the e-mail address she had if I could have one also. I did not get an answer so I contacted my agent in Hamburg and they said that it was not sent to people outside of the U.K. or the U.S.A. There were several other nationalities on board. On my statement it said it would be sent but nothing!!!!!