Background Information having cruised with NCL before and being a latitudes member decided on this cruise mainly because of the ports of call and the latitudes benefits (or not). tried booking via NCL but were quoted a price £250 dearer than at another provider, including cabin upgrade. Travel To Port of Embarkation included in our package were BA flights from Gatwick which were good and the reception at Barcelona airport was equally good quite an impressive ship when you first see it. i thought the layout was a little poor. having to walk through restaurants to get to stairs or to and from staterooms was not good. i found the activities arranged quite disappointing, we were off the ship most days and on our return there was very little to pass the time until dinner. on the whole service was ok, we had a major problem with staff in one of the speciality restaurants and received a bottle of wine as compensation(still had to pay the cover though). we became known at a couple of bars and the wait staff more often then not remembered our order which was good. i had heard horror stories about Shore Excursions, if you don't book via the ship and your late they sail without you (scary) so we booked all our trips via NCL did feel it was a bit of a rip off but enjoyed them none the less our stateroom was better than expected for the amount of time we spent in there, although we requested a king and got twin (steward re-arrange it to king) in the main we enjoyed the dining, although the best bit of our previous cruise with NCL was meeting a lot of different people by sharing tables. on this one we were always given a table for two except in magenta where the service was appalling. did meet a nice couple from Newcastle though. the food was okay. although we did think that only 3 restaurants without a cover charge was a bit mean. we used the speciality restaurant twice, le bistro to celebrate my birthday and had a great time food excellent service great, but cagneys was another matter. i was shocked at how many children were on board and how many of those had free reign to do anything (parents suspiciously absent when kids doing something inappropriate) also thought the fact there was only two pools(and not big ones at that) on a ship so big was strange. we tried to go to all the late performances thinking kids would be at the first didn't work either. they were everywhere all the time. not impressed by the entertainment on offer. shops few and the range of items was limited. disembarkation was a breeze, although we had a 6 hour wait at the airport for our flight home. okay overall don't know whether we would use NCL again though