We thought perhaps our expectations were too high because our cruise to the Caribbean on the Dawn in April '06 was fabulous in every way, but after a few on board conversations with other passengers and reviews coming in we realize our feelings are valid. Check-in was disorganized - no one could hear the attendant's instructions so everyone just rushed to line up. The person who checked us in was obviously new and untrained, and I ended up telling HIM what information we needed to give him - he even almost forgot to take our pictures for the card! Our cabin was perfect - level 9, balcony, aft but almost midship. We had plenty of room and we liked the layout of the bathroom compared to the Dawn. The only problem was when I took too long in the shower it overflowed and I had to sop up the bathroom floor and direct the water into the drain along the doorway. I remedied this by turning off the shower after washing my hair, allowing that water to drain while I washed the rest of me, then turned the water back on to rinse. A nuisance, but not really a big deal. We didn't meet our stewards although we saw them in the hallway (another difference from the Dawn where the stewards introduced themselves on Day One and were very accessible). No complaints though on their service - they were fine. As we left port it was very foggy and we waited to hear where the sail-off activities to get us geared up for the trip would be diverted to since it was too nasty by the pool. But there was nothing - no announcements, no "let's gather at Dazzle's for a sail away party," no music, nothing. It was eerily quiet. I suddenly felt like we were on the ship alone. That's our main complaint - we were bored. It was too darn quiet and the activities and entertainment were worse than mediocre. Andrea, the cruise director, would use words like "wonderful," "fantastic," "great," to describe on the PA what little entertainment there was. He was a phony - smiled all the time but did very little to bring everyone together. We tried going to the games (Jeopardy, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, etc.) but the staff facilitating the games didn't know the rules and/or couldn't follow them. People in the audience constantly corrected them. The hypnotist was a fake and the comedian was funny but also told some recycled jokes. He told us the passengers on this cruise were a "great group" but we wondered if he says that on every cruise. When we asked why no music playing poolside and more activities we were told it was because the passengers liked it quiet. There were a lot of older people on the ship, but I don't believe that had anything to do with the lack of entertainment. I think they cut out some performances because the ship wasn't at full capacity - they were 600 passengers short. There was one poolside music night that was good, but that was with the DJ. The bands were awful - they sang off key most of the time. Food was OK. We ate dinner in all the specialty restaurants and they were good (no problem getting reservations - an advantage of the small number of passengers). Teppanyaki was my favorite - others in our group of four liked LeBistro the best. I liked the Italian restaurant too. There were a few issues with service and food preparation but overall it was fine. More choices at lunch time would have been appreciated. We were all tired of hamburgers and hot dogs by the end of the cruise. We had drinks every evening in the Sports Bar and became acquainted with one server, Eley, in particular. By the third night he knew what we wanted without asking, and he was very nice. However, the "Sports" Bar needs to change its name - their choice of a game is limited to one channel. They had two TV's showing a sport, and about eight with CNN on. Since we couldn't rely on the ship to entertain us, we were excited to see an ad on ESPN showing they were airing a certain baseball or football game the following day and head for the bar, only to find out the ship didn't pay for that particular game. So, for example, the Sunday night pro football game was preempted by college football, even though they advertised the pro football game the day before. They can easily pay for more channels or to show more games, but the apparently opt not to. That's OK, but stop calling it the Sports Bar. We did two excursions - the city tours of Mazatlan and Acapulco. The Mazatlan tour was a waste of money - we would have done better touring on our own. The Acapulco tour was fine - it was hot and the a/c was appreciated while we toured. We had good tour guides on the bus too. We had the best massages ever in Puerto Vallarta at the Krystal Resort - I highly recommend it. For $37.50 you get 75 minutes of heaven. Cabo was skipped because of Hurricane Norbert - a disappointment but totally understandable. It's just unfortunate that more "fun" on the ship to make up for the extra time was nowhere to be found. Prior to going on this cruise we were all set to take advantage of the $250 prebuy for a future cruise and get the $100 on board credit. We quickly nixed that idea. We'll wait to see if NCL gets their act together. Our next cruise will be on a different line for sure.