Cruised to Palma, Sardinia, Corsica, and Elba. OUTSTANDING Windstar-hosted complimentary shore excursion in Palma - wines, tapas, tour of museum - just great - highlight of the cruise! Not to be missed. Walked around on our own at the other ports and they were nice with good shuttles, dining, and shopping options. Didn't hear of any other outstanding tours and many were l-o-n-g. Great crew highlighted by hotel mgr Jeffrey Jack who is always all smiles. Nice fellow passengers though the number of smokers was high and trashed the starboard rear deck. Big business incentive group from Australia (half the ship) made it a younger crowd than usual for Windstar.

Only serious beef was our cabin midships on Deck 1 was the noisiest cabin we have every had in 14 cruises on 7 lines. We have been on both the Windstar Wind Surf and Wind Spirit and never experience the VERY LOUD whining whenever the ship was underway. It would stop as soon as we docked so it was a generator or turbine. Very difficult to get more than 4 hrs sleep even with earplugs and the bottle of wine they comp'ed us. Many fellow passengers in the same area of the ship experienced same thing (including the free bottle of wine). But wine does not equal sleep. Would not cruise on this ship again until they get it fixed. Add to this the incessant banging and scraping of the crew working on the hull at mid-afternoon after excursions return when everyone is tired. Sounds like constant banging of a ball peen hammer outside your porthole. They can't do it when we're off the ship - has to be at naptime?

Food was standard and after over 30 days cruising with Windstar we FINALLY convinced the chef to make some whole wheat, high fiber, multigrain bread to augment the bunny bread and white rolls they serve. Good for him and the baker - bread was great and fellow passengers loved it as well. Outstanding food and new expanded menu at Candles so eat there as often as you can and weather allows. We squeezed in 2 nights. Dining room food very good. The renovated cabins actually allow for a nice in-room dining experience if you are into that or need it because you are not feeling well. Buffet food always seems overdone at lunch - too many strange ethnic dishes and heavy stuff, salty soups, and sweet fruit soups (maybe crew likes these leftovers?). Salad bar could benefit from some riper tomatoes and lighter dressings - very heavy/mayonnaisey dressings. Lunch buffet needs more cold sandwich meats. We had mortadella and mortadella (Italian bologna) so you can make a sandwich. A neat light lunch trick is to order a sandwich or salad from room service and have it delivered to the pool bar/deck. The mid-afternoon/teatime offerings were pretty bleak. Breakfast buffet is good and plentiful though the bacon was consistently overcooked and corned beef hash undercooked (just warmed from can). You have to watch the omelet cook like a hawk to make sure he doesn't burn your omelet. They use way too much oil (like 3 TBSPs) to keep the omelet floating while it cooks without stirring until he flips it in the air. Poor, showy technique that results in an overdone omelet. Fried eggs or excellent scrambled eggs from buffet better and we added our own toppings from omelet station. Read more