This is a great little ship. I was blown away how beautiful this ship was renovated. It has a lot of the features of the big ships with shorter lines and quicker embarkations. It can do the smaller ports than the big ships. The crew was absolutely wonderful.

This is a very aggressive itinerary and unless you are physically capable do not try this. Right off the bat you will hit three ports back to back. We gave ourselves two days in Barcelona but that was barely enough to recover enough energy to see three countries in three days. Fortunately you get two days off then back to business. I'm glad we only booked excursions in Rome, Florence and Athens. Those three cities are one to two hours from the port so you have to book if you want to get off the boat to see anything worthwhile. The rest of the ports are self guided and easy to navigate. However our biggest mistake was not bringing a hand held gps. This is an absolutely indispensable tool in Europe where the street signs are hidden or non existent. I assume you could buy one in the US and download the European maps. A lot of people booked their own excursions but we heard that it can cost you as much as the cruise to get to the next port if you don't get back in time so didn't chance it. But many people said they were pleased with their smaller personal tours and not time we might me more adventurous.

The ports we liked in order from best to worst: Read more