We took my son and a friend on this cruise but were very unsure what to expect as we'd never been on a cruise before and weren't sure if it was 'our thing'. There were several things we didn't enjoy but I think those were probably typical of cruises. Firstly the boat is very busy, though you can get away (deck 7 is a good option...). Also it is no international the entertainment reflects that as it has to be all things to all people. It would have been good to have some comedy but I guess that would have been difficult as different nationalities have different sense of humours. The pool area is also surprisingly small so you have to time when you can go in there (early evening is a good option). The rest of the time it is heaving, which might not bother some people, but was all a bit much for us.

On the days at sea there is very little to do unless you want to sunbathe all day, though we did go to an interesting art session and the evening quiz was fun (though a longer one would have been good). It would have been great to have a choice of films - there were a couple of films on one or two days, but that was it. Luckily we both enjoy reading so we entertained ourselves, and we didn't see the boys for most of the cruise - so they were happy! The food was excellent and we couldn't fault it - we only tried the all inclusive. The excursions were very expensive so we only went on the Turkish one as we had a 100 dollar credit thrown per cabin in with the package. This was an excellent tour though and we weren't disappointed with Ephesus and Aqua World. The other places we stopped at were also excellent. We were shocked that even the tour of the ship - which would have been really intereseting - had a 79 dollar price tag on it, and the pool was 2 dollars! We were very shocked at how expensive everything was and hadn't appreciated the 13 dollar a night per person charge for the cabin cleaning.

I don't think we would go on another general cruise again, though we would think about a wildlife cruise on a smaller, more personal ship.