My wife and I (56, 54) were the travelers and this was our 9th cruise but first in the Mediterranean. We have been on Princess, Royal Caribbean, Holland America, Celebrity and Norwegian cruise lines. We think we have a pretty well rounded view of the cruise industry. We have done 6 Caribbean, 1 Bermuda and 1 Bahamas cruise. We flew in from the Colorado, USA 3 days before and went to Venice. This cruise was part of a 3 week Italy vacation.

Our embarkation port was Genoa and it was easy to get to by train. You will need to takea taxi to get to the cruise port (€15). Its only 5 minutes to the port.

Embarkation for the ship was good not great. The check in desk gives you a ticket to give to a team which turned out to be a sales team. We were pressed to by drink packages but just tell them no if you are not interested and we moved on. Read more