This review may be a little long for some people, so feel free to skip the boring bits. I very much appreciated reading the detailed reviews that other cruisers had taken the time to post, so felt it was time that I made some effort to help others who may be new to this type of vacation. All opinions expressed are my own and have been censored by my wife, where appropriate!

Firstly, a little background information. We are from the UK, 50 & 44 years old and have never cruised before. Almost all of our recent holidays have been in Africa, doing independent safaris so cruising was a completely different experience for us. We are celebrating our Silver Wedding Anniversary in March and wanted a relaxing holiday that would let us see some new destinations, with a mixture of wildlife, culture and a little laziness thrown in for good measure! After a lot of internet research we chose a Panama Canal partial transit as it seemed to match our wish list. We decided to use RCI as the available dates, price and company reputation seemed to be OK.

We spent a lot of time gathering information about both the ship and destinations (most of this gained from Cruise Critic boards) and found that this was time well spent. We didn't get any surprises or shocks! The "Meet & Mingle" group that we chatted with on the boards were a great bunch of people and we have made many friendships that will hopefully last long after the cruise has faded into memory. It really pays to join up on the "M&M" board as you will not only get some great information but have some laughs as well. Read more