First, a little background: I am 28 years old but an avid world traveler, and have been to over 60 international cities in 17 countries in the past few years so have quite a bit of travel experience, but this was my first cruise. I usually travel independently, a mix between bare-bones backpacking, and splurging at nicer resorts. Since I'm used to being able to do anything I want at any time, I was worried that being stuck on a boat for 4 days would be claustrophobic. Additionally, I love to eat and have high standards for food, so most of this review will be about the food.

I had so much more fun than I thought I would on this cruise! I think the complaints other people have on this board are justifiable, but you really need to keep an open mind. This is not a luxury cruise, so I didn't expect a 5-star experience and I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun I had. Ultimately, I think that as long as you are flexible and keep a positive attitude, and don't let small imperfections ruin your attitude for the whole trip, you'll have a wonderful time. It's vacation. Things are bound to go wrong, but it's how you react to it that determines how relaxing and fun your time is.

FOOD: Much better than expected, but only if you pay for the specialty restaurants, which are totally worth it. After eating at the Palace for lunch on embarkation day, we found the food to be just average (for our tastes at leastwhen I'm on vacation I expect to eat excellent food). Tilapia was slightly dry, banana soup tasted overripe and the split pea soup was much too salty (and I suspect they used table salt as opposed to kosher or sea salt, which imparts a smoother flavor). The food in the buffets was also just averagesomething I'd expect to get at Denny's or Hometown Buffet, which is to say, I'd never eat here if I had a choice. The best thing at the buffets was probably the banana bread and the Indian food options. Read more