Ship review: Room very comfortable (just the 2 of us) and had a balcony-a must. Service always good. Easy access to food at all hours-sometimes hectic in the cafeteria buffet, but fast, and if I don't have to cook it, I can be chill and live with it. For several of the restaurants, if you wish to dine in them, you pay an additional charge. For 2 of the nicer restaurants (large cafeteria/buffet not included), there is no additional-just make sure you make your reservations at beginning of trip or on line. Good workout area- husband there every day. Not spa people, so cannot comment on that facility. Good major nightly entertainment, but M. wished they had more variety in entertainers like past NCL trips, using the bar rooms for smaller entertainment venues(have seen Second City, Shows based on Broadway hits,Motown groups, etc).

Ports: Loved the ports (though I think most cruise lines go into these)-be sure to spend extra time in Copenhagen. We purchased the City Pass for one day (all transportation, $12), and the Copenhagen card for our full day ($56)- it was great (google it). In Germany, took train from W... into Rostock as we did not feel like a long ride to Berlin ($5-10 round trip using credit card-easy trip, and train station right off the boat) a beautiful town. Make sure you have some Euro for Germany, Tallin and Helsinki-we were dying for an ice cream in Rostock, but they wouldn't take US dollars and banks closed. Take a tour in Tallin as you don't want to miss anything-- it is an excellent medieval town. St Petersburg was incredible, and you have to do a tour-did 2day "Grand" tour with Alla and they did a very good job. We did a tour in Helsinki, but not a big town and you can just take their public transportation to main area and walk around. Stockholm closed for us due to bad weather and docking is apparently tricky-disappointing, but understandable. If the NCL tours do not have what you're looking for, or pricing you want, look at other touring groups (check out Cruise Critic for suggestions)-we used Alla at all ports, and they were wonderful.

Bring an electrical adapter (for off the boat if you plan to stay extra days on either end) for your phone if you have one-did not find many outlets in the town (as in none) that would accept our plug, so had to buy one. Also, many of the port areas have free WI FI, so catch up on emails there. Note that if you are US military you might get hassled in St Petersburg-we met young army officer who was asked for military ID (he didnt know how they knew that)when returning to ship 1st day and was advised by US Embassy not to go back to Russia for 2nd day of his excursion