On the positive side the itinerary,condition of the ship, food and wait staff were all excellent. However, there were a few thing that keeps me from giving an overall Excellent rating. First, the use of the lifeboats for tendering in Kotor was a nightmare. The lifeboats were too hot and uncomfortable for what was about a 30 minute ride each way. Secondly, the port in Livorno is completely industrial and you could not leave the docking area unless you purchased a tour package thru the cruise line or bought transfers at their set prices. The cost for a 10 minute transfer ranged from $10 to $20 euros depending on where you wanted to be dropped off. For comparison a 40 minute train or bus ride into Pisa was under $3 euro. I firmly believe that if a cruise line brings you into a port they should include the cost of leaving the port to sight see in the ticket price. Lastly, I was not completely pleased with my two "free choices." For one free choice I selected the 250 minute internet plan. I had this choice on another NCL ship a couple months prior and it was great. On this cruise I didn't use all of my minutes due to the system being either down or extremely slow. The second free choice was the Ultimate Beverage Package (UBP). This is definitely a money saver but I did note that several of the middle of the road alcohols that were available on the prior cruise were now considered premium and no longer available under UBP program. The bartender said they had made this change a couple weeks prior. In summary, I could overlook most of these smaller issues with the exception of the cost to leave Livorno. I felt like I was held hostage at Livorno and was at their mercy to pay whatever fee they decided. For that reason alone I can not rate this as an Excellent trip