We were told by our cruise planner to arrive for boarding by noon at the latest "to avoid long lines". We arrived at the ship at 11:40 and did not embark until 1:20. There were several sections with 4 employees at each, registering passengers. The line we were directed to only had 2 employees in that section. To add insult to injury, cruise staff were directing people from the Captains Club to those 2 employees besides the section that was designated to check in Captains Club members. There was one point where our line did not move AT ALL for 30 minutes. Friends of ours arrived almost an hour after us and were on board only 10 minutes later. This was not a good beginning.

We found in most instances the bar staff were not attentive. They would see you standing there and completely ignore you, chat amongst themselves or just wander off. One evening we sat on the third deck near the live music. We sat there for 20 minutes while the bar tender chatted with other patrons and never once looked around to see if she had other customers. We finally went up to the bar to get drinks and finally another patron drew to her attention that we were standing there.

The food was usually good although I had 2 steaks that left a lot to be desired. One was full of gristle and couldn't even be cut. Another was very well done and tasteless. I suppose the most disturbing thing we noticed was the blatant waste of food...not the ship's fault but rather the passengers...large plates heaped with food from the buffet just simply were left and went in the garbage. Read more