First of all, I will say that I probably went on this cruise with too high of expectations. My fiance and I decided a while back to to book this short get a way. Our birthdays are on the 1st and 2nd of February. We thought it might be fun to celebrate our birthdays at the same time and treat ourselves to a short vacation. Please keep in mind that this was my first and my fiances second time going on a cruise. We both have been fortunate enough to travel many places and by many different modes of transportation.

Embarkation threw up a warning flag that I should have lowered my expectations. It was a mess and very time consuming. We arrived at our room to find it very outdated and dreary. Maybe we felt that way due to being a little tired from the boarding process. We unpacked to try to make us feel a little more comfortable. We were getting a little hungry so we decided to check out the various buffets and restaurants that we would eating at for our short vacation. Most were closed and after checking out a couple of different buffets, they offered basically the same food, the buffets just had different names. So we decided on the grill by the pool. It had a very poor selection of food. We both opted for hamburgers, french fries and hot-dogs. The french fries and hot-dogs were cold. The hamburgers appeared to have been sitting there for awhile. They were cold and tasted like leather. We didn't even come close to finishing our meal. Drink wise (cold), only a selection of tea and lemonade were made available. The mostly uneaten meal made my fiance feel a little ill to her stomach so we decided to head back to our room. After resting a bit and feeling a bit better, we decided to explore the rest of the ship.

Later, we retired to our room and hoped the following days activities would be better. I woke up a little early so I decided to see if the breakfast buffets were any better than the lunch or dinner buffets. Same problem. Cold food, runny eggs and very poor selection. We decided that we would catch a lunch at the first port we were scheduled to visit. I can say that the local people were very friendly and polite. We took a Taxi to one of the large shopping venues that was about suppose to be approximately a 20 minute ride. Well our taxi driver didn't go ever 10 mph and his vehicle stalled twice. Almost leaving us stranded the second time. We found the shops not to be of local goods but instead Gucci, Rolex, and other higher end shops that were priced at twice of what you would pay in the states. So again, selection was minimal and limited local cultural experiences available. The return taxi was very demanding and rude about what taxi and who we could sit with on the return back to the port. My fiance and I did not want to return in one certain taxi due to there not being enough room. They told us that the taxi held 8 people and we would make 8. Problem was, due to a few of the other passengers taking up enough seating space for 2 people, it would have made for a very uncomfortable ride back to port. They still were very persistent until me and a couple of other passengers stated firmly that we would not take that particular taxi back to port. The taxi company finally got us another taxi and we arrived back at port in a timely and safe manor. Read more