First, the positives: the ship is new and in great shape. A lot of restaurants and activities. Great cabin showers. Efficient crowd wrangling, which is important with a ship of this size (about 4000 passengers). Interesting ports around the Baltic Sea.

But... the negatives really outweighed the positives for me. I've been on about ten cruises, and this was by far the worst experience. The crowds were constant and got to be overwhelming. Virtually every activity and restaurant involved a big pack of people, and most things required reservations (and usually an extra fee - another annoyance). The base price of the cruise was relatively inexpensive, but once you're onboard the upselling is relentless. Being a summer cruise, there were a lot of kids of all ages, and they ran around (literally - thundering down hallways) unsupervised at all times. Had to use earplugs every night to sleep. Staff seemed somewhat exhausted, understandably, and conveyed forced politeness/tolerance in response to the generally poor behavior of the passengers. Unless you LOVE being around rowdy people all the time, go somewhere else! I've always had great cruises on other lines, on other ships about half the size. Won't go with Norwegian or a mega-ship again.