There were 8 of us travelling, with ages ranging from 23 to 62. We picked this cruise because of the itinerary. The only thing that I would like to change was to have the sea day in the middle of the week. We were going every single day, with no sea days in between, and it is quite tiring. We flew in the day before the cruise left and toured Barcelona on our own. We had a fabulous time. We took the Aerobus from the airport right to Placa de Catalunya. It was simple and quick to take. When we arrived at the Placa de Catalunya at 11 AM, we were able to leave our luggage at our hotel, which was a 5 minute walk from there. We arrived at the Barcelona Cathedral Hotel. It was a very convenient location and right on the Las Ramblas. It was very reasonably priced, the staff were super friendly, and it included a 24 hour free food/beverage buffet. We took 3 taxis Sunday morning to the port from our hotel and arrived at the port around 11:00 AM. We boarded very easily and seamlessly. We went to the spa, made reservations for the week for various treatments and had lunch at the Windjammer. We booked all of our excursions ahead of time through private guides. Since there were 8 of us, we filled a minivan and were able to go to places that big tour buses couldn't go to. Tours through the ship are expensive and are bigger than we would like. We had wonderful tour operators that I highly suggest. We had Paul from Provence Connection in Marseilles, Sylvie di Cristo in Villefranche (our favorite...she was awesome). We did Pisa and Cinque Terre on our own. Then we used Rome in Limo for both Rome (Claudio was our driver in Rome, with Barbara as our Vatican Tour Guide booked through Rome in Limo) and Naples (Alex was our driver with Lucio as our Pompeii guide). All of our guides were wonderful and I would highly recommend using any or all of them. I would book them all again in a heart beat. We arrived back at the ship by 5:00 every afternoon with plenty of time to spare. All of the staff on the ship were wonderful, especially Josefina and Danny in the main dining room, Ketut as our stateroom attendant, and Sanjay in the Squeeze Bar. We had the late dinner seating which worked out well for us. We went to quite a few of the shows which were also great, especially the ice skating show and the UK Comedian and Juggler.. The food in the dining room and Windjammer were good. We had a hard time finding seats at the Windjammer in the morning for breakfast as there was a very large group that toured together and ate together. A couple of mornings, they opened up Chops Grille and Giovanni's so we could take our plates in there to eat our breakfast, so they were very accommodating. We didn't pay for any of the extra dining services, even though they heavily pushed that the first day on the ship. We can't say enough positive things about the ship, itinerary and staff. We are already planning our next trip next year. Maybe to Norway......Highly recommend this cruise for its itinerary, staff, food, entertainment!