I was on Eclipse at the same time last year, and a few things dropped her from 5 to 4 stars. Several times per day, even while eating at the buffet, we were bothered by people trying to sell the specialty restaurants. Going in and out of the buffet, we were hounded by people asking us to upgrade my free classic beverage package to premium. I was told upgrading to premium was the only way I could get large bottles of Evian (for sale in the cabin for $5.50 each), martinis, and premium wines in the MDR. But as I found out after I upgraded (with a 10% discount), very few bars had large bottles of Evian, I could drink martinis at most bars and could upgrade at the Martini Bar for $3 per Martini (also discounted at times), and there were only 4 "premium" glasses of wine which were not premium at all. On my previous cruise, the sommelier was willing to open a bottle of truly premium wine for us without charging us for the bottle, but not this time. In addition, the crew was lackadaisical about some things. When the coffee bar had no Half & Half and the Passport Bar had no Bailey's, there was no "I'll go get some from another bar," it was, "Sorry, maybe, we'll have some tomorrow."

On the plus side, the ship was beautiful as always, and decorated beautifully for the holidays. The MDR food and our two waiters were spectacular, as was our cabin and attendant. Most of the crew would do anything if asked, even though a few seemed quite unhappy about it.

The solarium is still a wonderfully relaxing place, and I was impressed to see attendants removing towels from loungers if no one returned within an hour. So there was no early reserving of chairs at the pool allowed. Read more