This was our first cruise and we thoroughly enjoyed freestyle cruising. The embarkation was super easy. We didnt eat in any of the speciality restaurants. We ate at the buffet the first day for lunch. We stayed on the pool deck for dinner and the sail away party. The hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken etc. was great. We ate at the buffet for breakfast everyday. We ate at Crossing and the Palace for dinner two of the nights. The night we ate at Crossings they had the surf and more surf which consisted of scallops, shrimp, lobster tail and a piece of fish. They brought the ones who had that another lobster tail. We thought the baby shrimp cocktail was terrible. The night we ate at the Palace we all ordered the steak and asked for baked potatoes instead of fries and they had no problem with doing that. We thought the desserts were very good (except for on the buffet). We all enjoyed the ice cream on the pool deck. We enjoyed ordering the buffalo wings at Longboards and the cheesecake. We would get it to go and take it back to our room. We ordered room service one evening for my son who had been looking forward to that the whole time. The service was very fast. Our room steward Furtado was so sweet and caring. He always provided excellent service and did a different towel animal every night for us. One evening my son and I were on the balcony and he asked if we would like to see how he made a towel animal. We tipped him extra just for the great care he showed us the whole time making sure we had everything we needed. We traveled with our two boys one is 14 and the other one is 10. The 14 yr old had dinner with us one night. When we were on the boat he was in the teen club with the other kids. They always had activities going on i.e. scavenger hunts, games, eating dinner, etc. He made some great friends the counselors were great. My 10 yr old would go in the evening which is the only time they are open when you are in the Port. He always had a great time and loved being there. We are looking forward to the day we get to go on another cruise and plan on taking NCL again.