We had never been on a cruise before - seniors - & signed up for this cruise with a large group from our park. After hearing about Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Costa, etc from other people, our sights were set very high. This cruise was mediocre which is the most complimentary thing I can say about it. the ship itself is beautiful & very clean - they were always cleaning somewhere. The pool area was so crowded, you couldn't walk between the rows of deck chairs. The meals were adequate but we have had better in cheap restaurants. The gala meal was filet mignon & lobster - terrible!!! The lobster was overcooked and most of the filets were tough & stringy. There is no such thing as activity persons getting the passengers involved - you either took part or you didn't - they really didn't care at all. Our waiter for dinner was excellent but the majority of them spoke very limited English. Most of the employees walked around with an attitude problem. The entertainment consisted of the same 8 dancers, 3 singers, 4 acrobats and 1 juggler doing the same thing every night but to different music & backgrounds. Other than the evening shows, the beautiful theatre was hardly used. If you didn't want to gamble, play poker or bingo, there wasn't much else to do. Needless to say, this is our first and last cruise. We too had a hard time getting the mandatory $12/day/person service charged removed but finally did it & just gave it to the 2 people who made our cruise enjoyable - our waiter & cabin person. The shore excursions were very good but unfortunately we had to go back to the Poesia each day. I would not recommend this ship to anyone, especially people who have never cruised before.

Our cabin was on the 14th deck near the bow. Cabin was right inside the giant movie screen on the pool deck & was very noisy when movies were being shown until 11:30 p.m. Also very noisy when there was a party on the pool deck until 1:00 a.m. The door to the outside deck was 4 feet from our door & slammed every time someone came through it.