Specialty dining: considering the food we had in Manhattan during the cruise we found it to be far and above the best restaurant on the ship. We found nothing special at all about the specialty restaurants. Mostly the food was bland (Cagneys) or in some cases inedible (Le Bistro - duck) and what we did like (La Cucina) could be found in Manhattan anyway (ravioli and gnocchi were exactly the same!)

Ports: you have to be kidding!!!! Every single port you are stopping at the most ancient, unkempt, and in some cases downright dangerous ports I’ve ever seen. Add on the fact that you have to walk 1 1/2 miles to get to ANYTHING. loved that we didn’t get to go to Grand Cayman at all because they canceled the tenders because seas were too “rough”. Funny that the Royal Caribbean ship that pulled in behind us was able to tender with NO ISSUES. this was immediately following the stop at Costa Maya where we couldn’t get away from the entire port smelling of sewage. But the icing on the cake was Jamaica where we pulled up to Reynolds’s Pier which was essentially nothing more than a grain elevator for barges. It was filthy, had locals hovering around and above the disgusting walkway cat calling the girls and making lewd gestures for all passengers. We didn’t get off the boat because none of us felt safe doing so.

Cleanliness/passenger safety: obviously there was a huge issue on our sailing with some sort of pathogen because we lost our ability to have salt, pepper, ketchup and mustard halfway through, our menus were turned into paper print-outs and washy-washy became urgent instead of a suggestion. Add to that the hallway fogging, and post-cruise hazmat suited spray-down and yes I’m sure we’re all going to show up home with some terrible malady. Not one cruise person explained what was going on. Not one. Just made things very inconvenient with zero explanation. Communication with this type of thing makes all the difference. Had the ship been aware of whatever the problem was maybe everyone would be more aware and careful and if they did come down with something immediately after be able to tell their dr what was going on. But no, better to leave everyone in the dark. Read more