I was limited both with time and finances so I tried to avoid 5 plane tickets to a European port and chose this ship and cruise line.

This ship came out of NYC which from the start raised a red flag. The entire ship; entertainment, food, and clientele was catering to the urban/hip-hop crowd. I've been on a total of 5 cruises and have gone on back to back cruises out of Italy through Royal Caribbean the past 2 years and never experienced anything such as this. The bartenders confirmed that whatever port you leave is what comes with it.

1) Staff: For a small ship it was very understaffed and the few they had just walked around moping around the deck. Since there are no garbage cans on the open decks where you lay in the sun, the food plates, cups, and napkins were left on the chairs or on the deck to be blown all over the place. I watched several employees walk past chairs where there were dirty plates and cups out in the open and they didn't pick them up. Bartenders and servers would ignore you once they saw that you had the drink package. I've never had to wait for drinks more than 5 minutes on other cruises. The 2 decks that I spent most of the time on LIDO included had water near the pools which is normal, but I almost fell twice near the bars and juice machines because water was flowing everywhere. Read more