First the ship. It’s new. Lovely. Everything is crisp. Our bridge tour showed the latest equipment and the second officer did a fantastic job of explaining and answering questions. We have been on other bridge tours and this was impressive. Tendering and all aspects of actual sailing seemed very good. A fellow passenger, a doctor, had a private tour of the medical center and was mightily impressed with the equipment and facilities.

The resort aspect of the ship and cruise we liked very much. The drinks were great and plentiful, food was occasionally a bit hit or miss but mostly very much hits and we loved the considerable variety from the typical to Peruvian, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, and Argentinian evenings just as examples. Aft 7 grill had consistently excellent steaks. Service was fantastic and cheerful, they couldn’t do enough to please. There was very comfortable seating areas inside but most people commented that the plentiful deck chairs were uncomfortable and hard to get out of. Loungers were preferred by us and everyone on board our voyage. I guess they look good though? Deck space is limited, as expected on a smaller ship. Loungers are only around the pool which is also where the deck grill is located by the bar. This makes for quite a busy and sometimes noisy environment. Our favorite place was aft deck 5 which had some lovely sofas and we spent part of every day there, but these were mostly in the shade. Replacing a few deck chairs with loungers in the bow would provide passengers with a quieter sun experience and a passenger did suggest it but nothing changed. Please note there is no drying line in the bathroom so bring a bungee cord for your swimwear or deck chair pegs if you want to use your balcony for drying.

Lecturers (2) were interesting and well qualified for their subjects. But entertainment overall was light. An absolutely excellent daily pianist was the ship workhorse as he played nightly for cocktails and canapés and many nights he was the only entertainment after dinner. He also helped with music for religious gatherings, quizzes and gave voice classes as an activity in the afternoons. We had one headliner vocalist who was also excellent and our entertainment director who did his own show and combinations with the others. All enjoyable but another lecturer and headliner was needed for an 8 sea day transatlantic crossing. We expected to spent a fair amount of time with a good book and our companions (60) and we did. Guests are expected to entertain themselves and with conversations with fellow passengers who were a great crowd. However, after a week or so finding topics became harder without port outings as a resource. Read more