Likes Viking River cruise and wanted to try the ocean cruise. Picked Ancient Trade Route because of all the interesting ports of call in many different countries. The ship was nice but the time at each port was too short and there were a number of issues at some of the excursions. For example the City of Palms was not worth it. There was a long bus ride to have little time walking around city, church was closed, tasting of local drink never happened, only one palm site really visited. The second was a quick stop in a local free park where we didn't even walk around. Barcelona part of trip was cancelled (there was some compensation). Visit to Monet's garden was beautiful but the crowd was huge - people packed next to each other everywhere. Sorry for hitting the negatives, but they stood out because not up to Viking standards. Some things like Flamingo dancing excursion were terrific. Tapas tasting was disappointing at roof top stop. A hot boring roof top with uncomfortable seating was disappointing as was restaurant that seemed to hide us in a back room and give us uninteresting food. We would have been much better off on our own. I rated exercise areas fair not because of facilities which were very good but because they were had way too much scented oils being released into the air. Hurt my breathing and caused allergic reaction - so I had to avoid. Amount of scent was inconsistent, some times it was acceptable. Crew was wonderful. Food was wonderful. People we met were great. Lectures were great. Some of entertainment was good some so so. I would have liked to see a little more high class entertainment in the shows rather than bar singers, although we had a good violin performance for one of the shows. Thank you for asking. Best thing was just time with my wife and time to relax.