Fair is fair, and I try to be fair in everything I do. That said, I want to start out with the good. The room was comfortable and well laid out, giving us better storage for our clothes and things than we've ever had before. The balcony wasn't huge, but we could both sit out there in comfort without feeling cloistered. There was a mirror and a place to sit for my wife to put her makeup on, and there's a hair dryer there, as well, far away from the steam of the bathroom after a shower. The bathroom was better than every other ship we've ever been on thus far, and granted, we've never been in a suite or higher, but then, most folks haven't and won't because of the expense. There's a separate stall for the toilet, although the see-thru door could've been entirely opaque in my opinion. The good thing about the free-style dining is that you're not on a schedule, so you can go and eat whenever you'd like. And the entertainment on this ship is the best we've ever seen on any line. And even though the ship holds over 2,300 passengers, getting on and off was relatively easy.

Now for the bad. OK, you can go eat whenever you want, but the chances are that there's a lot of people that want to go eat at the same time you do, so there's almost always a line and a wait, which is something you'll never find on a ship with scheduled seating. And the menu on most ships changes daily, offering anywhere from 6 to 10 new entrees to tempt your palate. But on NCL, the menu is always 2 pages in the dining room, and the right side of the menu never changes. The left page changes daily, but it only offers 3 new entrees, 2 new appetizers and 2 new desserts. Never once did they offer escargot, which to me is a staple when cruising. I know that times are tough, but to leave off such a tasty and desired appetizer is almost shameful. To add to the poor menu, we also missed the personal attention from our waiter and water person. The servers in these dining rooms were almost listless and uncaring. They went thru the motions, but you could tell that their heart wasn't in it. They weren't going to get anything extra for trying, so why try, it seemed. This was one of the biggest disappointments we found with freestyle, and it made for an uncomfortable setting at almost every meal. The lone exception was a waiter named Angelino Tescon in the Indigo dining room. He was the only one that went out of his way to please us, and he was a pleasure to be around the entire time we were there that one night. We even asked for his area the following night, but his area was full when our name was called. The other thing that bothered us was that the main dining room was never open for breakfast, so we were always forced to go to the Garden Cafe up on deck 12. It was fine for cafeteria style food, and there were 2 omelet stations, but I took umbrage with the fact that the orange juice and the apple juice were always warm. Milk, which should've been offered at the same place as the other drinks, was only available down by the cereals. Coffee was good, but on several occasions there was no Splenda offered with the other sweeteners. The french toast was passable, but the waffles were small and hard enough to break a tooth. Yes, I know it sounds like complaining, but doggone it, if I'm going to pay good money to be on a cruise, they'd better have their act together, especially with the food. That's just basics.

Further bad news continued with the room. After being wowed by Royal Caribbean last year, we were sadly disappointed with items this year. Sometimes they left only one wash cloth, sometimes no bath mat, they left one bathrobe instead of 2. Sometimes the room was made up, sometimes not. The shower gel ran out on the last night of the cruise, and that should never happen. Out of 7 nights there were only 3 that they made anything like a dog or a monkey out of towels, and never a chocolate on the pillow. Yes, it's a small thing, but the small things are sometimes some of the nicest and the ones you miss. We did. And we took along our best friends on both last year's cruise and this year, and their comments mirrored ours. Read more