I'll first start with the negatives. (Note: there *are* positives too!)This ship is not for non-smokers or folks with allergies/asthma. Apparently HAL has decided that their real money-makers are bars and casinos, centrally located and smoker-friendly. In fact, it's rather difficult to access some areas without walking past these or the nearby atrium which allows smoke to freely rise to the next level. By the time we arrived for our first dinner -- a late seating, we all smelled like ashtrays. Combine this with the lack of compartmentalizing smoking/non-smoking rooms and the unkempt nature of these rooms, and you may well suffer horrid allergies/asthma on your vacation. Our verandah was above and behind a pair of chain-smokers, so sitting outside did nothing to alleviate our suffering, and made enjoying our verandah difficult on nice days. Our cabin was also a little tired looking.I am not well-off by any means and must save-up for a special vacation. I don't want to sound conceited, but while I paid full-price, I gather that this cruise sells many hugely discounted rates based on the riff-raff on board. I will try to attribute some of the staff's attitudes to this fact. But I also wonder if HAL uses these shorter passages to train some rather green staff as several did not live up to the reputation of Holland America.The front desk staff did not seem to know how best to handle concerns in general, nor how to reassure a customer that a concern would be addressed. While I suspect it was a language barrier, one of my first experience with the front desk was when one of their staff (presumably having learned it meant "relax, and all will work out") told me to "chill" after I calmly told her of a concern. Among other things, we had SNAFU's with reservations at the Pinnacle (twice!) and room service which never arrived -- neither the morning of a very strenuous, early kayak outing, nor the morning of departure. One excursion was not as advertised, and the staff's poor handling of it left me with my final bad taste. (Staff deferred addressing it until the last day when none of the excursions staff were on board. They did allow me to speak with someone on a cell phone with lousy reception, but her attitude was one of not-their-problem though it was the late arrival of the ship at port that messed up the excursion.) They also didn't honor some of the perks due to a four-star Mariner traveling in our party, which we didn't learn until recieving our final billing shortly before disembarking. Generally, the front desk dropped the ball on these issues.Aside from the above, I should say that the rest of the cruise was very pleasant. Most of the excursions were wonderful. The food in the Vista was good and that of the Pinnacle Grill was exceptional. (The buffet-style foods on the Lido clearly cannot be compared to these.) Another party traveling with us had much better room service experience, as well as finding the front desk pleasant when she needed to contact them about a leak from her sink. The embarkation and disembarking were not as awful as most.