OVERVIEW
This was our first trip to Europe (our 10th cruise) and it was fantastic. We were very lucky with the weather and seas. We had sun every day and the Mediterranean was very calm. The 2 sea days at the end of the cruise (out of 3 total) were great for unwinding from a very busy vacation. This was our first cruise longer than 7 days and it makes a world of difference. You can actually relax on board with 12 days on the ship.
There were 3 formal nights -- days 6 (sea), 9 (Ravenna) and 11(sea) -- too many in our opinion. Be sure you know in advance that the ship and shuttles don't go to the featured cruise cities of "Nice", "Pisa/Florence", "Rome" and "Naples". They go to Villefranche, Livorno, Civitavecchia, and Salerno. We wondered what cruisers did who didn't know this and didn't plan excursions our make travel plans in advance. We used Barcelona Day Tours (Barcelona), Travel Tour Prestige (Villefranche - for Nice, Monaco, and Eze), and 3 RomeinLimo tours (Livorno for Pisa/Florence; Civitavecchia for Rome; and Salerno for Pompeii, Sorrento, and Positano). All were excellent and our group of 4 was EXTREMELY happy with all these private excursions. Not surprisingly, we saved 1/3 to � over RCI excursions with tours that we could personalize. Barcelona is a great city to spend a day or two pre or post-cruise. The ship did not keep our passports. We locked them up in the safe in our room.
Cabin 3072: Compact, but lots of storage. Very quiet. No problems at all with cabin. Great deck for leaving/returning from ports and only 1-2 decks from dining room. Always easy to get an elevator up!