We met up with 8 other family members for a Christmas cruise to the Western Caribbean. The ship is impressive on entry, it was decorated very nice for Christmas, a big tree on Deck 7, and a great Gingerbread Village with electric trains.. very nice. The ship was clean and the staff was friendly and helpful (as long as they understood you and vice versa).

The day of our arrival we were presented with a bunch of "offers" some of my friends thought we should take advantage of one: "buy today; get 20% off 6 or 8 bottles of wine" well, it seemed that the wines while good appeared to have about a 150% mark-up, a little higher than restaurants. But, we were on vacation, and we'd get 20% off, so we went for it. Well, after the 20% off, they added a 15% auto-gratuity!! There was nothing on the piece of paper/order form about once getting the 20% off I was going to be charged 15% for getting it delivered to my stateroom. This was deceitful. I spoke with Guest Services about it; they didn't care. They were sorry, but that is the way they run their business. Fleecing guests is the norm. The autogratuity of $12.00 p.p. per day charge was not expected either, must have missed that in my pre-boarding paperwork.

The pool chaises are lined up side-by-side, and were always "reserved" with towels, not always people. The casino allowed smoking, you could tell when you were approaching the casino even if you didn't know where it was. That was very unpleasant. The ship does have places to find quiet time for reading for playing cards or board games, if desired. I liked the observation deck, but they held lots of "seminars" there, so ruined the ambience. Read more