hansonsy

There were pros and cons to this cruise. 

Pros:

Excellent food in the cafeteria's dining room.

Freestyle cruising, which allowed for more choices on board.

Excellent friendliness and service from all of the Filipino staff, and most of the other staff; the Brits were somewhat rude, however.

There were great excursions offered on this cruise.

Embarkation and debarkation were very simple and easy.

Jefferson was a particularly talented and very nice musical artist on board, and made for some of the best entertainment option available.

The cruise ship allowed guests to bring in a bottle of wine free of charge, which was an exceptional perk.

Cons:

The stateroom was exceptionally cramped and not adequate for 4 persons.  This, in spite of booking and paying for a larger "family" room.  Which I do not believe we received.  The upper bunkbed was dangerous as it tilted towards the floor, and the exit door and way to washroom were blocked by placing the cot for the 4th person across the entire tiny cabin, making a hazard for anyone getting up in the night.  I have never been in such a tiny room before.

There was extremely limited selection on the TV channel for English speaking guests, and only 1-2 movies were offered in the theater the entire 10 day cruise.

The food was not of very good quality in the more formal dining rooms.  I am not talking about the specialty restaurants, I am talking about the formal dining options offered to all guests. Here, the food was a real disappointment, although the atmosphere and ambiance in the formal dining rooms was excellent!  So that means you could choose to eat good food in a noisy, crowded cafeteria, or choose to dine in a wonderful atmosphere with poor quality food in the Windows or Garden dining rooms. The cafeteria provided excellent and tasty meals, but it was often so crowded it was hard to find a seat.

It was tough to get a plumber to respond to our room.

Room service from the cafeteria was generally very prompt and excellent (all except once).

The pros overall outweighed the cons.  I would definitely recommend this cruise to others, but would suggest bringing on board your own movies and entertainment, as your choices in this arena will be very limited.  I would also advise to definitely NOT book a room for 4 persons on this ship.  You will spend a miserable vacation in your cabin.  Book 2 rooms instead if you have 4 people traveling.  All of the service staff are exceptionally nice, making for a very enjoyable interaction with your servers, but some of the staff with higher pay grades are much less friendly.  Its generally easy enough to avoid these people.  I would go on the same cruiselines again because I enjoyed it so much, and now that I know what to expect and plan for, I could make the next cruise even better. 

Staff on this ship were friendly and efficient.  Entertainment onboard was good. We especially enjoyed having breakfast delivered to our stateroom every day. (This allowed us to avoid the main cafeteria.) The meals in the reservation-required dining rooms was quite good.  The stateroom was comfortable for 2, but would have been very crowded for 4, which was what it was slotted for. The only bad experience was the main cafeteria-style dining room, which had very minimal selections for a cruise ship, and the food was not tasty.  It was always very overcrowded, and it was difficult to find a table. The combination of overcrowding, limited selections, and food that was cheaply prepared and actually a bit gross in this dining room made meals there less than pleasant.  The drawback to eating at one of the other dining rooms was that they all required a reservation, and it was hard to get a convenient time, and sometimes difficult to get a reservation at all. They had a nice library with games and a good selection of books. Other than the food service, we enjoyed our trip!