Better then I thought.. Not as good as it could be..

After reading a lot of bad reviews  on poor service , I was sceptic to go but the employees on the boat were all very nice.. Very accommodating,  and all spoke good English. The cruise passengers I would say were mostly Italians so they were in large groups with little English. The Shows were ok, nothing to write home about , The age group was mostly Older , My 4 kids (18-26) complained their was NO ONE on the ship in their age group & for the most part they were right. The Food needs work.. They definitely need a new chef with food that not only looks good but taste good. That was probably the Biggest complaint , it was bad no matter what you tried. They do have a few up charge restaurants which we would have gladly done but there was no menu anywhere to see what they had. The Excursion to Russia (2 day tour) was wonderful. I highly recommend it! Other ports we went to were good, Finland (not much to see) Estonia cute little Medieval town ,Sweden lots of sightseeing & restaurants , But Russia was the BEST! If you like to drink get the drink package, We did the Brindamo package and basically you can get any mixed drink beer or wine or soda .. Sounds expensive but when you break it down its really not that bad. Cabin's were larger then I imagined and although we had an inside one you never felt cramped. Really bad trash smell a few cabins down & although I kept asking why they kept saying it was an air conditioner leak ( smelt more like an overflow toilet:( but thank God only smelt it every time you passed by instead of in my cabin too. To summarize.. We wanted to go to those ports, their was no there ship going , we had no choice, It was fun, we accomplished what we went to do, but better food would have made it a lot better cruise.. If you ate at the Buffet, breakfast was always pastries & ham & cheese. Hours for breakfast in dining room should be later then 930.. People get sick of same buffet everyday.