Generally pleased (though some issues)

Overall, I was very pleased with this cruise.  We are veteran cruisers (20+), so my comments come with that background.  We were in a Grand Suite on Deck 10 and had access to concierge services and concierge Denzil was absolutely fantastic.  Our room was also nice and spacious, and stateroom attendant Nicholas kept the room nice and tidy and was super friendly.  The food in the main dining room and at Chops Grille was also pretty good, though this was first cruise kitchen that couldn't get a soufflé right (texture was like angel food cake).  On the minus side, this boat had some new and inexperienced staff and it showed.  The casino dealers were mostly new and several couldn't deal the poker based games (i.e., Texas Hold 'Em and 3 Card Poker).  I'm guessing they over- or under-paid several patrons.  The waitstaff in casino also took until day 7 or 8 out of 12 to remember your name and drink when when you had a beverage package, and so it was a pain to provide your seapass card every time you ordered, and the staff was slim, so getting drinks took a long time many nights.  This was also an uncommon experience as typically by day 2 or 3, I would never have to provide my seapass card to a casino waitstaff as they knew my name, order, and would have a record of my account reflecting that I had a beverage package.  I also found several public bathrooms to be rank--just lack of cleaning or regular cleaning needed to keep them fresh.  Casino bathrooms and bathrooms near the pool and Windjammer were the worse.   I learned from a spa staff that some of the inexperienced and new staff were due to where this cruise ported (Sydney, AU), and that it was far away from many places where the cruise companies recruited workers or too costly for workers to leave that part of world to visit home; hence some areas of ship had lots of brand new staff.  This was also the only ship I have been on with a single nail technician, which made getting nail appts more challenging. Lastly, we mostly had great experiences with shore excursions but, in Vanuatu, we were delayed into port due to another cargo boat.  That delay caused our excursion to be cancelled.  However, we received untimely notice of that cancellation and no alternative excursion was arranged or suggested despite being in port for another 7+ hours.  Again, while we experienced some issues, I still loved my time on the cruise, and enjoyed the beautiful ports we visited with some of the prettiest beaches with clear water (Mare, Lautoka, Isle of Pines) that I've ever seen. My son (age 10) also won an iPad Mini in the kids arcade playing a Stacker game, so he couldn't have been happier either.  He also generally enjoyed the Kids club and activities onboard (pool, rock climbing, bingo--free for kids, etc).