Took a family cruise out of Oslo, Norway to St. Petersburg, Russia, Tallin, Estonia and Copenhagen, Denmark. Overall we were happy with RCL (it's our 3rd cruise with them), the ship and the services that they provided so we will most likely cruise with them again. As usual, the Adventure Ocean kids' club was a huge hit with our kids. Only a couple of things that I wanted to mention.

1) We loved the ports of call. However, the ship is not in port long enough in Denmark and Estonia. We took ship sponsored shore excursions. Spent a lot of time in a tour bus taking pics as we flew by major attractions. Would have been nice if the shore excursions had been longer/more detailed so we could have taken more time to see the attractions. St. Petersburg was the highlight of this cruise. We did a detailed, private tour of the city with Best Guides. Was an 11 hour excursion but the most detailed and enjoyable excursion we've ever been on. The ship didn't sponsor this excursion.

2) Overall the ship was clean. However, they allowed smoking in the casinos and right outside of the sliding glass doors on the pool deck. For us nonsmokers, we had 2 concerns with this arrangement. a) they put the free ice cream machine for the passengers in the smoking section on the pool deck. so anyone (kids or parents) getting ice cream was forced to breathe in secondhand smoke. i also felt sorry for the kids forced to sit with their parents in this section while they puffed up a storm. b) because they allowed smoking in the indoor casino (which is an open room), the faint smell of cigarettes could be detected in the nonsmoking areas of the ship as well. Read more