Background: We were 4 adults traveling, me and my fiancee and her parents. We were all new to cruising. Since I was a little kid I've always been fascinated with big ships and because of that it's been a life long dream being able to go on a cruise on one of the biggest ships in the world. All 4 of us are from Sweden and unfortunatly there's not many cruising opportunities there and perhaps that's why it took me 30 years before I finally had the chance of going on a cruise. Needless to say I had very high expectations for this cruise...We booked our cruise in oktober last year (2008) and thanks to www.cruisecritic.com I was able find the perfect cabin. We booked the aft cabin 7388 which was highly recommended on the boards and her parents booked an inside cabin with a view over the royal promenad.FoodFood... perhaps the most important part of the cruise for many people... so I'll start with that :) Before I go further describing the food let me just take a minute to explain that we're ordinary hard working people, we don't eat out every day nor do we eat in 5 star restaurants very often. I emphasize this because I've read some people that complain on the food and I guess that maybe, just maybe if you eat out on 5 star restaurants every day, then maybe you'll find something to complain about.We absolutely loved the food. 3 course dinner every day, what's there to complain about? Top that with the best service we've ever had! Breakfast was good, we ate all of our breakfasts in the Windjammer. There were enough lots of things to try for breakfast making sure you could have different things every day if you wanted it. We ate most of our lunches at Windjammer as well, twice we did try Johnny Rockets though, more about that later. Lunch is buffE-style and one could always argue about the quality of the food on a buffE, but there were always lots to choose from and in general well tasting food. As a comparison I stayed in a 4 star all-inclusive hotel in egypt 2 years ago and it's not even possible comparing the two. This food was so, so much better. The desserts was also very good, even though there were some that I didn't like there were enough I DID like unfortunatly for my weight :)My fianceE is gluten intolerant so that was something that worried us before we went. We didn't need to worry! They were very knowledgable about it and in the main dining room the head waiter usually helped us answering questions. Every night Marie (my fiancEe) got to select from the next days menu and the head waiter would say if it was possible or not. Sometimes they prepared her meal specially with special sause, sometimes she got no sause and sometimes she had to select a second dish that she wanted. But they were always very careful and tried their best to make it as enjoyable as possible for her. They also made special desserts for her at several times! They did have gluten-free bread but my fiancEe didn't like that very much so we she skipped it. But it is possible to get if you want it! One thing that took us almost the entire trip to understand is that when they make a special order with a special sause or something, they will only serve exactly what's on the order. Meaning that they won't serve any potatoes or rice with the dish even if it's on the menu. So at the end of the cruise we finally learned ordering potatoes and rice as a side order. Of course it was never any problem as our wonderful waiter Carlos would always get it for us.The service was excellent as I said earlier. Normally I don't really like stiff, fancy dinners with waiters hovering over me and to start with I was a bit uncomfortable about the waiter and assistent waiter always being around asking how the food was, if we wanted anything else or refilling our water as soon as we took a sip. But they were really nice people, making you feel like they really cared about you and your dining experience. They felt very genuine and soon I felt right at home. Thank you Carlos from Chile and Kristina from Hungary (I think)! The excellent staff is perhaps the impression that's going to last the longest for me, something I had not expected before the trip as I normally don't care so much about the service.Last about the dinner, we signed up for my time dining as soon as it became available. How someone would not want the possibility of choosing your own dinner time is beyond me! We ended up getting the same waiter almost every night anyway which was great! On future cruises my time dining (or similar program) will be a must for us to even consider the cruise. I also want to comment on an earlier reviewer who said it was hard finding food to eat on port days... were we on the same cruise? I felt like we were always eating, even my fiancEe who couldn't eat alot of the snacks on the royal promenade never went hungry.

The cabin

As I mentioned earlier we had an aft cabin (7388) that we had found browsing cruisecritic.com. We absolutely loved it! Now it will be hard booking anything else other than an aft cabin, the balcony size as almost as big as the cabin itself. We had 2 ordinary chairs and 2 sunchairs and 2 small tables. We spent several wonderful sailaways and nights on the balcony. One thing I loved about having a balcony was waking up on the morning, opening the curtains and looking out over the ocean. The balcony cost some extra, but at those times it was worth it. Read more