We chose this cruise for the itinerary. My wife's sister lives and works in Dubai and the opportunity to see her and locations we had not been to before made this choice irresitable. We spent a few days in Dubai, we had been there before, but really enjoyed it as well as a day trip we took to Abu Dhabi. We chose an early boarding 1100 AM, which was a good idea. We were on board in no time and had a cocktail in hand immediately. We decided to check our cabin 1232 on the off chance it was ready, perfect, it was. We dropped our carry-on and proceeded to our usual tasks which include, specialty restaurant dinner reservations, hair appointments, and checking our dining room seating, We then went to Johnny Rockets for lunch which we enjoyed, just something about a greasy burger and french fries chased down by a cold beer. For us boarding was easy and uneventful, and we were able to get our primary objectives done and now it was all about enjoying the cruise. The cruise on the whole we enjoyed, we did feel however, that some crew members were not engaged. I think part of that could be the length of the cruise (it started in Singapore we picked it up in Dubai) as well as that the ship was going into dry-dock for refurbishment. These ladies and gentlemen work extremely hard with no days off and long hours, so a lot of it I get. We enjoy eating in the specialty restaurants, however the menus need some change. The Chops and Giovannis Table menu have not seen a change in many a cruise, we enjoy these venues but we will re-think the amount of times we patronize these establishments going forward. We usually get the five night dining package plus a couple of additional dinners, but being faced with the same menu all the time becomes boring. The dining room was okay, nothing really special on that front, we do however enjoy breakfast in the dining room. We enjoy going to the Schooner Bar after dinner each evening and this cruise was no exception. Yanus and Stanislav (bartenders) could not have been nicer and more efficient. They went above and beyond especially when they ran out of grapefruit juice. We enjoy vodka and grapefruit juice and for some reason when you travel to that part of the world they always seem to never have enough and mid-way through the cruise they run out. Yanus and Stanislav would actually run to another bar in an attempt to find us grapefruit juice. Hope you guys can get off the ship in Miami. Why is having enough grapefruit juice on a cruise an issue? Best RCCL bartenders!!!! Our stateroom attendant was Li, a nicer gentlemen I have never met. I enjoyed speaking with him at length will hopefully run into him again on another cruise. We booked our 2019 and 2020 cruise with Carinha Duarte. Bon Dia Carinha!!! See you in the north!!! She did a fabulous job working with us for our next cruises as well. very informative and helpful with the different ships and venues. We only took the tour of Petra with RCCL, we are finding their tours are over priced and you can usually do better with a private tour company or venture off on your own. We enjoyed Crete (Chania) very much and of course Jerusalem, Dead Sea and Barcelona. We did Jerusalem and the Dead Sea with a private tour operator because it afforded us to see both in the one day we were in port. RCCL offered one or the other. Barcelona is one of our favorite port cities we have been there many times and so we go off on our own and seek out the obscure tapas and wine bars always the best. Going through the Suez Canal was an adventure, so glad we got to experience that. On the whole an excellent vacation with just the few thing we mentioned that hopefully RCCL can address