West chose this cruise mainly for the itinerary and loved the ports of call. This must have been quite the ship in 1998 when it left Drydock but today it's an older ship that is good but not amazing. We found the stateroom on the starboard bow to be quite roomy for a ship. Even had a 20 inch or so flat screen TV. While everything looked fairly dated the room was in decent shape and beds were okay after we got used to them as they were quite firm. There is very little in the way of in room entertainment as there was no movie channel just news and a kids channel. Occasionally there would be a British show on Sky TV but other than that you have to get out. There were nightly shows in the Masquerade Theater or a movie. Some of the entertainment was excellent but generally it was okay as there wasn't much else to do.

Now the food: we dined at the formal dining with My Dining. So we had to book a table every night but didn't have to sit and listen to Americans talk about politics every night so that was a bonus. The food was pretty good in the dining room and they striped to give excellent service. My wife is gluten free so they worked hard to get her meals right. However her gluten free choices were a bit limited because she doesn't eat seafood. I special order the filet mignon, which cost an extra $20US but it was easily the best steak I've ever had! It needed nothing and melted in your mouth. Order it if you like steak! I would have liked more seafood and lobster on the included menu even if just one night but all of the best seafood is a premium price. If you like to drink you may want to consider the drink package as drinks are priced outrageously considering the cost at ports. I had a $14US 5oz glass of table wine, which was the only drink I purchased on the cruise. The way people were ordering up the drinks I could see they must have easily racked up a $1000 dollar bar bill by the end of the cruise if they didn't have the package. Also the premium restaurants prices were fairly outrageous plus they added an extra 18% tip onto their meals as they don't get tipped out of the main gratuity you pay. So, for an extra $100 a night you and your partner could be dining in style!

I would like to say for the most part cruising was pleasant during the day. We had excellent weather for the fall but the Mediterranean gets rougher in the fall. Some of the cruising days and nights were fairly rough. We don't get seasick but also don't enjoy the waves pounding the hull all night. So after the cruising days we were happy to get off. I recommend you try to get the best deal on a cruise with this ship and consider abstaining from alcohol except at ports. Finally, the time at ports of call were extremely limited. We found each shore excursion was a nail-biting race to get back before the all on board time sometimes as early as 345. Many places you really only had 5 or 6 hours to explore by the time your excursion got it together to get going. We had several delays where the excursion was an hour or more late cutting into the already limited time. I will say to our tour guides, that they did a good job of getting us back on time, but we booked them all through Expedia and not the outrageously priced shore excursions on board the ship. I'm not sure why the captain left us so little time to see the ports considering that was the main point of the cruise. I suspect the cost of being at Port and the money to be made getting you back on board to buy extremely expensive drinks might have been part of the motive. While it was nice to have a "taste" of each port of call, I wouldn't recommend this as a way to really see any of the ports. At least we now know where we want to come back to.