The first night's dinner sent me to the medical facility with nausea, vomiting, and severe abdominal pain. I was diagnosed with gastritis. I knew it was food poisoning from dinner, but the medical staff would not even whisper the words. Little did I know then that a few cruises later the ship would return early because of a gastrointestinal outbreak. Embarcation was the smoothest I have seen for 6000 people. The dining room is not big enough for the staff to squeeze around each other between the tables with toddlers running around unsupervised by lazy parents. They removed the daily newspapers from the fleet, which we didn't like, and they added alot more shops and ways to charge you for what used to be free. The gratuities rose again. You can't eat breakfast until 630am, which left us and 75 other people waiting in line from 6am to 630am for the windjammer to open. You can no longer get coffee 24 hours a day or just sit in the windjammer reading in quiet. The sanitation of the windjammer has gone down. Servers walk right by dirty tables to chat with other workers rather than clean up tables in front of waiting guests. I cleaned up tables a few times myself. The tables in the windjammer were dirty from the night before when we entered it at 630am. Just terrible. Because I could not get a hot egg from the windjammer, (all are premade and cold) I had to ask Edwin, an officer, to please ask a cook to make me a hot egg. The quality of the food in the windjammer was awful.

While we were eating, a staff member interrupted our breakfast to try to sell us dinners at the various specialty restaurants. They really push this kind of thing. They try to milk you at every turn. It gets old really quick. Drink Packages! Massages! Specialty Restaurants! Climbing Wall! Ice Cream! SHOPSHOPBUYBUYBUY!

Want to watch a movie in your room? Fork over $11.99 honey. It used to be free, but not now. The quality of the guests has slid some too. For example, I saw a few children in diapers with their parents in the adult-only hot tubs. Really? Do we all have to marinate in your child's piss and poop? If you do this kind of thing, dear reader, stop! Read more