Sandy
Age: 36
Occupation: Homemaker
Number of Cruises: 7
Sailing Date: December 18th, 2005

Let me start by getting the postitive things out of the way. The ship's Asian decor was beautiful-a nice change from the normal cruise ship decor. Also, the ports were absolutely gorgeous. Tortola being our favorite. But, of course, that was the port where we only stayed until 1:00. We also had very nice weather, except for the one rocky day at sea on the return to New York. Now for the negatives...I read reviews on this ship and cruise line after we had already booked. Most were negative. I was hoping it was just alot of people who were just a little too picky, so I disregarded them and looked forward to our cruise. They weren't being too picky.

The food and the service in the main dining rooms was absolutely horrible. We only had dinner in the main dining rooms twice due to our order being messed up both times and the amount of time in between courses. The wine I ordered with dinner one night actually came with dessert. Oh, and if you like standing around with one of those vibrating beepers that you get at your local TGI Friday's when there's a wait, you'll enjoy this format.

I also feel that having restaurants that charge a cover fee on a ship is ridiculous. You already spent thousands of dollars on this trip. The menus in Windows and the Garden Room were identical every night. So it's not like it's an actual different choice, like they make it sound.

I will also agree with other reviewers when I say that the food in the Raffles buffet was mediocra at best. I cannot tell you how many times there was just nothing appealing so we ended up going to get plates of fries at the Blue Lagoon. (I'm extremely sick of fries at this point). It was almost like they saved the good food on the ship for people who were willing to pay a cover charge.

The menus are posted outside of each rest. Even my 13 year old son who will eat anything felt the same way. He actually lost weight on this cruise which he was not happy about. Enough on the food, I think you get the picture. Entertainment: except for one very funny comedian, we didn't stay for any other shows. I heard other people commenting as they left on how bad it was. Also, the day to day list of activities was lacking to be nice. We sat around bored or slept on the sea days , which is weird for me. I'm usually the one getting everybody up and ready to go.

Shore excursions:

St. Thomas- we went to Magen's Bay. Again, my son said the beach was disgustingly dirty. It was also very crowded. On a previous cruise we took the trip to St. John. That was beautiful and I would highly recommend that instead if you're looking for a beach day.

Antigua-we had another beach day. A beautiful beach, a BBQ lunch was included in this excursion. It was a nice day.

Dominica-we took the whale and dolphin excursion. We saw a lot of dolphins-that was great! Toward the end we finally saw one whale, but it was a 4 hr. trip and the time in between the dolphins and the whale got old.

Barbados-the green monkey encounter and 4x4 trip...the only monkeys we saw was when we stopped at a house where a guy raises them. But, the plus side of this trip was that we got to see alot of the island, got some fantastic picures and the 4x4 part was funny. We really got bounced around.

Grenada-my son felt like staying onboard, so my husband and I went out and hired a taxi to take us to the more popular sights. That was also fun. Then we went to another gorgeous beach and had a ball.

Tortola-our favorite. We took an excursion which included lunch, which was fantastic, to Cane Garden Bay. Another beautiful beach. This trip also took the long way to the beach to show us the beautiful views on every turn at this island. We definitely didn't have enough time here. In my opinion, we could have skipped St. Thomas and spent a whole day here. Just breathtaking!

So there you have it! My advice is that if you don't care about the food and you like having nothing to do on your days at sea, then you should take this trip and enjoy these beautiful islands. We did still enjoy that part of it. Oh, one more thing, the stateroom...we had a balcony room (#9182). This room was right under the childcare center. DO NOT BOOK THIS ROOM! The noise during the day and early evening was overbearing! It sounded like a herd of elephants jumping around. The room itself was very small with just bearly enough closet space for three peoples' clothes. (I overpack though) The bathroom was nice and tiled in pretty bright fish tiles.

I hope this helped. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me.
 

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