We liked the ship itself and our balcony cabin was clean, spacious and comfortable. The public areas were well decorated and tidy with decent carpets and fabrics. The atrium was a little disappointing - not very grand and if you blink you will miss it. We were however disappointed with the cruise in general. We didnt feel that it was a special holiday - a treat, as we have experienced on equal, and lesser graded ships. Arcadia has the potential because we heard several people comment that they had been on this ship in the past and enjoyed it in the past and they said that there had definately been a fall in standards.
We found the food at the evening meal to be fairly average on the whole, with some very good courses occassionally. The buffet lunches were really dreadful and as for the 'chocolate extravaganza' well it was served in the hour before you had to be on board the ship - so it was easy to miss it. waiters served you to one piece of coconut ice which they dipped in the chocolate fountain and then there were 3 small tables of mixed cakes - mostly not chocolate. There were no chocolate dipped strawberries, beautifully decorated gateaux or other luxurious items , it was all very very average.
The ships' staff in general seemed to not really care about providing a good service, one day at sea we were on top deck (11) sunbathing for an hour and no waiters came around at all.I walked around deck and not one customer had a drink, on deck 10 it was the same. When i went to the nearest indoor bar on the deck below there were 3 waiters standing doing nothing and i asked why they werent serving either deck 10 or 11 and was told it was because of the windy weather. One waiter did take my order and bring it to my sunbed, but only after i had sought him out and asked him to. It would have been helpful if a sign had been posted somewhere to let people know there would be no waiter service.