We wanted a long holiday in Europe and the idea of only unpacking once is such a bonus as you get older, we are in our 60's. We stayed in Venice for 2 nights before departure and 2 nights in Barcelona at the end of the cruise, everything went smoothly. We were offered an upgrade to a suite from a balcony cabin a couple of weeks before sailing at 50% discount which we took as it was so much more roomier and with a double shower and sinks, very nice indeed and worth paying the extra $1500 for especially as the cruise was such a long one. Also the cabin was midship and we did not know when the ship was docked or when it was moving.....no motion at all! The food on board was lovely, as was the service. We didn't see any shows but loved the B.B. Kings Blues Bar. Most of the ports were beautiful, a couple not so good, we preferred the small towns to the big cities and picked our excursions carefully so that we got to see places we haven't been to before.

Would definitely cruise for that length of time again, our only advice would be to pick the cruise which has the ports you want to visit because that's what it's all about.