This was only our third cruise , so we are in no way experts. We booked 10 months ago and we were so worried that we spent a whole lot of money for a bad cruise according to the reviews we read. However, it was not horrible at all. The pros. It's an a spectacular ship as far as the beauty. The food in the buffet , the Seashore restaurant and the Butchers Cut restaurant was very good. The selection and attention to detail was amazing. Beside the water fountain were lemon slices for you to put into your water. Thought went into that. The staff for the most part, were friendly. We found that if you talked to them, asked a bit about where they were from and treated them like a person instead of a servant, they remembered you and were very attentive to you. There was no bad smell, no wait for the elevator as some complained. We had a whirlpool suite. I would advise, do not book the whirlpool suite on the 9th floor. That one gets ripped off a couple feet due to the layout. That's where we were , and when we were at port looking up at the cabins, we realized we have a tiny balcony compared to 10 and up. Our biggest, but not a deal breaker, complaints with this are these two. Cleanliness. When we checked in, our room was not so clean. Hadn't been vacuumed. Stuff on the carpet. Tiny bits of wrappers on the balcony. And my husband and I like to end the day in the bar. Always the tables were full of empty glasses, over flowing ashtrays,pineapple bits. The poolside bars were understaffed. The other thing that dampered our time a bit was the mattress. I have a bad back and I woke up almost on tears most nights. My husband does not have back problems , yet suddenly , he was up rooting around for Advil in the middle of night because his back hurt so bad. They tried to fix it with a mattress cover. Doesn't help. Overall, it was very fun, an amazing experience besides the little hiccups that bothered us. I think we got our money's worth .