I chose the Jade due to the lack of "kids" activities on the ship. My wife and I wanted to enjoy a vacation without youngsters all over which was the case. We have been on many cruises prior and on NCL vessels prior. I have recommended NCL after coming back from this cruise so I am in no way knocking NCL or any of it's ships and I am doing another NCL cruise later this year. The majority of the staff that we encountered from the service desk to the bar staff seemed to be very unhappy and unwilling to so much as smile, we have never run into this before on a cruise, the one huge exception was Marcia who was a wonderful cheerful person at the bar near the front desk area on the 6th floor(one floor down from the front desk) and the casino host who was head and shoulders above the rest. The boarding was the smoothest I have ever experienced, after chasing down our robes and beach towels which took a couple of hours we headed for the buffet for a bite to eat. The food was by far the worst I have ever had ANYWHERE! The buffet was changed very little for the entire week, we went to Alazar dining room on the second night and ordered the NY Strip which looked like it had been flattened by a steam roller with a ice cream scoop of instant massed potatoes, the food from the frozen section of a grocery store would have been a HUGE improvement over any food I had all week on the Jade! Our itinerary was just fine, no cheap shopping in Costa Maya the prices from the venders was more than I would pay anywhere stateside and a huge disappointment but the port is beautiful and the pool is fantastic. Belize is a beautiful port with all the goodies and was our favorite port. Great Stirrup Cay is also beautiful and NCL did a great job with the activities there and the general lay out of the island. This is a great ship even though it is older and if the crew didn't act like they hated us passengers it would have been much more pleasant but the food is absolutely unacceptable which I heard from many fellow passengers, I would be ashamed to offer any guest what we had for food options for the week. We did respond to the NCL survey with our complaints but have received nothing back from NCL. Thank you to the great team at the casino I will be giving NCL another opportunity later this year but on a different ship!