I have recently posted several reviews of our May cruise which you have probably already read, so I will not rehash all of the same thing.
However regarding the restaurants, the two main dinning rooms are the Four Seasons and the Terraces. Both of these have the same menus as each other but change from day to day. The Sun Terrace restaurant is an Italian themed restaurant and it has the same menu for the entire cruise. The Le Bistro restaurant is the fancy restaurant that you have to pay an additional $15 per person to eat at. The Sports Bar & Grill is the "buffet" style restaurant.
Regarding the food as a whole I would rate it as average to below average. We have been on cruises where it has been much better and a few others about the same as this one. All of the Carnival cruises that we have done for example, had better food. Also the Sports Bar is a disaster. As you may know, this ship was cut in two and a middle section added to increase the size. The Sports Bar, buffet area, is the original one that was designed to accomodate the smaller size version of this ship. It is always overcrowded with people waiting for tables with their trays in their hands. We only ate there ocassionally for breakfast and we discovered that it was better to carry our trays to the Sun Terrace restaurant which was not used at that time.
Of the two main dinning rooms, you will see that the Terraces is more elegant and the views off the rear of the ship, more stunning. Le Bistro is worth the extra charge in my opinion, at least once on the cruise.
There is no late night food, no buffets, no ice cream, and the piazza is bad. Again the food is not a high point of this ship.
I have written about the shows elsewhere so I will only say that they too are average.
Regarding night life, there is no casino which was a real disappointment to our group. There are several lounges with entertainers performing nightly. During the day, especially while at sea, there are the usual activities such as bingo, deck games, trivia contests, shore tour and shoping talks, etc. A real highlite for my wife and the women in our group was the hula dance lessons that were given during the sea days.
I wore shorts during the day and casual attire at night. Most of us wore hawaiian shirts at night to get into the spirit of the cruise. Shorts are not permitted in the main dinning rooms at night. On the one formal night, a sports coat or suit is preferred. Some people wore tuxedos.
I don't understand what you mean by what areas to avoid with your cabin. The cabin size and layout of our outside cabin, deck 6, was large and confortable. Each cabin has a programable safe which is very nice. This was one of the best cabins that we have experienced.
I hope that this may help. If you want additional info I don't mind answering your questions. Since this is going to be your first cruise I would be interested to see if you agree with my comments. Good Luck.
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