As far as public spaces went, the Atrium has a very wild look with an
icicle like ceiling and lots of shiny metal everywhere else.

Did they still have the Chihuly sculpture in the atrium? I didn't care for the
icicles, but really love Chihuly. One of the other things I liked about the
Pearl which you may not have noticed, being in a suite was that the carpets in
the corridors had fish on them and the fish were swimming towards the bow. So
if you lost track of where you were, you only had to look down.

With regards to the food; for whatever reason, we came away feeling
like NCL was at the least equal to most of the food we’ve had on other
lines. We enjoyed pretty much every meal that we ate regardless of the
venue – if anything, I felt again that the value in some of the
upcharge locations wasn’t really there. ...

Most
surprisingly, we found that the service we had from wait staff on NCL
in those restaurants was comparable to the standard service we had on
the other lines we’ve cruised, and was actually better than what we
had on Princess, in spite of never repeating the same people. The
decor in Russian Palace was almost Carnival-like in it’s over the top
splendor – we like audacious sometimes, and it hit the mark there.

I also was a big fan of the buffet’s layout and choices – the area was
wide between counters, the “action” stations were quick to serve, and
the offerings were varied. My wife had no problem whatsoever finding
vegetarian food of all sorts, and I was actually really pleased with
some of the more foreign offerings, such as the station devoted to
Indian food. Plenty of indoor and outdoor seating. Also, when the main
buffet was closed, it was likely that the substantial buffet areas
either in the aft of the ship (“The Great Outdoors”) or near the pool
(“The Grill”) were open and serving lots and lots of food.

I felt the same about the food and the service on NCL. We almost never ate at
the specialty restaurants that had an upcharge, and the service was good. We
also traveled during a high occupancy time (Christmas -New Years) and the only
problem we had was that with so many large family groups that wanted to eat
together, we couldn't get a table with a mixture of other people at dinner.

In general, I think we were very happy with the Pearl. Clearly, mass
market liners are going to have certain drawbacks, and those were as
present here as they are anywhere (Inch of Gold, endless
announcements, art auctions, etc etc etc) but they aren’t so annoying
that they have led me entirely away from the mass market cruise as a
form of vacation. They’re simply another conduit for us to search for
entertainment/adventure through, and one that in the case of this
boat, we were very pleased with overall.