www.ShipParade.com - Ship Alphabet

Walking aft, we pass the entrance to the Sala San Marco, the ship's conference room with all the audiovisual knickknacks. The San Remo Casino was completely devoid of any one-armed bandits, and made a desolate impression with just a black jack table and a roulette table. Probably the slot machines still had to arrive.

Further aft is the Il Borsalino Piano Bar, a amidships watering hole with a glittering lighting sculpture hanging suspended from the ceiling. It's so brightly lit that I would recommend you take your sunglasses with you. These could come in handy in other places, too. I noticed that the lighting in many places was rather bright which took away some atmosphere - especially in the Rialto Grill, Photo Gallery and in the Reception area. Two arcades lead from the Il Borsalino Piano Bar to the aft stairwell. On the starboard side is the Via Veneto Photo Gallery, and on port side the Via Condotti shop. All the way aft is the lovely blue-and-yellow 262-seat Rialto Grill. Here Festival has come up with a great new feature: they asked seven master chefs from different European countries to each create a typical dinner menu. So one night passenger may dine on a menu created by the Chef de Cuisine at the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam, the next night it can be a Swiss-, French-, Belgian-, Spanish- or Italian-inspired menu from one of the other members of the prestigious "Les Grandes Tables du Monde". A great innovation, available to all mini-suite passengers on a daily basis, and to passengers booked in standard cabins at a surcharge by reservation-only.

On London Deck (7), we find the first cabins aft, crew quarters and hospital amidships, and another public room all the way in the front. The 377-seat Mayfair Lounge is easily one of the most beautiful lounges on the Mistral - if not afloat. It is a daring combination of wood, white, gray and black, with a touch of zebra-skin thrown in, too. If it sounds terrible - think again, because AMK, Mistral's interior designers, outdid themselves this time. It's trendy and elegant at the same time, with banquettes and individual chairs lining a large dance floor and very visible bar. The adjacent St. James Club is perfect for private cocktail parties, facing a passageway with inlaid black and white carpets and wooden columns - it's really gorgeous.

Decks 8 (Berlin), 9 (Brussels) and 10 (Athens) are all given over to cabins and mini-suites. All in all there are 598 passenger cabins, which gives the ship an double occupancy of 1,196. However, with all upper berths occupied Mistral can hold 1,690 passengers. With a length of 216 meters (708.6 ft), and a breadth of 28,8 meters (94.4 ft), this ship is just the right size for those who want all the facilities of a big ship, but still on a slightly smaller scale. The ship's complement of 500 consist of French officers and a VERY international crew. And it comes as no surprise that the currency on board this very European ship is ... the Euro.

All the way forward on Paris Deck is the Richelieu Library, the Diplomat Cigar Room and the nice trendy "Bar des Artistes" - a trendy drinking hole like you see them in theaters, with standing room only. Twin flights of stairs lead up to the aft section of Salon Carousel, Mistral's main show lounge.Spread over two decks, the 575-seat Salon Carousel is done in rich colors, with lots of chrome railings and unfortunately some bad sightlines from the uppermost seats.