My mum had dreamed since she was a little girl of going to Hawaii but could never afford it and so I saved for 3 years, in order for us to go for her 60th birthday, so that she could fulfil this dream. At £4500 for the two of us, it was, for me, a very expensive holiday to save for, especially as I am disabled and on a low income. Many people had told us that cruising was a superb holiday and having previously been on river cruises, my mum and I thought cruising would be a better way of seeing all of the islands.

We flew to Los Angeles where we boarded the Golden Princess - a ship we had been told was superb. We found our room to be very basic, with the beds so hard that I ended up at my GP on my return for painkillers due to the pain in my spine from them. Although the cleaner came in twice a day, the bedding smelt stale and sweaty and we had to request for the duvets and pillows to be changed. Even after this was done, it made no difference. The reception tried to say it was because of feather pillows, but I have feather pillows at home and they certainly did not smell like that.

In less than 8 hours of being on the ship, I had chronic diarrhoea and sickness. I had had a sandwich on the ship when I got on but nothing else. I was confined to the room for 24 hours, given injections and 3 different types of medication. After leaving my room 24 hours later, I found that the cafes and buffet restaurants were serving all foods in one tray - meat, fish and vegetarian. As a vegetarian due to having a meat protein allergy, I was horrified to see the food being served this way. I was more horrified when I saw the waiting staff serving the food using just one utensil for all. I reported my concerns of food poisoning and allergy risks to the Head Chef of the International Cafe. He passed my concerns on to the restaurants. He got the waiting staff to separate the food, but even though the meat, fish and veggie stuff had all been touching in that one tray, he didn't get them to make fresh food. Instead they just put the different foods in different trays then continued to serve using the same utensils. For two weeks, I ended up just having salad as it was the only food that was kept separate with separate utensils. I was disgusted that a so-called 4 star cruise liner had such unhygenic practices when it came to food hygeine. I have never witnessed this in any other 4 star establishment. The veggie sandwiches had pine nuts on as well and so this would pose to be a risk for people with nut allergies. Read more