We joined Arcadia for her 15 day Baltic cruise in August. Overall we had a wonderful time and would recommend her to those who like a medium sized slightly more formal adult's only ship. This was our second cruise on her, our first was a short 3 nighter, and we hated her, dirty, in need of maintenance and the staff gruff, we nearly cancelled this Baltic cruise. But we were so glad we didn't, she was clean with plenty of fresh paint and the staff were excellent, a very different experience.

We stayed in Southampton the night before, as we always do at the Premier, just perfect. We did not get complementary parking so instead of paying the exorbitant costs for dockside parking we found a gem on the parkatmyhouse website. We will definitely do this again the next time we cruise from Southampton. Check in as always with P&O was efficient and quick and we were on the ship early at about 12.30.

Our port side balcony cabin was ready by 2 and we were very pleased with it. We were extremely well served by our steward, one of the best we have ever had, the cabin was spotless. He didn't miss anything; including making sure our ice bucket was replenished every day. We were in E133, a glass fronted balcony, and not all on E deck are, in line with the lifeboats, right by the lifts. Our only complaint is that it was rather noisy. We like being by the lifts and have never had this problem on other ships, inconsiderate pax holding conversations outside the door, and banging from a crew door to the kitchens on the promenade deck below were not good. This did not spoil out enjoyment of the cabin overall but a couple of cabins further towards the aft would probably be quieter. Read more