Having been on other cruises and loved them, especially the azura, we booked the family friendly cruise to Norway, assuming the brochure was correct when it said there was entertainment for the whole family and the same high quality food.

The cabin was ok, but it seemed that every staff member had family on board so they got the pick of cabins and use of the facilities.

Our first disappointment was the quality of the food, we never had a hot meal all week, even after sending cold items back they returned with only slightly warmer food. Not much of it had any taste and it seemed the budgets had been cut as there were thing like 'egg mayonnaise' as a starter and 'blancmange' as a sweet option every night. And they make you dress up for this too Every piece of meat was chewy and tasteless. We also expected the buffet to offer more choice. At night you only got what the theme was such as spanish or italian and no other choices unlike the full spread of the azura. It never said in the brochure that the food was different on each boat it only described how much they loved food and the high quality of it. We went to the buffet on indian night and was first in the queue but the items were still not hot. The food manager didnt seem interested in comments as 'we were the only ones who thought this', but many other people were also disappointed, even a couple who had been on the aurora 5 times felt it had gone downhill rapidly. Read more