Just back from a trip to the Northern Lights. My second cruise with this company and what a change from the first. And the change is not good.
The staff seems to have been cut back by half, the food is much worse, and the entertainment has hardly changed. We did have a passable comedy magician and a half decent actress doing a form of Shirley Valentine. We also had two lecturers, one good and one excellent but we also had this weirdo who was Matt Monros daughter, did a one hour chat with the cruise director, largely incoherently, and apparantly actually got paid!!!
From chatting to staff I find out that the problem is that the company was taken over by a German/Greek company this summer. They have cut back on staff, cut wages and have began by closing the Essex office and sacking the people who knew all the decent acts, performers and lecturers. The result is that they have little or no idea what they are doing and care only about profit.