My friends from the Netball world were looking for a Xmas night out and saw the Marco Polo advertise an overnight event. Having been on the Marco Polo myself cruising to the Amazon 5 years ago it was lovely to remind myself of the good times.
My friends thought the cabins small but adequate. We did have a wonderful evening but just felt everything was a little rushed. We wanted to look around the ship but found we only had time to get to our cabins, get dressed for dinner, pre dinner drinks in the Captains Club and then down to the evening meal. The meal was tasty and well presented but both our wine waitress and our waiter were unfriendly with little time for any banter. Sometimes the plates were placed hurriedly down and they were clearing the plates before we had finished. However the evening was not spoilt and we took in the Cabaret and before we knew it, it was 1 o`clock. As we had to vacate our rooms at 8am we were up and queued for breakfast. Again this was a nightmare as so many guests wanted to be seated and the buffet style breakfast was difficult to manage. We gave up wanting a cooked breakfast!! The fruit was lovely and orange and coffee welcoming.
Overall we had a lovely experience but would have wanted more time and less people and hopefully friendlier staff. I think unfortunately we chose the wrong Saturday as Marco Polo was sailing the next day and it was a short turn around for the Staff. That does not excuse a the lack of a smile from the crew!!