Marco Polo Review
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Horrendous, Horrendous, Horrendous. The Captain should never have taken the ship out of Tilbury. He knew that we were heading straight into a storm in the English channel and a force 10 gale going through the Bay of Biscay. All other shipping took shelter but he boasted to us all that he was the only one who took his ship through such dreadful weather. His decision meant that we had many injured passengers, some needing hospital treatment. Out of 14 days we only had 3 days of calm seas. We missed out some of our port of calls and stayed less time in others. We should have stopped at Lisbon on our way back but the Captain decided to go straight through from Madeira to La Havre saying it was to avoid the worst of the weather going back over the Bay of Biscay. If fact he took us through at the worst time when the storm was at its peak. Again this caused many more injuries to passengers and a lot of damage to the interior of the ship. Out of our 14 day holiday I was bedridden with severe sea sickness for 8. Weather conditions for shipping is known well in advance so the safety and comfort of passengers should not had been put at risk as it was on this ship.
Putting the weather aside I can honestly say that this company has no idea how to run a cruise ship.
The Chef has never worked in an English restaurant and has no idea how to cook for the English taste. Our Christmas dinner was a joke. The traditional Christmas day meal that was advertised in their brochure it was not. We had 2 slices of rolled turkey,1 pigs in blanket 3 halves of sprouts ,1 small floret of cauliflower and 4 tiny pieces of fried potatoes. We had no roast potatoes, stuffing, parsnips, peas or carrots. The Christmas pudding was anything but. It was a half round piece of dry sponge flavoured with some mixed spice with no fruit in it at all. The rest of the meals on this ship were equally unappetising and clearly made from cheap ingredients. The cold meats for salads at lunch time consisted of Eastern European style processed meats. It was the same for the whole 14 days.
Cabin Review
This is a very budget ship charging luxury prices. We paid £4,500.00 for the 2 of us for this cruise. We have been on other cruises and paid a lot less than this for fantastic food and cabin. Our cabin was supposed to be a premium outside double. It was very dated with rusty water leaking through the windows, hard small single beds pushed together with very small worn quilts and covers. There were a number of plumbing defects which led to shower water being either extremely hot or very cold and the bathroom drain spilled over to flood the whole bathroom with waste water in anything other than calm weather.