We booked our holiday with our local Thomson agent who we have been with for some years, and we were treated, as always with complete professionalism at all times. We decided to book a taxi transfer as it offers more comfort than the transfer coach but we were actually picked up from the airport in a shaky old ‘mini-bus’. This did not bode well but on arrival at the hotel all was well and we had an enjoyable stay at the Gran Tinerf Hotel, the only downside to our two weeks was the awful entertainment which was definitely geared towards to the average of age of around 80. That said the food was good, fresh with plenty of choice.

On leaving the hotel we spoke with the Thomson Representative who informed us that the ship was undergoing ‘deep cleaning’ and that we should be pleased to be embarking on a ‘super clean’ ship. What he failed to mention was that the ship was being ‘medically cleaned’ due to an outbreak of the Norovirus. At this point I believe we should have been given the option of not going on the cruise, as the virus was still prevalent. We were again collected by a very old and worn out ‘mini-bus’ and the driver needed to stop at the airport to fill up with diesel, however she only actually put under a litre of diesel in the tank, so we were a little confused as to why the stop was necessary. When we did get to the port at 13.00 hrs. and were told that we would not be able to go on-board until after 16.oohrs. this left us with nothing to do on a very cold and windy day. If we had been informed of the problem we could have stayed in the resort where we had the comfort of the hotel, but instead we had to get a taxi into Santa Cruz and hang around in the cold (and then it started to rain) for 3 hours; my husband was suffering with a sprained ankle at this time and found walking extremely painful, it was a very long 3 hours.

When we were finally allowed on-board we were shown to our Suite No 123, first impressions were good, well laid out with plenty of space, but the brown sofa area had been darned with a red material, not the standard that we were expecting and underneath the dressing table area we found a plastic label from a pair of shoes, considering the ship had meant to be ‘deep cleaned’ this was somewhat disconcerting. When we sat on either the bed or the sofa there was a constant vibration, which made sleep uncomfortable. The ipod docker did not work, this was reported to the reception but was not fixed for the duration of our cruise and the TV choice was poor quality consisting of 2 news channels and 3 (repeated) films per day. Read more