My friend and I recently traveled on the 7 day cruise from Istanbul to Athens on the Louis Cristal. I was a bit concerned after reading a previous review. We had a great experience! I do need to say that the ship is very basic. It was clean and well kept, but did show her age a bit. The staff was always helpful and courteous. The food is good, but not to die for and, of course, there was plenty of it with a variety. If someone wants the top-end cruise experience, they may be disappointed. To me, it was like a Holiday Inn while the bigger ship would be a Hilton or Ritz (but with the high end, you get more people...) There were seven ports of call so we got to see many more islands than what other ships' itineraries offer.  It held about 1000 people or so. Having that small a ship made it easy to get from one part of the ship to another, get through buffet lines, get on and off the ship quickly, and get into small ports of call such as Symi and Chios. Also, some of the islands we stopped at were quite crowded even without big ships in port.  I could not image how awful visiting Ia on Santorini would be if there were thousands of people from a large cruise ship on the island!  To me, it was more about the destination, not the journey. By the way, I would highly recommend a cabin with a window!  It was a bit more, but it was worth the extra money to watch the islands go by or look out while getting dressed or relaxing after sight seeing all day.