We were really looking forward to a Christmas Cruise around the Canary Islands. Whilst we have cruised on numerous occasions, this has been with P&O and Celebrity and I really didn't think there could be that much difference between them all. But how wrong was I? There is just no comparison, the Thomson Majesty is far inferior to any other ship we've been on. On the plus side, the weather was lovely (apart from the first couple of days when we needed a jumper or cardigan) and there were plenty of sunbeds available if you were prepared to help yourself and find a sunny spot on deck. On other ships, the sunbeds are waiting for you but on the Majesty they are stacked high and not easy to get at. The ports of call were excellent, with plenty of time available to explore. No tenders so relatively easy. However, there was no shuttle service available and for somewhere like Funchal its a long walk into the centre.

Now for the bad bits - where do I start?? Well, the main thing for me was the cleanliness or rather the lack of it. There was a bout of Norovirus on board and whilst we were lucky not to catch it, it was pretty obvious why it was rife. The public toilets were old with broken waste pipes and not once did I see them being cleaned. On several occasions, the waste paper bins were overflowing. There was no sanitiser available either inside or outside the toilets - so different to other ships. Empty plates were regularly left on tables and when these were eventually removed the tables weren't cleaned down - dreadful.

I thought the food was of poor quality and I didn't have one hot meal the whole time I was on board. For us the worst meal was the Christmas Gala Dinner - I don't think its too much to expect a decent meal on Christmas Day but no ....... there wasn't even enough Christmas crackers for us to have one each, we had to share!! The first thing I have done since coming home is cook us a Christmas dinner - it was very sad. Read more