As a group we chose this cruise for a New Years eve and cruise along to South Australia and back. Amazing that it took two days to reach Tasmania from Melbourne.

We had a balcony cabin midships as we would normally do on our cruises. Cabin presentation was reasonable but like the rest of the ship, it is suffering from age and lack of attention to maintenance. Everywhere you go you can easily see rusted areas that have (if lucky) been roughly painted over without proper preparation, broken fittings and generally sloppy presentation care. evening meals was an experience! Waiting in long queues in the hope of getting a table was a totally new experience for us on a cruise ship and this even though we had booked time slots. typical of most cruise ships, the so called duty free shopping is just an excuse to work back from the ever mythical RRP but in reality no bargains to be had and not even from the Chinese junk clothing sale held to try and attract market place buyers was worth while. Food areas shut down early where on other cruises we have been on here and Europe, many are open late including free ice-creams, hamburgers etc. but not on this ship. If you want one of those things, you pay and pay.

You guessed it, we are not using this ship again and will more carefully vet the next cruise to ensure the experience is not repeated. Wee do not mind paying for our cruise but value for money must come into the equation and here the balance was no where near correct.