Travel is our hobby, and we've been on a number of 'small ship' cruises around the Maldives and Egypt. We loved these! So a trip with the family on a larger ship round the Mediterranean was eagerly anticipated. There was Mum, kids and hubby. The holiday was a disaster - Mum and Hubby both complained that I wasn't spending enough time with them. I swore never to go on holiday with them together again.
So following our move to NZ, we thought we'd give big ship cruising another try. We decided on a 10 day cruise on the Pacific Sun to Vanuatu and New Caledonia. A bonus was it began and ended in Auckland, our home town, and we could take the ferry into town.
I see all the cruise ships that visit Auckland on my commute into work. The Princess ships have to be my favorites, but we do have a limited budget. We did book an oceanview room, and asked for the cabin right at the 'blunt end' on Upper deck. This was a good choice for space - it's squarer than others in its class, and was very comfortable. However, at the aft you do get more vibration and noise from the propellers. Not a problem though - we slept like babies. The only complaint we had was the cabin temperature - it was too cold for me by a couple of degrees and there was no way of adding heat.
The ship itself was OK - what we were expecting. I think it's had a refit in the last couple of years.
Like on all cruises, there were huge quantities of food. You could eat all day if you wanted. We found the Lido buffet to be like a huge bustling canteen - not relaxing at all, and the food wasn't brilliant. Much better was the sit-down waiter service - and with 'eat when you like' dining we were quite happy.
We did find the activities program a bore - very like a 1970's UK holiday camp entertainment program (think Butlins). Ditto the evening entertainment. Thank goodness we'd taken a few good books and a pack of cards.
Service was variable - I complained (much to my husbands embarrassment) a couple of times. Special mention must go to George, a bar steward who was entertaining and a nice guy to boot, and Yos, an older Indonesian waiter in the restaurant, who was a real gentleman, and professional and efficient to boot.
The entertainment staff were very professional and multinational. Sandy, the cruise director (USA) was excellent, and Tom (Cornwall, England) organized a mean game of deck shuffleboard and putting. I do want to know if he has to get the straw hat surgically removed at the end of his contract...
Ports of call had changed from the original schedule - not the company's fault, but due to political situations and swine flu - disappointing. As per usual, you paid through the nose for tours booked through the ship. As an example, we wanted to scuba dive with a company that we contacted on the web. We were told we had to book through the ship, and the price with the same company was at least one third more expensive.
So - would we travel on Pacific Sun again? Probably not - it wasn't our kind of holiday. But we spoke to many people who loved it. It was a reasonable price for what we got.
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