Wonderful cruise. Great ship. Exceptional staff. Top quality food. So why might this review seem a bit picky to some people, especially the many Seabourn aficionados who were aboard Odyssey for our cruise? Well, when you are critiquing that which purports to offer perfection it's not unreasonable to examine what is actually provided in some depth.

Pre cruise: Seabourn's front office staff let down a superb effort by their counterparts on board the vessel. I suspect the problem is that at least in the UK it is Carnival masquerading as Seabourn, and people training is to an acceptable but not exceptional standard. And exceptional is what we are paying for with Seabourn on all levels of service.

Let me give you a couple of examples as to why I was not in the best of moods when my wife and I boarded Odyssey in Istanbul. We had booked air with Seabourn, but the two flights on offer left London Heathrow at 7.10am on the Thursday before the Saturday embarkation day, which I couldn't accept because of an important meeting that day, or 7.10am on Saturday morning. That meant arriving Istanbul at 1pm and having no time to see any of this fabulous city before boarding the ship for a 5pm departure. Most frustrating. Read more