Embarkation for the trip was in Rome. The ship had an outbreak of norovirus on the previous cruise so they were sanitizing the ship so they did not want to start boarding the ship until after 2 in the afternoon. I had purchased the HAL transfers and they handled it very well. Instead of taking us to the port and letting us sit there for 6 or 7 hours HAL put all of us on the transfer bus and gave us a mini tour of Rome while we were waiting. To those who hadn't been to Rome before I'm sure it was a real treat as they covered a lot of the highlights of the city. Obviously we couldn't stop and tour but it was much better than sitting at the port for a long time.

The ship was on code red for the first week of the cruise, but the staff handled it very well, serving everyone at the LIDO, and the service staff bent over backwards for the guests making it a good experience.

Ports were Ajaccio, Corsica, Barcelona, Cartagena, & Malaga, Spain, Tangier, Morocco, and Funchal Madeira. I did a ships tour at every port but Funchal as I had been there before and was comfortable on my own. Excursions were fine and were worth the price of the tour. Read more