Istanbul to Europe - Eastern Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

Before I begin my review of this cruise, I want to say that we are Sapphire with NCL. That means that we have spent more than a few days cruising with NCL and have seen many changes over the past few years. We cruised 46-days with NCL in 2023 alone. Where to begin? We booked 2 cruises with NCL for November. The Gem from Istanbul to Athens then a Transatlantic on the Breakaway out of Rome ...

Embarkation in Istanbul was long with a lot of waiting in line. I wish that had gone faster. Our Ocean View cabin was the last one down the hall and butted up against an equipment room, yet we were not bothered by noise. It was clean and comfortable and there were no mechanical issues of any kind. Food quality ranged from just OK to pretty good with the exception of Le Bistro which was ...

I'm not including ports of call here, as this is long enough and I haven't written them up yet. The ports were Corfu, Bari, Trieste (we went to Ljubljana), and Kusadasi (we went to Ephesus). Customization: The Yacht Club emails passengers to give you advance options for three things: the pillows, the newspaper, and the bottle of liquor in the room. Here are the options. Pillows: down, ...

We chose this cruise because it covered areas we had not seen and we were anxious to see the Eastern Adriatic and Barcelona. Taking a cue from the questionnaires we were given on the ship, I’d like to review our overall Viking experience. First, our overall experience on the cruise was probably above our expectations, as we had not been on an ocean cruise for a number of years and that ...

The very first reason I chose MSC Splendida was because it was departing the city I lived İstanbul. I did the trip in a balcony cabin with my wife and 2 daughters (6-9 years) and would like to write my observations briefly from this 8-night trip. * Cabin was big enough for our family and the service was very good in the room. * Dining in the open buffet was a little crushed during the ...

We love the Oceania and booked this cruise (and paid) for Upgraded air fare (economy class). The air arrangement were awful - our tour agent was able to finally get us nonstop coach direct to Turkey. There were 3 couples going on this trip (from the same community) we requested to fly together - reservations for trip made 2 years in advance. They booked the three couple all on different ...

We chose this cruise for the itinerary. The fact that the ship was brand new didn’t hurt either. This was our third cruise on Oceania and we first cruised with them on the Baltic Sea on the Marina. We fell in love with the ship and the cruise line. However, since the pandemic, things just aren’t quite the same. We did our air through Oceania for the purpose of if things went wrong, they would take ...

It is great to be cruising again, this is our 6th post Covid cruise. This was our second Seabourn post covid cruise. the others on Odyssey plus Crystal (pre bankruptcy), Oceania, and Regent. What attracted us to Encore was this itinerary which most cruise lines do NOT undertake -- both the Greek and Turkish riviera with many small islands like Kos, Kas, Cesme, Mykonos, Cyprus, plus Bodrum, ...

Even though we travelled extensively in Greece in the mid-1980's we found numerous excursions that took us to new territory. We thoroughly enjoyed this itinerary and we bought a number of additional excursions. Pros 1) We were happy with all stops and excursions except the included tour of Marseilles France (we made the best of it by walking briskly around the old port, which, has since ...

We had a wonderful time on the Viking Sky, cruising from Istanbul to Troy, Ephesus, Rhodes, Crete, and ending in Athens. The ship was beautiful, clean, and modern, and never felt crowded, except for a couple of times at breakfast. As we usual for Viking, the food, crew, and onshore tours were excellent. Our best recommendation is that we look forward to our next Viking cruise! The only ...