We were starting to be a bit dubious about this cruise before we even left Belfast as our flight was changed twice,including airline change, eventually to an arrival time 10 hours later than our original booking. What has annoyed us even more is that we were notified of the first flight change in December, but we later found out that Thomson were still selling holidays in January with the original flight, even though they knew that flight never existed. This information, along with other issues to do with our booking, has seriously damaged our trust with this company. However, as this was a joint holiday with friends of ours who moved to England a few years ago, we were determined to not let it spoil our holiday.

Our flight arrived slightly early, we got our luggage pretty quick & headed off to the ship by coach. We arrived at 20.30 & breezed through to check-in. We were told we'd missed the muster drill but one for late arrivals would take place in the disco at 21.00. We were to meet up with our friends who had flown in from Exeter, but texted them to say to go ahead & eat without us & we'd meet them later at Reception. We were pretty hungry by now, but went to the drill anyway. The muster was a joke. A bit of info that our lifeboat number was listed on our lifejacket then a demonstration on how to put it on - we'd just had one of those on the flight over!

Went to the Ocean restaurant & our friends spotted us- so they joined us for a second dessert. Read more