My family & I had a wonderful recent holiday on the Splendour of the Seas, with Royal Caribbean Cruises. We travelled as a family of 4 in one cabin (2 children aged 6 & 9). And my mother & father in law in another cabin. The cabin's were surprisingly spacious, we had an interior stateroom, (room 739) and my in law's a beautiful outside stateroom. The only problem with either of the rooms seemed to be that the AC, in the outside stateroom did not function all the time. The choice of dining options, and variety had enough to satisfy even the fussiest of child eaters. (we chose a flexi dining option). The entertainment, that we saw was very good, I would hesitate to say excellent, but it is difficult to cater with such a range of nationalities on board. The entertainment hosted by 'Bill' the cruise director, some may describe as 'cheesy', however, we found the best way to enjoy it was to join in the fun, you are on holiday after all. The hot dog bar was a particular hit with my 9 yr old daughter & my father in law. The big screen by the pool showing all the live football from the Euro 2012 tournament was a bonus. Ports of call were good, particularly Kusadasi, the port for the ancient city of Ephesus. We were very disappointed with the shore excursion to Ancient Olympia. This was the only excursion we did having already found our way around all the major sites on our own at previous ports of call. We thought we may learn something with an official guide. We felt the tour was rushed, (we tendered at Katakolon, which the ship does not normally do) I believe the fact we tendered and the fact ours was the last tender ashore, made the trip more rushed that it normally would be. The guide was informative on the coach, & I'm sure she would have been at Olympia, if we could have kept up with her or had we been able to hear her through head sets provided. They were useless. She admitted halfway through as a means of hurrying us along, that we had to get to the museum by a certain time as it closed at 3pm. We did not even get time to take the photos we wanted. The fact we paid 70+ Dollars for this trip per person, did not help, as at all the previous ports of call we had done everything at a fraction of the price on our own. We were also advised by the shore excursions desk, that taxis were hard to come by at Katakolon, however even though we were the last tender off, there was a queue of taxis waiting. So we felt a little mis-led. After complaining we were eventually refunded 15% of the excursion fee by the shore excursions desk, although initially they did forget to deduct it from the bill. My advice is if you are confident enough to explore any of the destinations on your own do it, if you have that in you, you may feel ripped off going on an excursion where you are herded around like sheep. All that said it did not detract from a wonderful stay aboard the Splendour of the seas.

Unfortunately we on return from our stay, all 6 of us have developed serious throat & lung infections that we have been to the doctor for, initially when we took the children we were just told it was a summer cough, but 10 days on and several fevers, aches, pains, sleepless nights and hot & cold sweats later we are seeing the doctor for a second opinion. This is no normal summer cold. It would be interesting to know if anybody else on board has had similar symptoms since they returned from a recent cruise.