We have been on many cruises on various cruise lines including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, NCL, Star Cruises, P&O and Princess. We have found that on every cruise there are things that are done really well and there are areas for improvement. We also find that the more cruises that we have done the more we tend to compare every aspect of the cruise with previous cruises which is not something that we like to do but find it hard not to do. I guess it is just human nature to compare and critique.

We cruised to the South Pacific for 8 nights from 8 November 2012 to 16 November 2012. We were in a balcony cabin on deck 5 (5220). The cabin itself was very comfortable for the 3 of us (myself, my wife and our 2 year old daughter). The annoying thing was the air conditioning. It was very noisy. We new it was not normal because we had relatives staying in a balcony cabin on the same level and their air conditioning was whisper quiet.

We mentioned it to our room attendant Dennis (who was excellent) and a mechanic came up to have a look. We were told that the noise was coming from the unit above the roof and there was nothing that could be done. Walking along the corridor we noticed that about every 10th cabin had the same noise above the cabin door. Just a word of warning when you book your cabin to ask about the location of the air conditioning unit. Read more