Our embarkation in Singapore was very smooth until we got onto the ship. The cabins were not ready and we had to wait three hours until they were cleaned. This was presented to us as a huge opportunity to explore the ship and also to buy drinks at the bars. The ship looks like a tired 1980's mall. The areas that have been refitted are the bars and one restaurant. Everything else looks very dated. As I walked down the hall to our cabin, I noticed the carpet was wet and squishy.

The lifeboat drill was the worst this side of the Titanic. We never did find our group leader or exactly where we should go in case of an emergency. The captain speaks English with a very heavy Greek accent and is difficult to understand. We have lived outside of the US for many years and are used to different accents, but this one had us stumped. We also noticed that many of the crew seemed to lack basic English skills and this was also worrying.

We had a cabin on the Aqua Deck. This entitled us to two dubious privileges - use of the Blu dining room and use of the Persian Garden steam room and sauna. Three S's describe the food at Blu - salty, slow and surly. The service is very poor and the food is overly salted. This is too bad because it is a physically beautiful room and could be a fantastic place. The Persian Garden is actually an indoor space, which is very dark and smells of mold. It is an insult to both Persia and gardens in general. Read more