Having been on the Millennium & Silhouette previously we had great expectations. We were in for a surprise........

The first problem was the state of the ship. We celebrated its 5th birthday on our cruise and its likely that the greater part of the ship has not seen any maintenance throughout most of that time. The handrails on our balcony were nearly bare of varnish, the curtains in our suite were ripped. We complained about both. They came and painted the rail, but didn't do anyone else's, even though most of the ship was in a similar state. The furniture in some of the lounges, Sky in particular, were well worn. The top of the Martini Bar had not seen ice for three months and they anticipated that it would be at least another three before it would be fixed.

We paid for the Classic drinks package. However, towards the end of the cruise we were just pleased to be able to drink anything alcoholic as they had run out of most of the published brands. I can tell you that drinking Fiji Gold lager is not for the feint hearted. Zuk! We enquired as to why this was, apparently, helped by copious Australians, we had drunk FOUR times the amount of beer they had estimated and were buying up any spare stock in each port. Read more