My Wife and I travelled on this cruise which went from Beijing to Bangkok. Reading over the reviews posted I do think reviewers have homed in on minor dissatisfactions and to make a more balanced review I decided to write this. With regard to the 'outbreak of norovirus we certainly not aware of this. I understand if an ship has a very small number of cases then they must notify the passengers but that hardly constitutes an epidemic!

We were on the 6th deck and our cabin was lovely. The bathroom was smaller than on the Marina but on that ship we certainly did not use the bath tub which had been provided. The real advantage of this ship was that it was small taking just over 700 passengers, and hence it could get up all the rivers to dock right in the centre of ports such as Saigon, Shanghai, and Bangkock. In Hong Kong we docked at the Ocean Terminal right in the centre of the city. I spoke to someone who had just done a similar cruise on a larger liner which could not get up the rivers. He said it took a 2 hour bus journey to get from the terminal to the centre of Saigon, whereas we could just walk off the ship into town. In Hong Kong they tied up at the Kai Tack terminal that was a long way from the centre of the city.

I would agree that excursions were expensive but we had pre booked most of ours on Cruise Critic with small groups that various very generous people had arranged and hence visited all the sights with groups of 10 or 12, and our own personal guide. Hence we met up with a great bunch of people that really made this cruise the best we have ever been on. So the message is if you are going to Asia go on a small boat and you will see much more of the country, and book your trips through Cruise Critic for great value and company.