We boarded the beautiful Noordam for the second time in two years on the understanding that we could use any part of the common area on the ship as on our previous cruise,only to find that we could not use the common area on deck 11 as there are now Cabanas. There is a clear notice that the area was private for paying Cabana users only, segregating the rest of the passengers from this previous common area, in our view turning the Noordam into a two class system.

On this cruise we lost the privilege of bringing as much wine as we wished, new rules only now allowed two bottles each. Travelling in a balcony previously we were given complimentary personal stationary only to be told by the front office that service is no longer provided. We paid 60 Euros for shuttle buses on our overnight stay in Barcelona and getting to the city center of Marseilles, again the office told us the ship was berthed so far from both city centers you have to pay.

The ports were interesting the food and service was good, the Captain went to sleep on us when we inquired why little or no information coming from the bridge or not much sighting of the Captain a senior officer told us he was having problems on the cruise. Front office as usual excellent as were our both cabin people and dining room servers. Read more