My husband and I cruised for the first time in April this year on the Thomson Spirit. It was our honeymoon and we booked this particular cruise because of the itinerary. Very few cruise lines seem to include the holy land in their itinerary, so for the ports of call alone - Limassol, Latakia, Alexandria, Port Said, Ashdod, Limassol - this cruise has to be given bonus points.
Unfortunately, however, I have very mixed feelings on the holiday as a whole. It started off bad with the flight to Paphos uncomfortable. Trying to find a Thomson representative and/or our coach was chaotic, and when we finally were shown which coach we'd been allocated to, the coach driver refused to let us on, saying his coach was too full! So it was two rather tired and crabby honeymooners that eventually arrived at the ship, much later than anticipated. It took rather a long time to embark but I was impressed on entering the ship itself with the big line of cabin stewards waiting to greet us and take our luggage.
It was about 11pm when we finally got into our cabin (the ship was supposed to leave at 10pm so we were already a hour behind departure time). We were disappointed to see in our 'Cruise News' that we had missed the introductory tour round the ship, the first show in the Broadway show lounge and the start of a deck party that was going on outside. I was also disappointed to find that we had missed the booking deadline for excursions at our first port of call. Being cruising first-timers, we didn't realize - and were not told by our (Thomson) travel agent - that it is advisable to book excursions in advance.