Before I start my review, although I may be from the younger cruise market, I think I have a good overview of the offerings from a variety of ships, having sailed previously on the Ventura (twice), Azura, Thomson Celebration, Carnival Sunshine and Fred Olsen Braemar (Christmas 2014).

I choose this cruise as myself and partner wanted to go to the Baltics especially St Petersburg and also experience a new ship.

We opted for an inside cabin, décor was much brighter than other ships, although we did find the corridor between the bathroom and the wardrobe was not as wide as on Ventura and Azura. Tea/coffee facilities and biscuits were replenished daily; nightly chocolate was available but disappointingly not one towel animal throughout the whole cruise. Also annoyingly if one of you wanted to read you could not switch on just one bedside light, both stayed on. The selection of free films and TV series’ available was good. But the fact you can no longer view your account on the TV, order wine, book trips is a complete backward step. I did ask at reception (once I waded through the queues of people asking for statements) about this oversight, and they said they hope to include terminals at reception with this functionality, but did not know any timescales. The Cabin steward was a bit lax, forgetting to clean the cabin on one occasion and not replacing both beach towels after use. Also brought us the survey and said “I hope you tick excellent for me” I think not! Read more