Passenger complaints were unwarranted assuming you received a substantial discount. On food & drink, think quantity rather than quality, which was hugely variable especially on sweet dishes. If you are highly selective, then you can quickly avoid what is not to your taste. In our case, avoid bacon, mushrooms, stews & specifically the battered fish. Tea is a disaster area, apart from the fruit crumble. "Singapore Sling" was undrinkable. Non-alchoholic and other cocktails were OK. Curries and rice were very good, as was the fish (but note above). Sweets were very hit and miss. As all the chefs are asian, this may have something to do with it. Raffles Bistro was very popular and a real scrum for seats. Didn't help that seats collapsed under weighty passengers and were not replaced. Could do with better coffee, tea and drinks' dispensers, which are cramped and quickly overwhelmed with disposed tea bags etc. Restaurant depends which cabin you are in; we were in the Kensington, and used for dinner only, which was fine. Very friendly and very good service at dinner, but a bad lunch experience (no service) stopped using it except dinner. If you really don't like a dish, ask for it to be replaced. Waiter staff are under undue pressure so sometimes it can be a problem.

Entertainment was amateurish apart from the amazing Carmen Duo (violinist and pianist),

who were hugely popular. Late seating does not fit in easily with entertainments, and early sitting was much more popular, I assume for that reason, but too early for us (6.00pm!). Management really need to sort this problem out because remedies are obvious to us. Read more