Recommended by a close friend, decided to choose Thomson mainly because of price, and flight from a local airport. The ship 'Celebration' clearly wasn't 5-star, but that didn't matter, the crew & customer service was excellent. As this was our first cruise we have nothing to compare with. As this is a comparitively small cruise ship, according to fellow passengers, this is definitely a plus.

We spent day 1 & 2 in wonderful Dubrovnik, landing at the Greek port of Corinth wasn't very pretty, and 1 hour plus coach drive into Athens wasn't much fun either. We only had 3 hours to sightsee, which wasn't enough. The outskirts of Athens were positively depressing; it's quite obvious the country is in recession. On a positive note some friends from the ship went into a Corinth Bar for a drink, were so impressed as the locals nipped out for some fresh food, and lit a barbecue specially for them ! They appreciated this so much, they drank there all day, & staggered back to the ship around 5pm