We had never done a Western Mediterranean cruise before and we were really looking forward to seeing places that were new to us: Monaco, Monte Carlo, Florence, Corsica and Marseilles. The Thomson Majesty is a smaller ship than others in their fleet and not nearly as good. When we first got on board the ship it appeared to have developed a list. The first three days after leaving Palma went as expected. After a day at sea we visited Villefranche (for Monaco/ Monte Carlo) and Livorno (for Florence).

Then the problems began. The ship broke down on Friday night due to a fire in the engine room and we were adrift for six hours without electricity. This meant that there was no power to work the elevators, the air conditioning or the vacuum operated toilets. The toilets in the public areas soon backed up, were a disgusting mess and were unusable. Since the cabin lights didn't work people left their cabin doors open when they went to bed to get some light from the emergency lamps out in the corridor. The crew we came across didn't seem to know what to do about even simple requests like providing bottled water (since the normal supply wasn't working). After six hours they got the engines working again and we returned to Livorno for repairs until Sunday afternoon. This meant we missed our next destinations of Corsica and Marseilles. The captain was poor at communicating and we were often left without information. We eventually sailed from Livorno at 1pm on Sunday but only arrived at Barcelona on Monday lunchtime after another day at sea. There was a terrible stench of sewage on the lower decks and the air conditioning had never worked properly again after the fire on Friday night. We were pleased to leave this awful ship on Tuesday morning back in Palma, Majorca.

The catering on board this ship was not as good as previous Thomson cruises. PartIcularly at fault was the self-service food: at breakfast, items like bacon, sausage, hash browns and eggs were usually luke-warm or cold. There were also inexplicable restrictions on what was available: you could get yogurts for breakfast but none were available for lunch or dinner. There was no ice cream in the self service restaurant so if you wanted any you had to go to the other restaurants with waiter service. The standard and variety of food available was not as good as other Thomson ships. Read more