This cruise was marketed to us at a show last year as being a 'new' ship sailing to exotic locations, whilst the public areas were beautifully refurbished, the ship was old, we paid extra for a balcony but the furniture outside was one chair, a tiny rusty table and a really big deckchair whose foam cushions got wet each night , so it was damp to sit on in the morning. We never saw the Captain or any of the Officers for the whole of the trip and the Entertainment Director did not turn up at the end of the shows we saw in the theatre to close the show.

The Pantry was awful, you could not find a seat as it was so busy and when you did it was like sitting in a gas station service area, very cramped, we ended up finding a table first so we could sit together and took it in turns to get our food so never ate together. The waterfront was pretty average so we booked the speciality restaurants and pad for Salt Grill (twice) and ate at the Chefs table once so burnt out our $400 on board credit we were given for booking early! The food in these restaurants were fabulous and generous as was the service, but you had to pay for it.

We had to tender at 3 of the 5 islands, this required you to get a ticket at 8 am and wait for your number to be called, this could mean a wait of up to 2 hours before disembarking and starting your day, the weather was fine, it was the tying up the tenders that seemed to take so long, the staff did not seem to be too confident on managing it. On the plus side the weather was fabulous and Rabaul, and Alotaou were very interesting the other islands were just beach stops.