We booked this cruise because of the destinations and the size of the ship. As Donte states, the Marco Polo has quite a following and we met many passengers who had booked for the same reasons as us and because they loved the ship..

We enjoyed all the ports of call, many were very beautiful and all were very interesting. We too hired a canoe at Boca de Valeria (highly recommended) for 5$ as well as taking a trip in a taxi canoe across to the spit at Alto de Chao which was beautiful and where you can swim in the Amazon. Manaus was very interesting and you can save yourself some money by walking up to the Theatre yourselves and booking on to a tour for the equivalent of £2.50 pp and you can do the same for the evening concert though don’t be tempted to walk at night as it is extremely dangerous! You are advised not to wear jewellery or to conceal cameras. There were those who did not heed this advice to their cost!

We were worried that we would become bored during the many sea days but this was not a problem at all. There was much to do including the daily walk around the ship (8 laps of deck 10 is a mile), arts and craft classes, interesting (OK and some not so interesting) lectures, drama club and choir (though only go to this if you don’t suffer from high blood pressure or if you are a practising musician as this was poorly led by one of the entertainments’ crew!), Zumba and other similar work out clubs daily or joining in the three (and sometimes more) quizzes a day, watching the fabulous shows in the evening or the various entertainers or just spending quality time with our many new friends or just sitting watching the Amazon or world sail by. As Donte correctly states, our days were soon filled. Read more