This was a 120-night, Round the World Cruise. The cruise line (Cruise and Maritime Voyages) and the ship (Magellan) managed to turn what should have been the trip of a lifetime into the cruise from hell. The food was very disappointing, to say the least. It tasted like institutional food. It would have been adequate (maybe even good) for food served in a prison. It would have been below standard if served in a nursing home. However, this was a cruise ship! This was our 11th cruise in three years, with 7 different cruise lines. So, we have some comparisons. The food is usually a major highlight of a cruise, something that deserves rave reviews. We barely ate enough to sustain us. The food was that bad. As a matter of fact, we even lost weight on this cruise, because the food was not worth eating.

The food was just one of our disappointments. However, the major disappointment was that we docked far away from our destination cities. In Sydney, we docked in White Bay, two expensive ferry rides away from the center of Sydney. It took us 2 3/4 hours to get to Watson's Bay, where we hoped to spend a lovely day. Because it took so long to get there, all we had time to do was eat lunch and start our long journey back to the ship. If we had docked at Circular Quay, it would have only taken 1/2 hour each way. So, this not only cost us extra money, but it also robbed us of some precious time.

We docked in many container ports, instead of cruise ship ports. We had never experienced this before. It was quite often an hour or longer drive to get to where we should have docked. Here is a perfect example. In Colombo, Sri Lanka, we were scheduled to dock at the Queen Elizabeth pier, a beautiful port with just a 15 minute walk into the city center. Perfect! Unfortunately, just a few days ahead of this port, we were told that we would be docking at the East Container Terminal. This terminal (being designed for container ships) had no facilities whatsoever. It was 4 km to the city center. They provided no shuttle bus and said we would have to take taxis. At the same time, they told us that the taxi drivers were not always scrupulous or reliable. We needed to negotiate a price ahead of time and hope that they stuck to what we agreed to pay. In other words they dropped us off in the middle of nowhere to fend for ourselves (with untrustworthy and unreliable transportation). These are just two examples. It happened time after time. Read more