My husband I wished to combine our leisure time and visit parts of the world together we would not otherwise have an opportunity of reaching and this, my first ocean cruise seemed the ideal way for us doing just that......but sadly despite investing a large amount of our hard earned finances and holiday time this proved not to be the special trip we had looked forward to for so long........all Hughly disappointing and time/money wasted we will not get back.

Upon reading this review you will realise that things just got worse as the trip went on starting in the terminal where we arrived via arranged transfers bringing us there 6+ hours ahead of when the ship arrived so this meant we were summarily deposited at a shopping mall for the intervening time and apparently like many other passengers acquired Middle Eastern Respirstory Syndrome (a version of Hong Kong flu) for our troubles. upon return to the terminal the boarding process of ~ 3000 people was chaotic to say the least and disorganised at best having a likening to a rugby scrum at times rather than an orderly boarding procedures.

Once on the ship we were sent to dinner and this turned out to be the sole time our evening meal in the dining room actually had us sharing with any other guests as our designated table of an evening ( with 6 places only had us at it and we were made to feel like the spare parts at a wedding as waiting staff continually came and went from our table picking up missing cutlery, glasses, etc. - all not very pleasant). The food in the dinning room was never better than Luke warm and the optimum disregard for culinary care was exhibited the evening Luke warm scallops were served to everyone as a starter! Interestingly the following morning the captain announced a coincidental outbreak of a second notifiable disease , this time a gastrointestinal one (Nora virus) and reminded everyone to minimise spread by washing their hands and using the hand sanitising stations which were strategically placed throughout the eating establishments onboard. To be fair if we had not invested at additional expense in the dine around package for the specialty restaurants ( which we eat in x3 times each) we would had an even worse experience. I am not going to say much about the room service but suffice to say cold porridge is not my idea of a suitable quality of sustenance to start a busy day’s site seeing with.....as for the a la carte breakfast ...where do I start; chipped glass and congealed uncooked food I would not have fed to the dog that took more than and hour to reach us on one occasion and nearing 2 hours on another...the buffet was marginally better although you were always “herded” together with others. Read more