My wife and I usually go away for Christmas and New Year, but this time decided to take my recently widowed mother-in-law with us so as not to leave her alone over Christmas and cut our normal 2 week break down to 1 week. Previously we have sailed with P &O, NCL, Cunard, MSC, Fred Olsen and Costa so it was with that background this review is being made.

The flight out from Gatwick was good and the embarkation process extremely smooth as we were the last flight in. Luggage to cabin in good time and the cabin was of a decent size. We were on the 5th floor, although mother was on the floor below, in the very front single cabin. Don't book the front cabins on lower decks. The noise in cabin 4003 when docking or departing is horrendous and she had to use ear plugs to try (unsuccessfully) to blockout the sound.

Wishing to avoid the buffet scrum, we decided to eat in the Orion for breakfast. I ordered a cooked breakfast and when it arrived and I saw the bacon, I wasn't sure if I was on a Thomson cruise or a Timpson cruise. Cold, hard and almost inedible. We them made a decision to eat breakfast upstairs from then on. Luckily some fellow passengers tipped us off that the small self-service on the 11th floor was a better venue than the 9th floor free-for-all, so we ate our breakfasts there from then on. Read more