I will begin with the positives. Beautiful ship, cabins comfortable with everything you need, staff were brilliant and the cleanliness was exemplary.

Negatives: there were only two choices for evening meal which did not require you to pay a substantial extra cost. These were the main restaurant Opus and the Ocean View buffet where you would also go for breakfast and lunch (there was a burger bar on the deck for lunch if you like that type of thing). The main restaurant was not a pleasant experience, it was chaotic noisy and people were crammed in like sardines. On top of this the food was dreadful and I do not exaggerate. For example I had fish three times and each time you would never guess what it was because it was razor blade thin. I thought at first they had forgotten to put the fish on the plate. The presentation of the food was no better. We paid 40 dollars each to eat at Morano’s one night because we wanted at least one decent meal. This was lovely but surely you should expect reasonable food within the cost of the cruise. The buffet was ok but didn’t change much. The deck was also crowded and sun beds so close to each other you were almost sitting on each other (that’s if you could find a free one which we often couldn’t so only choice to sit on the balcony. There were many lovely areas which were set aside for higher paying guests and excluded those who only paid the standard price. It is quite annoying to see all the lovely space which you can’t use because although we’ve paid a lot of money to come on the cruise we only get second best.

There are some lovely shops on board the ship which sell expensive jewellery and bags but if you forgot to take your toothbrush or you run out of sun cream your in trouble because there are no essentials available. There was no shower gel in the room and you couldn’t buy it on the ship. Read more