We chose this cruise because of the date and the fact we had a balcony cabin at a reasonable price . Embarkation , despite arriving much earlier than we should have , was quick and our luggage was already in our cabin .. We found the ship had good decor and was very clean with friendly staff , although they were overstretched , especially in the bars . The entertainment in the theatre was excellent and , despite reviews to the contrary, the food was good . There were a few bugbears , mainly that not all the bars were open in the daytime or were short staffed . As the ship has boarding passengers at every port this entailed lots of musters and some were at peculiar times , like just before dinner .

But the main problem was communication and the biggest complaint was what happened in Amsterdam . We were supposed to dock there overnight and lots of people had booked activities and meals in advance because of this . But the ship didn’t dock where it was supposed to but many miles away and most people didn’t have a clue about this until the evening before when an information sheet was left in their cabins offering timed transport coaches at a cost which were limited . This led to lots of irate passengers descending on the reception area demanding to know why it had been changed . Some were told it was because an WW2 unexplored bomb had been found in port . It wasn’t until the next morning that free shuttles were offered to the nearest train station but people were told the train wasn’t going into central Amsterdam .

The next morning we arrived at the meeting point for our 10-30 slot , along with other passengers but didn’t actually board the coach until gone 11.30. The reason was varied , first we were told it was because some passengers hadn’t arrived , then that they were awaiting port authority , then that the coaches were all stuck in traffic . We all came to the conclusion that only enough coaches had been booked for all three time slots ( 9am , 10.30, and 12 ) as the estimated journey time was three quarters of an hour each way . The next surprise was the fact that our destination in Amsterdam was the port ....the one with the unexploded bomb ....with other ships docked there ! Also those that took the offer of a free shuttle/ train journey went straight to central Amsterdam . Read more