We chose this cruise because we wanted to visit places we had never been to before, especially Skye, Mull and the Scilly Isles. Sadly, we didn't get to any of them. First of all, there was a technical problem with the ship which necessitated us turning back from Orkney to Invergordon for a day, which meant that we missed our stops at Skye and Mull. As compensation we were offered the princely sum of £50 per cabin onboard credit. An insult!

After our visit to Dublin the Captain then reported that he wasn't happy about the forecast for St Mary's in the Scilly Isles and took us to Cobh instead. When we reviewed the weather forecast for the day that we should have visited St Mary's it looked fine.

We quite liked the ship: the entertainment by the singers and dancers was really excellent, probably the best we've ever had on a cruise; the service in the bars and at our table for dinner was also very good. Breakfast was a different story. The self-service bistro was always crowded and, as another reviewer has said, they frequently ran out of mugs, and usually at least one coffee machine was out of order. The plates by the salad bar were usually hot! The orange juice was watery. We had breakfast in the main restaurant most of the time, but that was rather a hit and miss affair. You could never be quite sure of getting what you had ordered and service was often slow - a marked contrast with the service from our waiters in the evening. Read more