I suppose you could say it was our own fault booking a Chinese sector cruise. We should have known what to expect, but we didn't. We had based our choice on our previous experiences on the Ovation's sister quantum class ship - the Anthem of the Seas. We enjoyed two cruises on the Anthem, one from Southampton and one from New York and both experiences were excellent. On both those occasions we enjoyed very good food and excellent entertainment, the complete opposite in fact of what we experienced on the Ovation.

Embarking the ship was very good, with a smooth check-in experience, no doubt helped by the priority given to our diamond class status. We were on the ship within 20 minutes, still too early to access our cabin but with plenty of time to grab a bite to eat and a drink. The bite to eat presented the first disappointment. We chose to visit the Windjammer buffet restaurant and even though the ship was only partially full at that time the Windjammer appeared very busy with very few tables available. However, we persevered, found a table and made our way to the food stations. That was when we first realised we were on a Chinese sector cruise as the vast majority of what was on offer was Chinese and Asian cuisine. Now I don't mind such cuisine as we regularly partake of Chinese, Thai and Indian cuisine at home and I did sample a few offerings, but unfortunately none tasted particularly good. In fact the dishes were so bland and lacking in eastern/oriental spicing that I could have been eating anything. The only thing that was of a reasonable and consistent standard was the daily offering of Chinese soups, usually an egg drop derivative. During the whole 10 day cruise I only enjoyed one eastern dish in the Windjammer and that was the butter chicken on the 2nd last day of the cruise.

We tended to avoid the Windjammer on sea days primarily as the Chinese guests queued up very early for the restaurant opening, sometimes a hundred or more deep. Then when the doors opened many blatantly avoided washing their hands. Yes they would enter the washing stations at one end and go out the other without their hands seeing a drop of soap and water. We later learned that there was norovirus on the ship, with perhaps this non-hand washing by some guests being at least partially contributory. Towards the end of the cruise we couldn't get any olives, lime, lemon, etc., in our drinks due to the spread of the illness. On most ships we have cruised on at mealtimes in the buffet restaurant we would grab a couple of glasses of water, find a table, dump our stuff and water, then go and get food. This wasn't allowed on the Ovation with regular announcements that you couldn't reserve a table for yourself and that it was essentially first come, first served - a free for all - when it came to getting a seat at a table. So what you had were loads of people getting food on their plates then wandering around with their food waiting for a space at a table to appear, all the while your food was getting colder, not that it was particularly hot in the first place (other than the soup that was generally hot). Read more