Distinctly average

Embarkation: primitive, the Egyptians do it better.

Ship: smooth, comfortable, very quiet, lots of public areas.

Cabins: good size, well equipped, comfortable beds,plenty of storage.

Crew: lovely! Really helpful and friendly, incredibly hard working.

Food: the cheese was good, apart from that it was bland, repetitive, industrial cooking. Hot food wasn’t hot, fresh food wasn’t fresh, couldn’t even get a decent cup of coffee. Don’t bother with the two 49 degree restaurants, it’s the same food as the buffet but further from the kitchens.

Entertainment: a different show every night, so kudos for that, but fairly low level club stuff and the MC/ cruise director was embarrassing.

Destinations: Aarhus was a revelation, especially the modern art museum with its amazing Rainbow Skywalk, and Oslo was lovely;the Vasa museum in Stockholm was as stunning as ever, but Copenhagen has little to recommend it apart from the national museum, Tallin is disneyfied, and all those cobbles make walking difficult. It is probably the best place to buy amber jewellery. ( Whatever you do, don’t buy on the ship, you will pay double or more for an inferior product). Helsinki is probably worth visiting once, St Petersburg you will probably only see from the coach windows because of Russian visa restrictions.

Overall: nothing done badly, but nothing done particularly well either.