A bit like a care home especially the lounge areas. A lot of elderly people with their carers on board and ambulance often waiting at the dockside. Some good points and some bad. It certainly would not suit everyone this ship or the type of people. This review in 3 sections. 1. the Good 2. The Bad and 3. Some other general observations
GOOD:
Classic elegant salons
Small ship - easy to get around
Good service
Uncluttered well designed interior
Informative lectures
Clear TV screen in cabin
Good drinks prices.
Good docking locations - due to small ship.
Quick and easy to get off
Good choice of wines
Lovely library
Some very interesting Norwegian works of art throughout ship
No children
Reasonably priced excursions
THE BAD
Amateurish shows including comedian
Bad smells
Maintenance work
Average food
Lack of friendly personable staff - extremely perfunctorily manner. Bored
Only Stella lager on tap and Boddingtons beer
Extremely unfriendly future sales - some kind of issue here
Catastrophic port talks, the worst I've ever experienced
Old peoples home atmosphere
Very class based - various comments made - I.e. by comedian - reference to 'High Brow’
A Rough old crowd
Extremely slow walkers
Lack of current and/or forecasted weather conditions on in cabin screen
Inaccurate Google Maps weather info on in cabin screen.
2nd restaurant sitting quite late @ 2100
2nd show sitting quite late @ 2230
Library can get very crowded.
Strange games being played.
Some general Observations:
* There was Noise issue during 3 of the lectures which included the game of quoits as general maintenance work. I informed the GS about this in good time but they took a long time to stop the noise. Unacceptable. Even less acceptable was that they repeated the disruption on subsequent lectures and had to go to GS AGAIN to ask them to stop the noise.
* Yellow water from taps
* Guest Services seemed unable to take decisions or act with efficiency and basically not very happy with their job
* Sticky handrails
* Coaches not at ship in good time due to security at Casablanca delaying disembarkation. This should have been anticipated. Not good enough.
* No current or forecasted weather conditions on TV
* Google maps ship locator TV screen showed inaccurate information such as weather
* Some girls lack warmth and performed duties with perfunctory boredom.
* The port talks extremely poor - the worst I've ever experienced.
* Guest Services - somewhat insolent. Not understanding questions. Impatient, tired, unsmiling.
* Garden Cafe - matre D very good. But still there's a detectable uneasy malaise
* Bookshelf Cafe - surly personal
* No apology for maintenance wk
* Special mention to staff of Observations bar plus William Rodriguez. Plus Chandra.
basic
most people wouldn't have had time to visit Harwich, but its a pleasant town