Golden Horizon Review

Dress Rehearsal nowhere near ready

Review for the British Isles & Western Europe Cruise on Golden Horizon
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Carebeau
10+ Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jul 2021

We actually sailed out of Portland not Portsmouth and it was the Dress Rehearsal Cruise for six nights. The ship is brand new and lovely as were the staff. The main problem was that neither were anywhere near ready for paying passengers. There was so much wrong its difficult to know where to start.

1. Food and Drink - probably one of the main reasons people cruise on high end cruise lines is the promise of top quality food and drink, well you're not going to get it on here. The first night the option for drink was wine beer or whisky, not a gin and tonic or a cocktail in sight. We were travelling in a group of four, one of our party is vegetarian. On going to dinner the first night there was no options available for him whatsoever on the menu. He was offered a plate of lettuce to start and then some penne pasta and very poor tomato sauce for main. When he asked if the soup was vegetarian he was told it was 99% vegetarian, When asked for clarification the waiter just laughed and said its 99% vegetarian. He is actually 100% vegetarian so couldn't have the soup either. The food was at best luke warm every night and at worst stone cold. They clearly haven't heard of fresh vegetables as we were served frozen veg. The chips were definitely frozen oven French fries and not a freshly cooked chipped potato in sight. The following morning the breakfast was very poor quality with under cooked bacon and sausage together with cold beans, tomato and mushrooms. Even the fried eggs were cold. I tried an omelette and received and under cooked cold anaemic offering that was inedible. The toast is warm bread and the bread is that very thin 29p a loaf type. The choice of cereals was those small variety packs of cornflakes, rice crisps etc. and not a freshly made granola or greek yoghurt etc was to be had anywhere. The fresh pastries consisted of poor quality croissants and some hard sweet buns.

From the second night there was gin vodka and other spirits to choose from but unfortunately a number of staff members working behind the bars had no idea how to make even a simple gin and tonic. The highlight was seeing a Hendrix and cucumber presented in a whisky tumbler with three half inch slices of cucumber in the glass and another perched on the rim of the glass like a lemon would be. To be fair at that point thankfully the bar manager Stan returned and put things right.

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