We chose Emerald as we had cruised with them previously and were very pleased with our holiday but the customer support pre cruise was nearly non existant

An email from the company was received about 3 weeks prior to departure asking us to complete a couple of questions including who to notify in an emergency and for flight details - as they had booked the flights this appeared to be unnecessary. When we tried to complete the form it indicated that it was locked and to phone - we tried for 2 weeks to contact them with the phone ringing an no answer except for the repeated advert about how good their cruises were - when we eventually contacted them all we were told was that they were very busy. This practice lost them 4 other customers as our friends wanted to come with us but they gave up trying to contact them - it also appears that a number of other passengers experienced the same problem - very poor customer service.

There were considerable delays both at Birmingham and Frankfurt airports but when we eventually arrived we were met by the Emerald rep and transported to the ship. The ship was exactly as we expected as it was a near replica of the ship we sailed on previously - the ship was clean, the staff excellent as was the food and the excursions well planned. At one stop the ship appeared to attract a great number of flies and these were on the food, in the public rooms and bar and the Cruise Director made a joke about obtaining a fly swat to get rid of them. Read more