It promised to be a memorable cruise, and Norway didn’t disappoint at all. The slightly damp air was no problem, adding to the pure freshness of the air. On the sixth day I went down with covid and the following morning was isolated after a positive test and remained in isolation until the end of the voyage – it wasn’t seriously bad just a fever but disabling nonetheless. So a few words of what it is like to get covid on board. Thank goodness I was isolated into a balcony cabin and not the inside cabin I was in.

The medical centre was simply dreadful, and utterly dysfunctional. Covid cases are instructed to communicate through the emergency number which takes you - eventually - to a girl on the switchboard. It then takes ages for a junior in the medical centre to get back to you. My initial positive test took over 3 hours to be communicated to me; the second positive test – 6 hours hours and that after I had chased them up twice. Worse, you constantly will be given contradictory advice from other staff members who will ring you later on the day on the same subject. In the documentation given to those isolating with covid it is stated that the medical team “will follow up with you daily”. Nothing of the sort happened, I never had a single communication from the medical team. I spent days trying to speak to a doctor to find out what the treatment plan was for covid. Twice I was told by medical juniors it was not appropriate to speak to a doctor – later that day he rang and helpfully explained the treatment plan, changed my medication and promised to check with me the following day – he never did and I never had any further communication at all. Receiving contrary advice was a constant, I believe due to very poor competence in the English language.

You are of course wholly dependent upon room service – it was simply dreadful. Orders were constantly wrong with either the wrong items or almost inevitably, items missing – sometimes the cutlery! Again I believe the reasons are very poor communication skills (why can’t room service understand the fundamental difference between bread and toast?). There were occasions it was impossible to contact either the room service number or the front desk number. On disembarkation day having ordered breakfast for 0700Hrs to 0730Hrs, I didn’t get breakfast until 1015. Read more