We chose this cruise based on the itinerary. We have cruised many times on several different cruise lines. We appreciate the ups and downs of cruising and have come to learn what to expect and not expect.

That said - this is not necessarily a criticism, simply a fact. If you are an English speaker, DO NOT TAKE THIS CRUISE. Sadly, we were ignorant of this. Let me be clear. WE were the foreigners. We certainly understood and expected to be in the minority. The staff had a very limited knowledge of English, so we took to pointing and charades. What caught us off guard is that we've taken a European cruise before on a different cruise line with a somewhat similar itinerary, and this was not an issue at all. There were maybe 20 English speakers on this entire ship, probably not even that many. All our tours were re-arranged to combine our English speaking party of 6 with another language group. I understand it is not practical for them to run an entire tour for the 6 of us, but it was exhausting and by the last day (in Marseilles) we just cancelled the tour altogether and went our own way. In the beginning I thought it was our fault for comparing our last cruise to this one. However, the language barrier was just the beginning. We certainly could have overlooked that.

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