I got a good deal (I thought) of $890 AUD for a balcony cabin and $900 AUD OBC. I should have known that it was too good to be true (especially when the American cruisers told me what they were paying).

Embarkation was a total farce. We were told that we had to show a negative RAT result, 24 hrs prior. No one ever asked to see it. When we finally got on board, we waited by the lifts until, eventually, a staff member informed us that we needed to go to a deck muster station for an emergency management briefing before our rooms were ready. We all struggled with our carry-on luggage in the heat, with no seats, up to the muster station, where we were given a perfunctory briefing in how to fasten our life jackets and nothing more. I was of the belief, from internet cruising information, that these briefings would be held in our rooms through the TV.

We then went to the Lido buffet. There were no hand washing stations, only a few hand sanitiser stations that are totally useless against diseases such as Norovirus and with no staff enforcement to use them. The buffet, that I thought from Internet reviews, was not served by the staff, but allowed passengers to personally handle ladles and forks etc and pass on their germs to the next passenger. The use of masks by passengers was requested by the captain and cruise director but were not enforced and very few passengers complied. Read more