I'm not great with big crowds so we decided for our first cruise we would go with a smaller ship (which I am glad we did) and as I like quality the Seven Seas Navigator seemed like a good choice. We were originally touring the Caribbean in 2020 but the pandemic stopped that so this was our rescheduled attempt. Organising the cruise was easy and we got good advice from the rep in the U.K. Everything went quite smoothly until we landed in Barbados. The organisation (or lack of it) at the airport was terrible. We finally got onto a small coach which was much too small for fully grown adults, extremely cramped and very uncomfortable. We had a drop off at the Accra and then onto the Hilton Hotel for the night. Check in was in the ballroom as there was a large number of us staying at the Hilton. It was very disorganised and I am really pleased this was a relatively small ship. We went up to our rooms to freshen up and tried to get something to eat. There were no spaces in any of the restaurants so we ended up having room service. The hotel couldn't even get me a sparkling water.

The following morning breakfast was in the ballroom. It was dull, dinghy and not very good at all. For what was billed as a 5 star trip this was barely up to 2 star. We went and packed our bags as we were due to meet at 11am. The bags should have been collected by this time but as ours were still there we took them with us down to the meeting point by the ballrooms. There was no-one there from the cruise line and or the local representatives, not enough places for everyone to sit (which was important as the majority of the passengers were elderly) and was total chaos. Buses were due to start departing at 11.30 for the ship but at 12.15 nothing had arrived. When the buses finally got there it was chaos. We managed to get onto the 2nd bus but this then got held up as half the people had to get off again to make sure their bags were in the correct place and to identify them before they were loaded onto a lorry. We were then transported like cattle to the cruise terminal. In the UK cows and sheep get treated better.

When we got to the terminal there was more chaos. We couldn't get off the bus as the previous group hadn't cleared. Eventually we were allowed off (by which time my husband could barely stand up as he had been so cramped. More forms to fill in then into the terminal where we had to wait in another line before we could get to the ship. There was some work going on at the port which was apparently holding up the coaches shipping people to their various ships (there were three ships in, in Barbados). Eventually someone had some sense and started walking us to the ship in groups of 10. We opted for this solution just to get moving. When we got to the ship we then had to queue again to get on the ship in the direct sunlight which was very uncomfortable. We finally got aboard and to be fair things did seem slightly better organised. We checked in, had photos taken etc and were then able to go to our suite. 2 hours later and still no luggage despite being assured it would be no more than 30 mins when we got on board. Read more