Having never cruised before, we were concerned by the poor reviews we had read on Cruise Critic prior to our cruise. Comments about the shabby condition of the Grand Princes and an outbreak of norovirus in May, made us start to think that we had made an expensive mistake! However, we decided that we should go with an open mind and having nothing else to compare it to would probably be to our advantage.

We had free transport from South Wales to Southampton and when we arrived we joined a rather large queue of people waiting to embark. However, the queue went down pretty quickly and we were soon in our inside cabin on the ship. This was small but adequate for the amount of time we spent in it. My husband and I slept in two single beds and my daughter used one of the pull down beds. Our room was kept spotless by our steward and I particularly liked the towels made into swans to celebrate our anniversary. Staff were extremely helpful and eager to help from the moment the cruise started. This was to continue for the whole of the cruise and we were amazed at how hard everyone worked to provide excellent service at all times.

To begin with, we were a little in awe of how big the ship was but after a few days, we began to get more comfortable with finding our way around. Read more