We joined the Splendida at Genoa, we were awe struck at the size of the ship as we approached it, despite it's size, the check in went without a hitch. Our cabin was lovely and the cabin staff were very courteous and helpful, all the staff on the ship were helpful, the only problem we encountered was on the first night, we had requested a table for 2 at the first sitting, our request had not been passed on by Gills Cruise Company who we had booked through via their newspaper advert. However the restaurant manager seated us temporarily at an empty table the first night and had a table for 2 organised for us from day 2. On the negative side, we felt the price of drinks was a bit expensive, there was limited availabilty of drinking water,most times you were expected to buy drinking water, except at lunch in the buffet, were water was available without charge. Tea was served with a tea bag in a cup, no tea pots available, no tea or coffee served after meals, you were expected to buy it. We had cruised with MSC before so this time we brought a travel kettle and our own tea bags so that we could have a cup of tea in our cabin when we felt like it. We used the cold water from the bathroom as we were boiling it and it was perfectly ok. We fould that while the ship was magnificent, it was really a bit too big, we met people a couple of times, had a conversation but never saw them again, whereas on our previous time on the Sinfonia, we had got to know people and had time to get to really know the crew. We enjoyed the food, but we like the Italian way of lots of courses but small and nicely served, if you wanted bulk then the breakfast and lunch time buffet catered for all tastes, in fact there was too much food! we never went to afternoon tea or had any food late at night as we felt too full, ( we had to leave room for the drink).

Overall it was a lovely cruise, we would have liked a little more Christmas celebration, such as crackers at the table and carols, however the cruise was catering for a multi cultural customer base and therefore I suppose it was understandable that the Christian aspect of Christmas was not emphasised.