When this cruise was originally advertised in Australia at a really low price we all jumped on this one. originally we were booked for the Magnifica, with a departure from Venice to New York. But after booking 3 months later were advised they had changed the departure from Venice to Kiel in Germany..but wait for it the ship also..as well as the itinerary..Most of the 1800 of us Aussies stayed with it re organising itineraries to get there. We were of course very disappointed. However such is life.

Now I must say here that the cruise ship itself the Poisia was just lovely, I think only 9 month old and very elegant indeed. The dinning experience was great plenty of variety, served hot and changed daily as were the lunch options in the dinning room. Most of the staff understood English well. The buffet was always good with a great variety my only irritation was it was not hot enough most days. The layout of the ship was great and had the most fantastic furnishings in the lounge rooms especially the Zebra bar and the theatre was exceptionally well done. As were the pool areas and the bars. I could find no fault with the ship or the crew at all. My real complaint lay with the management of the ship. I found the desk staff rude and unhelpful..If you had a problem which i did with an overcharge in the dinning room for drinks.. I was told to go sort it out myself with the waiters. This took an hr. At ports of call the ship carried no currency for any places that had their own like Denmark. Luckily when we docked here they had free trains running into the city from just up the road from the dock as there were no atms at the port. But not always free only the first Sunday in the month. Also the cruise line provided no free shuttle or even paid shuttle service to the town in La Harve, well they put on 2 buses, most passengers stood for 2 hrs in the pouring rain drenched to the skin and gave up on seeing a bus. This was not good enough as it was 1/2 hr walking in shocking weather. The ships news letters did not give any maps or information regarding transport and very few taxis were available. Upon complaining to the desk they informed me it was not up to the line to provide any buses, but only their tours. However I made it well known this was not on, and knowing where we were docking in Lisbon, miles from town, made sure they did here as again they were not going to do a thing with regard to the buses. After that they did provide them so hope that was duly noted for their future ports of call with this line.

The most annoying thing on this 18 night cruise was they lost the satellite reception just 3 days out from the coast of Europe. So we had not tv at all for the whole crossing across the Atlantic so for 9 nights had zero news weather or anything else.. They refused to provide free movies to the cabin to compensate the passengers. But offered 2 movies on the wide screen on deck late at night, for which we had to sit out in the damp till late to watch. They kept saying they were going to fix the problem, but even when we got to Boston and then into New York they still could not get it working, until the night before we got off the ship..Very poor we all thought, and their attitude was even worse. Read more