Once again we had a short, but excellent cruise on board Queen Victoria. The service throughout the ship was outstanding and the food to an excellent standard. We were told that this was a "party cruise" but having sailed for the first time the weekend previous on a Celebrity ship, they were in our opinion a million miles apart and it was refreshing to embark on a ship of such quality and standards We are so looking forward to our next voyage onboard a Cunard vessel Please do no lower the dress standards or take away the Captain or Officer of the Bridge announcements. The ship is well maintained, our cabin was immaculate with as usual high standards of cleanliness. We had a minor issue with a lock in the stateroom but this was dealt with promptly. The service within the dining room was excellent and our request for a table for3 was met with no issues. Thankyou Read Less

We chose this ship after very good experiences on Vantage Travel Cruises. The ship was represented as launched in 2012 with Marble bathrooms, minibars, individual thermostats, five star dining and the like. We chose it for its Baltic Destinations. From the start, the ship failed to meet pur experience tations. The cabin was in its original 1992 state, it’s actual launch date, all steel floors and walls in the bath with no marble in sight. No minibar, the individual thermostats did not work, leaving us overheated as a de ision was made to address those who were cold at our expense. The dining room and hotel staff were engaging young people with whom we enjoyed a gtpreat relationship. The daily tours were solid and led by competent guides, The food, billed as five star, was mediocre, heavy on lamb and eggplant. It was generally served both overlooked and I e cold. Leftovers from prior meals came to be featured components of meals and, despite the high cost of the trip, an all too often occurrence on this cruise. This was a unique cruise. The staff, cruise director and destinations great, the food and physical plant seriously lacking. I truly loved destinations including Rige, Talinn, St. Petersburg and Stockholm. Unfortunately, the aging physical plant and mediocre food made the cost of this trip excessive. After eight Vantage trips in just over four years, we are beginning the process of looking elsewhere. Not a bad cruise, just much less than was promised for the price. Read Less

The process getting on the boat was long, unorganized and confusing. The process getting off the boat was also very unorganized especially since the announcement giving permission to leave the boat never were announced to be heard in the cabin until the people lining up was so long. Disembarking was a total nightmare that was not organized at all, it took more than 45 minutes to get off. The cabins needs a face lift/ remodel. The food at dinner was good and the service was also good. Our cabin service was good. The Live Entertainment was excellent, if not for that the cruise would have been a total disappointment. The weather was horrible, we were 2 hours late getting into port in Iceland which made us miss the excursion we had booked that day, but I do not blame the cruise line, safety comes first. All being what it was it was the worst cruise experience we have ever had and we have been on many cruises. Read Less

I wanted to see Iceland and everything Celebrity has been a disappointment.i am finished with ocean cruising. The queues for excursions are poorly done, while the staff openly praise themselves for a job well done.. Yesterday’s excursion left at 5pm instead of 330 and was supposed to be 8 hours. Our last stop was in the dark. Got back to the ship at midnight. Today Ring of Fire excursion took us to the same sites as yesterday”s Golden Circle excursion. These excursions were very expensive and seeing the same sites twice wasted our once in a lifetime trip to Iceland. Everything on the ship is an up sell and onboard activities are boring. The activities staff are indifferent to customers. Our dining room server has been a delight but she can’t make up for the disappointment that this trip has been. Book private tours if you are doing this trip Read Less

Having never cruised with Celebrity before, we thought a 2nt taster cruise would be a good way of experiencing, what we were led to believe an out standing cruise company. This on our opinion was nothing more than a "booze cruise" for the brits, as everybody appeared to have the all inclusive drinks package - not a good way in our opinion of marketing a company! The public areas were extremely busy, with on numerous occasions not being able to find a seat. The was a dearth of bar staff available and to those wanting to have a drink there were lengthy queues at the bars The cabin of a concierge class was comfortable with the food and service in the select dining room being excellent I doubt if we will sample Celebrity again being true Cunard and Princess loyalty past passengers We are stil wondering if there was actually a Captain or any Senior Officers on board as the only announcements that were made were from the Guest Relations desk on the morning of disembarkation- far from what Cuanard deliver Disappointed with our experience Read Less

We chose this cruise based on the ports of call. We were not disappointed - all were excellent. The ship is big, bigger than we normally like to cruise on. While it was nicely laid out and very beautiful it was just too large for our tastes. However this does not reflect poorly on the overall cruise experience. We were in a balcony cabin on Baja Deck 11 and it was very nice. Very comfortable bed, lots of storage space and a nice sized bathroom. We had no complaints about our room. We normally book port side but all that was available at time of booking was starboard. As it turned out on this cruise it was the best side to be on as in all ports but one the starboard side had the best views when in port. Our cabin steward did an excellent job making up the room twice a day and was very friendly and polite. We did not eat in any of the specialty dining options. All dinners were taken in the Concerto Dining Room with assigned late seating. We had wonderful table mates and dinner was always a fun time. The food was quite good at all times and the special Norman Love chocolate desserts were great. On sea days we ate breakfast in the dining room and it was always very good. All other days it was in the buffet - a very large area and quite busy but we never had trouble finding seats and the drink service was very prompt. The food was all excellent here. In comparing this cruise to other Princess cruises we would rate it about equal with a couple of shortcomings which may be due to the size of the ship. For example, the laundry service on other Princess ships was much better than on Regal. One of the highlights was the entertainment - it was all excellent with the exception of a comedian that performed one night. One show that stood out was the MacDonald Brothers from Scotland - if you do this cruise and they are performing do not miss them! So, overall we would give this cruise a 9 out of 10 rating. We had a good time, met some interesting people from all over the world, saw many great sights, and enjoyed the service of the Princess crew. No major complaints. Read Less

As Senior citizens in our early 70s, the Regal Princess is not the largest Princess ship so there were few lines, the ships crew were very friendly, knowledgeable, and provided great service in the common areas, cabins, dining room and buffet. The dining experience was the best, not only in the dining rooms but at the buffets too. There were great menu selections each day as well as the traditional daily selections in the dining room with portions that were just right with great presentation.The buffet dining was an unbelievable number of selections that covers all the major cultural dishes all day. The main performances were mostly two different groups of 6 to 10 singers/dances that performed twice an evening with incredible stage setups, choreograph, and live music, The ports provided a lot to see and do. Stockholm required a 1 hour train ride but the ship stayed until 6pm so we had time to see what we wanted. We went on a Princess self excursion which was a 2.5 hour train ride into Berlin with snacks both ways and allowed us to catch a hop on hop off bus that meet our needs. In St. Petersburg we took the Princess Hermitage gold room excursion but it included most of the Hermitage as well. Then with the hop on hop off bus we had enough for the day. Great cruise!! Read Less

We have travelled with most cruise lines and expected a mid-range experience with rather good food given that MSC is an Italian company. It turned out that the most disappointing aspect was food and beverage. BREAKFAST Breakfast can be taken i their cafeteria or in the restaurant Villa Borghese. We visited the cafeteria numerous times but never managed to get a table. In Villa Borghese you can select between a la carte and buffet. All dishes sampled were of poor quality and presentation. I.e. Eggs Benedicts were almost inedible. Room Service breakfast is yoghurt, bread and coffee/tea. Thats it. LUNCH Lunch could be taken in the cafeteria as well as in Villa Borghese. The latter offered a la carte as well as buffet. We only ate when we were at sea and escaped the ship for meals as often as we could. DINNER You are assigned dinners in either Villa Borghese or L'Ibiscus. We were in the latter and the food was mediocre and rather bland. Food was okay but never an experience you would like to remember. ALL-INCLUSIVE CONCEPT We opted for the all-inclusive concept which was promoted to include all beverages at all times. It proved to be far from it. In the restaurants you could only choose wines from a very limited selection and only by the glass (2 whites, 1 rosé and 2 reds) - all La Zolla an almost undrinkable quality. Most cocktails are not included. Water is included but not if you take the water in the mini bar, then it is extra. Beverages from room service are always extra and you pay for the food here too but delivery is included. Rather strange concept and very confusing which seemed deliberate. Although the all-inclusive packages are rather cheap, they are not worth buying. BOARDING Getting onboard took 2,5 hours and we waited in four different queues for different aspects of the registration process. We never understood why it had been made so complicated and everybody complained throughout. SERVICE In general there seems to be an attitude amongst staff of wishing they were somewhere else. They made numerous errors during our cruise and not once were we offered an apology. All (and I mean ALL) announcements are made in six languages (English, German, Italian, Spanish, French and Russian) so everything takes forever. Would much rather prefer to have announcements in English and perhaps one other language and them have all written information in as many languages as they wish. We were forced to watch the MSC commercial videos several times in the theatre and people started commenting on the completely different experience they were having compared to the commercials. For example, in the commercials there are flowers everywhere but we didn't see one flower throughout our stay. The meals are served with cloches. We never saw them onboard, and so on, and so on. SAFETY The safety drill was an Italian farce. They started the drill 20 minutes late and then in a way that only a limited number of passengers could see what happened (and again in six languages). Passengers soon started to leave the stations is frustration. Italian organized chaos. ITALIAN ATTITUDE Most senior officers are Italian and they clearly feel superior to the other members of staff. Several times we observed officers go into bars to prepare their own coffees and two times I saw officers take cakes out of the cake displays with their fingers and straight into their mouths. So much for food hygiene. ALL IN ALL All in all it was a very disappointed experience and we will not return to MSC. If you travel on a limited budget there are so many other cruise lines to choose from and we cannot come up with even one, why you should choose MSC. Read Less

It was now the turn of the Silhouette to have a trial on and it has to be said it was a quality ship with lovely decor and detail, the only bit that let it down was the old sun lounge covers that were well worn and tatty. However the weather was not good and the upper decks were empty this possibly was part of the issues that happened below later on. Having gained the elite status from the Royal Caribbean ships in a concierge cabin it was a surprise to find fruit, champagne (a bottle) and petit fours at teatime. I was impressed with the cabin. Every thing was looking good until I went down for a pre drink before dining I have never seen such chaos in all my time on cruise ships. No matter where you went and I went to every bar they were 5 deep in people waiting to be served, waiting time was 30 minutes plus for being served there was no exceptions. Worse still you hardly ever saw a waiter at any of the bars. I decided to go early to a show 30mins before the start time because I am aware that there is always bar waiters in show rooms early. I have never seen anything as bad as this and frankly it looked to me that they decided to do this short taster knowing they did not have enough staff on duty and they could get away with it for a couple of days. Now I know from others that celebrity ships are a touch more class than some of the cruise lines and you can see it from previous reviews on here but there were other cruisers stating at breakfast time they would never sail with them after this performance. I'm still hoping this was a one off but its not making me rush out to book another cruise with this company. Jeff Read Less

We chose this cruise to explore Norway and were not disappointed. The staff and crew were very friendly and helpful, the entertainment excellent especially the Boudicca show company. There are plenty of activities onboard for the days you are at sea. Once in port I did find that it may be better to arrange your own excursions so you can work to your own timetable. It would have been nice to spend a little longer in some ports such as Bergen in order to explore further. Food was for the most part good and plentiful with plenty of choice. However I would suggest looking at the all inclusive option as my bill was over £700 although that did include some spa treatments and purchases from the shop. We were lucky enough to be invited to dine with the Captain and one of the singers from the show company, Sasha, a very pleasant experience. Disembarking was quite easy and quick. I would definitely recommend Fred Olsen, smaller ships do seem to have advantages. Read Less