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Cruise: Mediterranean Adventurer

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Cruise Name:	Mediterranean Adventurer
Cruise Ship:	Sea Princess
Cruise Region:	Mediterranean
Good Points:	Excellent service from smart professional staff, spotlessly clean, great food and facilities, a really superb ship.
Bad Points:	None really, except transportation problems getting back to the ship at Vigo and Barcelona, which to be fair were caused by the local bus providers. Naples is unsafe and should be withdrawn from the itinerary.
Review:	Hi, My name is Tim and for those of you that haven't got the time or inclination to read the full review, I will just say that having just returned from this particular cruise, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. There were one or two minor problems, which to be fair, were not caused by the cruise line, but by transport providers ashore. If you want to get a taster of places on this particular cruise to possibly revisit at a later stage, or not as the case may be, get booking. First off my wife and I are both in our late forties, thankfully with no mobility problems and this was our first ever cruise. I was initially reluctant to go cruising, my last experience of boats involving the Isle of Man ferry and a force 9 gale, but I needn't have worried, the ship is 77,000 tons and you rarely feel the effects of the sea, even when the winds pick up. We did have a force seven to eight between the Rome stop and Corsica and then coming back through the notorious Bay of Biscay, but nothing a couple of Stugoron tablets, which were recommended by a sailor friend of mine, couldn't sort out. Tablets are available from the shop on board, although I can't remember the make, so take your own if you think you may need them. Beware of going to the ship's doctor for an anti-nausea jab because a colleague of my wife did the Baltic cruise on the same ship, only months before, which got a bit rough. He had the jab and was hit for a £150 bill, which really did make him sick. My wife and I normally holiday independently, not of each other you understand, but generally renting apartments, getting a car at the airport and doing our own thing. We enjoy the flexibility and freedom that this affords and were slightly concerned how we would handle being stuck on a ship with up to 1800 other passengers, but we needed have worried. The ship itself is magnificent and very spacious and there was rarely a time when we couldn't find a little quiet spot and a lounger. The ship caters for all tastes and age groups. If you want to be busy all day, you can be, with a full range of activities throughout the day and great entertainment at night, or if you want to relax, undisturbed on a lounger with a book and a cocktail or two, you can do that also. You would probably nod off before I finished going through the full list of facilities available on board, suffice to say that everything you need is there. The ship carries a crew of nearly 900, who are drawn from all over the globe, which provides a really interesting mix. They are incredibly polite and helpful and nothing seems to be too much trouble. In respect of the cruise itself, we departed on the 5th August 2006, from Southampton for the two week cruise and were surprised to see such a cross-section of age groups. I had associated cruising with slightly older people, but I was surprised to see all age groups represented and pleased to see entire families holidaying together, from babies to grand-parents. There were a number of wheelchair users on-board, who were well-catered for, with staff specifically allocated to assist them, should they require it. The embarkation process was slick and polished and was over in no time. Unlike flying you are not restricted to how much luggage you can take and as soon you hand it to the coach driver you don't touch it again until it is delivered to your cabin. For this reason I was assured by my wife that we needed to have a suitcase dedicated to shoes, those Sonia intended to take and for those which she intended to buy. I can assure you gentlemen out there that I never realized there were so many shoe shops in the ports of Europe. Our cruise, which was to coincide with our anniversary, was taken during the school holidays and I must say that all the children behaved themselves. They did tend to dominate the central pool, but that was to be expected and wasn't a problem. Although we left our grown up kids at home, the passengers with young children we did speak to, said the facilities for their kids were great. I also believe that there are also substantial discounts for children under 11 as well. One of the most impressive features of the ship is a huge TV screen on the very top of the ship, which at night shows new release films whilst you lie on a lounger under the stars. We were fortunate enough to have had an outside cabin with a balcony. If you fancy going please try and save up the extra for a balcony, because it is invaluable. The views are magnificent and there is nothing better than having tea for two or your evening meal delivered to your room and watching the sun set from the comfort of your own private balcony. Room service is complimentary, although you can tip if you wish. In respect of tipping, a charge of $10 per day per person is automatically added to your onboard account, but in addition to this, any drinks that you order carries an additional 15% gratuity. The standing tipping charge is optional and you can strike it from your final bill if you wish to "tip as you go", or not at all, if you so wish. Alcoholic drinks are relatively expensive, but when all said and done you are on a floating 5 star hotel with waiter service to your sun lounger, so I suppose it is relative. You are supposedly not allowed to bring drink back on board, but it was not unknown for the occasional smuggled G and T to be taken on the balcony before dinner. The food on board is outstanding and if you want to you can eat yourself stupid and believe me some people were giving it a go. The dining rooms are beautiful and the service is second to none. You can choose between fixed time or anytime dining. We chose anytime, which for us worked well. I was told by a seasoned cruiser that if you opt for fixed dining, chose a table with 8 people on it, as opposed to four, that way if someone has particularly bad table manners or is just plain irritating, you don't have to spend a fortnight with just them. There were three formal nights when everyone dresses for dinner and as someone who prefers shorts and T shirts, even I thought it was great. In fact if you don't dress accordingly, not only do you really stand out, you get the knock back by the maitre D. There can be queues for people waiting to get their photographs taken by one of a number of the onboard professional photographers, prior to enter the dining room, but if you can hold your stomach in long enough, wait until after the meal, because the queues are gone and the happy snappers are still there. On boarding the ship, you are issued with a personal identification card, which gives you access to the ship, to your cabin and allows you to charge all onboard purchases, which is settled by credit card at the end of the cruise. You are also given a paper receipt of your purchases, but please be careful because the bedside drawer soon fills up with them. In respect of the ports visited, the first stop was at Vigo in Northern Spain, unfortunately the Spanish forest fires were in full swing and the smoke carried doing into the port, which perhaps didn't show Vigo off to its full potential. It was however widely agreed that it might have been better to miss out Vigo and spend more time in the next port of call, Lisbon, which was a fairly short stop and I think badly needed more time to explore. In Lisbon, the local bus companies laid on what they described was going to be a bus shuttle service between the ship and the town centre, which they assured us would be running all day, at 15 minute intervals. It didn't and a lot of people, Sonia and I included stood waiting for over and hour for one to turn up in the full exposed sun. There were a lot of unhappy bunnies. Unfortunately exactly the same thing happened at the next port of call, Barcelona when the buses only started running again half and hour before the ship sailed, which led to wholesale panic and commandeering of taxis. The purser’s desk was subsequently besieged by furious passengers and I noted a marked improvement at our next port of call, Naples. That’s my only little rant, which will hopefully have been sorted out by now. Getting back to Lisbon, it is a lovely place, the people are very friendly and it's full of shoe shops. There is a network of old red trams running through the town and up towards some of the major sights, a fort on the hill being one of them. The ship docks early so it is possible to see a lot of the town before it gets too busy and too hot. Well worth a visit and subsequent re-visit. The next port of call was Barcelona, which although I had visited before, had changed a lot. As you probably already know there are loads of places to visit, Gaudi's cathedral and Las Ramblas being two of the most famous. There are three different open top bus routes covering the town, costing about £8 each, which operate a hop on and off service. Sonia and I made the mistake of getting off at the cathedral, which already had a huge queue to get in and spent another 45 minutes trying to get back on the bus. We soon decided that it would be better to jump on one of the buses straight away, stay on it to take in the full tour and then having seen all the major attractions, decide if we wanted to return to a specific one or two. We employed this technique at all the subsequent ports and it worked well. Las Ramblas is frenetic, but beware the pick-pockets who seem to favour working in the crowds that surround the street performers. The next port was Cannes which is beautiful and somewhere we will definitely re-visit. We anchored in the bay and went ashore by tender, which was an experience because I was slightly hung-over. It really is gorgeous and strangely enough, full of shoe shops, notice a pattern forming? The people were very friendly and if you are into seafood, there are some magnificent restaurants. A number of people took the opportunity to visit Monaco and Ville France and Nice, either on the organised coaches or via the train links, which they recommended. The next port of call was Chitavetcia, excuse the spelling, which was an hour's coach ride to Rome. This was the only organised tour we went on and was called "Rome on your own". We had the sevices of an excellent tour guide called Susannah, who gave a really informative and well balanced presentation. One of the best recommendations she gave was to do with the places of interest and centered around the time, based on her experience that it would actually take to get to, into, around and back from these places. Because you are always against the clock, so to speak, she suggested that places such as the Spanish steps should be reached via train or taxi as opposed to on foot and instead of queuing for 2 hours to get into the Colliseum and perhaps being disappointed, it is possible to see the internals from the outside, through the arches, which from my perch on the top of the passing tour bus, is largely true. This freed up a lot of time to revisit places that particularly took our eye, whilst doing the open top bus tour. The next stop was Naples, which unfortunately I would not recommend and have, along with a lot of other passengers, suggested the company stop visiting. It is used to run coach tours to Pompei, Herculaneum and the Amalfi coast, which are absolutely spectacular. We visited them whilst on holiday in Sorento some years ago and I am aware that Princess Cruises also use it as a port of call and I can't understand why they continue to use Naples. The reason I and other people recommended that Naples be dropped is because of the crime around the port. The port area is filthy and the criminal gangs can be seen either on foot or cruising in their tatty cars, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting tourists, two of whom were badly beaten and robbed in separate incidents. There is a heavy police presence and tourists are advised not to walk off the main streets, but they still ended up being robbed in broad daylight in the middle of a main street. Definitely one to miss, unless you really keep your wits about you. Unfortunately on leaving Naples we ran into heavy weather, which meant we couldn't visit the intended port in Corsica, but ended up going to the capital, Ajeccio, which is beautiful and again on the list of places to re-visit. Our visit coincided with Napoleons birthday celebrations, which saw the locals in period costume and bands playing in the street, which was great. There is a road train ride that takes between 45 mins and one and a half hours, depending on which one you choose. The place was lovely and clean and the locals very friendly. Well recommended. We were then at sea for a day until visiting Gibraltar. You can go up the rock on an organised tour to see the monkeys and visit the caves, or just take advantage of the seriously cheap duty free shops that line the main street. If you smoke, this is the place to get your cigarettes. They averaged out at £10 per 200 and I saw one chap buying enough to finance his next cruise. Duty free goods are available on board and in respect of wines and spirits, they are extremely good value. Unfortunately to restrict onboard consumption, regardless of when you buy them, they are not delivered to your room until the last day. This then saw us push off for home, through the Straits of Gibraltar and a view of the North African Coast and a two day sail back to blighty which was quite welcome, if just to rest our feet. Disembarkation at Southampton was relatively painless and we were on our way home in the coach by 10.30. In respect of travel to and from the port, you can drive there independently and leave your car in the long stay car park, although I don't know how much it costs, but you are some of the last people let off the ship. We took the coach from Knutsford services on the M6 and it was totally pain free. Right that's it, I am sorry for having gone on a bit, but I hope you find it useful and happy cruising. PS. My eldest daughter was quick to point out that we now go cruising in the summer and cottaging in the winter, which she found extremely amusing for some reason. Regards, Tim and Sonia Lyons
Username:	timlyons (Manchester, England)
Entry date:	26 Aug 2006
Rating:
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Comment by: nicko79 on 2008-05-22 00:16:30.

I'd prefer charting a boat then a cruise in the Mediterranean since all the islands at least in greece are close to each other. Or even go for a canal boat holiday in the UK or Venice.

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