Asia & Indian Ocean Cruise Reviews

Ships should have some indoor smoking lounge for the MANY folks who still enjoy this legal pass time.

So glad we made this crossing. What a restful experience! Japan is amazing to visit!

We were married on board the ship by the Captain, Christopher Wells on Valentine's Day. All I can say is from the time we boarded until we disembarked we were treated like royalty. The staff went beyond what we expected and the captain made us and our daughter feel so special. He even allowed us to have some of our wedding photos taken on the bridge. Best cruise ever and hope to sail with her again.

I would not sail on Ovation of the Sea again because the quality of food is bad, too many sea days and the ports are mostly boring, undeveloped and uninteresting cities. Worse of all the local excursions companies did not have much interesting places to take us but sent us to spend a lot of time at low end street vendors to shop. Those are not even place to shop. What a waste of time and money!

My favorite part of this cruise are visit Kobe city,Okinawa city of Japan,visit Kaohsiung and Taipei of Taiwan. I and my wife very happy with this trip.We will recommend this trip ( 16 night Ryukyu Islands-Kyushu and Taiwan) to my friend.

It would be too easy to say it was the Taj Mahal.  The fact is that the overall experience was phenomenal.  The itinerary was what caught my attention and it did live up to expectations.  Every port had something to offer, from the culture to the food to the friendliness of the people.  The ship shows its age, but the crew more than made up for it.  The specialty restaurants were well worth the money with high quality food with terrific ambiance. The entertainment was varied and well presented and I couldn't finish this review without mentioning Richard the Cruise Director; he was wonderful!

  We took two cruises in a row, for 37 days in succession on the Norwegian Star cruise ship, from Auckland to Dubai. Daily life aboard was enjoyable. We felt free to be as busy or as lazy as we pleased. The variety of dining options suited us, as some days we wanted to be served in the fine big dining rooms, some meals we just wanted to hang out by the pool, and we knew that the market buffet offered great choices all the time, breakfast, lunch and supper. Only once did we take the big splurge at an extra-cost specialty restaurant on board, because the free options were so good. Celebrating my birthday was a treat, because the wait staff in the big restaurant gathered to sing to me.

  The crew members were generally friendly and competent. NCL should offer courses in English pronunciation to their employees who deal directly with passengers. Misunderstandings occur when service staff are not articulate.

  The handling of shore excursions needs improvement. The young lady who offered commentary on each port was difficult to understand and she didn't have first-hand knowledge of some of the destinations. She was sloppy about mis-pronouncing and mis-spelling names of port cities. Even the printed material posted about Khasab, Oman, for example, said "Kashab" erroneously.

 Handling passports appeared to be slipshod, with no assurance that strict security measures were being employed.

  The itinerary was attractive, providing varied experiences for seasoned travelers. We especially appreciated the arrangements NCL made to provide group visas for shore excursions in India, a country with notoriously bureaucratic practices.

  Tendering was a pain in the neck. We were unaware in advance that so few of the ports in this part of the world would accommodate docking for such a big ship. We suspect that NCL takes the cheaper option and uses industrial ports to avoid port charges. There's no substitute for tying up to a dock with a nice passenger terminal to welcome us. We'll be more wary next time about anchoring offshore. On the earlier cruise, we even had to tender into one of the greatest, best-developed harbors in the world, Sydney! And we missed Brisbane altogether!

It would be too easy to say it was the Taj Mahal.  The fact is that the overall experience was phenomenal.  The itinerary was what caught my attention and it did live up to expectations.  Every port had something to offer, from the culture to the food to the friendliness of the people.  The ship shows its age, but the crew more than made up for it.  The specialty restaurants were well worth the money with high quality food with terrific ambiance. The entertainment was varied and well presented and I couldn't finish this review without mentioning Richard the Cruise Director; he was wonderful!

It would be too easy to say it was the Taj Mahal.  The fact is that the overall experience was phenomenal.  The itinerary was what caught my attention and it did live up to expectations.  Every port had something to offer, from the culture to the food to the friendliness of the people.  The ship shows its age, but the crew more than made up for it.  The specialty restaurants were well worth the money with high quality food with terrific ambiance. The entertainment was varied and well presented and I couldn't finish this review without mentioning Richard the Cruise Director; he was wonderful!

My favorite paret of the cruise was the private shore excursions by Abercrombie and Kent.

The sercice in the Compass Rose needs serious improvement. It did not improive despite daily complaints

We enjoyed this cruise and would recommend it.  The ports were very interesting.

We sailed on the Diamond Princess a year ago but we felt the condition of the ship was not as good this time.  The ship was going into dry dock for a facelift a couple weeks after we sailed so we surmised that our timing was bad.

The only thing we did not like was the description of this as a 12 day cruise.  It was not.  It was a seven day cruise followed by a five day cruise.  Apparently, Princess combines shorter cruises in SE Asia to create longer cruises.  This results in a bit of confusion as other people on the ship are not doing the same cruise as you and quite a few onboard activities are repeated for the people who came on board after the first week.   Not optimal.

Had a great time on the Seabourn Encore.  The ship was only a few months old and very well laid out.  The food was terrific although we found ourselves in a food coma by the end.  All meals were very heavy making it difficult to snack.  The entertainment was exceptional for a ship of this size.  Part of the expectations of the entertainers was to get to know the passengers so you saw them everywhere, taking passengers to dinner, etc.  Given the cost of the cruise and time of the year, the passengers were heavily weighted toward US retirees so activities shut down pretty early.  We were very fortunate to have great weather, which was especially rare in the Fjords.  The Seabourn excursions need some work...

This was a wonderful itinerary at a very reasonable price. We covered 7 countries in 28 days and were able to walk on the Great Wall of China which was the original objective.  I was continually amazed by the beauty of  these countries and the large population of most of the ports. We made a lot of new friends from all over the world.

Seeing the countries and people of Asia for the 1st time showed the great diversity of the people in the world. The most difficult part of the trip was traveling half way around the world.

This was a great itinerary.  The multi day excursions in Hanoi and Bangkok were excellent.  

The public areas of the Millennium are in good condition but the condition of our stateroom was poor.  The sofa was broken, some of the bed linen was torn and seemed very old.  The sink and counter in the bathroom was chipped.  The toilet failed to flush on many occasions The cabin steward did an excellent job.

I will likely not sail on this ship again unless I am convinced it has had a complete major cabin overhaul.  

Favorite Parts: Panama Canal full transit, food, entertainment, general elegance, history, and ambiance of the ship

Needs Improvement: Cabin (6012) climate control very inconsistent/either too or or too cold; no Coca-cola products on board (!); Internet is too slow and way too expensive

The Queen Elizabeth design was beige and wood. It reminded me of a traditional British Club. I was disappointed with the lack of glamor.

The entertainment was wonderful and presented in a vibrant setting. The lectures were interesting. There were plenty of public rooms to spread out in. We enjoyed the wonderful service of Puma, our room steward, Louisa in the salon, Robert and Avish in the dining room and the knowledge of wine steward Cletin. The sailing into New York was fantastic! 

The only down note was the immigration process in New York, where some passengers sat all afternoon in the immigration hall until all passengers got off the ship. My husband and I opted to stay in our room and then a public room until final call. We only sat in the hall about one and 1/2 hours.

we loved Sri Lanka and the Maldives. This itinerary allowed us to see a lot of Southern India which other cruiselines do not cover.

Small ship experience

For me, the best part was the sea days.  These were the most relaxing days and gave us time to socialize with our travel companions.  The ship's entertainment was good, especially the Stardust shows and the Melodic Trio who performed nightly in the Atrium.

As for port stops, I wish there had been more Level 1 excursions.  We did take and enjoyed an excursion of the Vung Tao highlights and the Hong Kong highlights with airport transfer. 

We greatly enjoyed our Azamara cruise. They went out of their way for it to be a festive time. The service was excellent, the food was good, and the itinerary had enough diversity of shore time and at sea.

Some of the features in the room were showing wear, which is surprising since they just did their major refurb. But, it did not diminish our enjoyment of the cruise.