Europe - Eastern Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

muy buen crucero excelentes sitios de destino el personal a bordo siempre dispuesto a colaborarte y que te sientas cómodo me gustaría tuvieran más actividad de música latina en la discoteca

Great itinerary. Best food on the seas and a beautiful ship. Still waiting to hear from Oceania about a terrible shore excursion (if they sell it they should warranty it )

Overall it was a very pleasant cruise. The onboard activities were good, the only negative is they closed the hot tub early. They keep up with the timeline and most of the shore excursions had ample time to sight see. I think more island info could have been available and offer more excursions. On two islands we visited the excursion were not available. (FYI I also feel the excursions were overpriced). Room service was good, except for the laundry service took 4 days to get back.. The food, as on most cruises was good. Nice Cruise overall.

Worst  cruise I have even been to  ,employees have no manners ,they treat you as though you are in a ration line or a homeless shelter waiting to get some food. Not even  a greeting .you ask for something and they totally ignore you.,they remove the food before the  time  ,this is my third cruise and never exprience any like this 

This was the first time I had been on a MSC cruise so I did not know what to expect.  It was disappointing at best.  Other than our wait staff at the dinner setting and one bartender, the customer service on board was terrible.  The head dinner waiter was rude and unable to provide any solutions to a later seating one night.  The cruise staff is programmed to get as much money out of it's customers so there were constant sales pitches for dinners and drink packages.  MSC "nickled and dimed" the whole cruise.  Things that would be standard or free were charged on board.  On room service, we received the wrong meal and were charged for it.  When some of the staff was off, we were traveling with them on a bus to get back on board and they were bad-mouthing American passengers loud enough for the whole bus to hear.  Then they put on their MSC uniforms and worked for the people they were bad-mouthing moments before!  The food quality was very poor.  Most of the food was salty or mushy or not prepared very well.  The wine and drink quality was par at best.  The excursions were all expensive and when buying a wine package they included hidden fees.  And this cruise was for families, not singles or couples.  Kids were everywhere and a lot of them not behaving very well.  I think MSC allows kids to cruise for free.  The noise level definitely rose. Really all we used MSC for was the transportation around the various ports.   I will not use MSC for any travel plans in the future.  I have my favorites that I will stick to!!

This was an amazing cruise with a top rate staff. The only real problem was communication. We frequently received contradictory information or no information. Most of the time this was not an issue, however it is ridiculous when the itinerary changed the day before the second half of this cruise and passengers did not get notified until day 2 of that leg, it is an extreme problem. There were also problems with Freestyle Daily. Quite frankly, NCL and all lines would benefit by having passengers proofread all their communications. Often times the problems with communication is a matter of being written by people who live aboard. Simple example, there are no directions for which copy of the triplicate form passengers should keep, and no indication if form goes in the bag or is attached outside. Also, this business of letting thousands of people off the ship, in foreign ports, without at least a simple port map, is irresponsible.

Last, but far from least, when you advertise a port for a specific city, it is wrong to charge passengers for bus transfers to that city!

Food was good. Service was great. Skipped last island. Wish they would have stopped at Santorini. Entertainment was great! Great cabin, had a junior suite with balcony.

As this was our first cruise we were, naturally, apprehensive, especially as my wife needed assistance at airports etc. because she needs to use two sticks to help her walk. We need not have worried because Monarch airlines looked after  her all the way to Venice and the crew on board the ship gave her preferential access when queuing anywhere. The nicest experience we had was in the buffet restaurant when a waiter, Norman, noticed my wife struggled to get her food, took over and led her around the buffet tables filling her plate with her choices and then took her back to the table. He did this for all meal times during the week and my wife was really appreciative!

For both of us the whole week was both memorable and exciting.

I would also like to thank Cruise 118 for looking after us with excursions and info. the whole experience for us from start to finish was first class, thank you.

    We were very pleased with our Royal Caribbean cruise to Kotor, Montenegro, Athens, and three Greek islands. Our ship, Vision of the Seas (capacity about 2750) is about the right size for us. Food service was excellent. We ate in the dining room every evening. Staff was well organized to handle such tasks as tendering, shore excursions, embarking and leaving the ship. Wife pleased with cleanliness of ship. Entertainment a bit slack - they even had the captain singing rock songs in place of paid entertainer! Still, it is a highly-recommended adventure.

entertainment was not up to royal's standards, [ very bad ] no tea time on sea days , no brunch & no lobster  [ unless you paid extra for lobster & brunch ] also no talk on the shopping in the ports, was not to happy with cruise, but liked the ports

I have to say we had a wonderful time on the Deliziosa.  The staff was very helpful,pleasurable, and overall understanding. We definitely recommend this this cruise to anyone. 

The only downside is refreshments. I believe that your customers would pay a little extra in the cruise package to have this simple but necessary consumption. I have been on other cruises where this is part of your package and it just makes those traveling with families an easier stay. 

We selected this cruise with Costa because of the itinerary—no days at sea, and four countries visited in seven days! The decor of the Costa Mediterranea was standard, as was the food. The two requests would be more self-service food options on the boat, and better information about port transportation. For example, we only found out the day before arriving at a port that paid transportation would be required because no taxi service would be available at port. The latter was not true, and the former could have been communicated earlier. But overall, a good cruise.

The cruise destinations were good.  We were able to see a lot in 7 days.  The service especially at the various bars was disappointing.  For the most part we felt as if the waiters were trying to ignore our presence rather than seek our order.  Language was somewhat of a problem.  We speak only English and wait staff was generally very English limited.  The room was great we had an ocean view with plenty of space and storage.  The sailing was smooth and the port calls very timely.  The value for the money was good.

-Crew members all around were professional, always helpful, and delightful to speak with.  

-Procedures for disembarking and re-embarking at various locations, as well as all other procedures (ex. Dining, passport control, baggage collection/return, general and daily announcements, etc.) went very well and smooth.

-Ship, including personal room, was very clean and excellently maintianed.

-Food was plentiful and superb.  Waiters: A+

-Only negative comment: It took a few hours to go through the initial boarding procedure starting from when we met the first clerk to when we were onboard.  In fact, the ship was late leaving the initial departure port.  

I realize that never is a long time , but my wife and I plan on never taking a Costa cruise again. Had we been first time cruisers it would have been our last cruise, but this was our 14th cruise.We booked a Premium outside cabin and were assured by Costa that we would have an unobstructed view. I am not sure what Costa calls the forward deck, the railing and mast outside our window, but I would call it an obstruction. 

It appears that this company has taken to charging for everything, We are accustom to free coffee , tea, juice and water anytime on other cruise lines. If you want any of these outside of breakfast you are charged. we are accustom to food being avalible almost any time. Not on Costa. If you miss the strictly enforced meal times ,you are out of luck. 

I realize that this is an Italian line, but the passangers were multinational.Many of the announcements were in italian only, which left the english speaking, German speaking and non Italians in the dark. 

This was not our first Costa cruise as we had been on a previous cruise in the Caribbean about eight years ago which was fun. With the change in the lines attitude for charging for everything, it will  be our last .

I would urge anyone thinking of a Costa cruise to reconsider

This cruise was a great way to sample several sites by traveling with our "hotel and restaurant".  The King & I dining room service was most exceptional.  We enjoyed our time in Venice before and after the cruise; it's worth an extra day or two.  Ephesus was our favorite stop during the cruise.  Although the weather during this end-of-the-season trip caused us to miss our stop at Dubrovnik, overall the much-reduced crowds and cooler temperatures for walking made it all worthwhile

I can't rate this any better than a 3 because there were too many stressful moments.. We started off the first day soaking wet because they were unloading luggage at the taxi dock and you had to walk a good distance to the terminal. no assistance or even umbrella was even offered. 

After that we missed the first port because of weather delays leaving Venice.  After spending two days at sea we were ready to get off he boat in Rhoades. Lovely port just not enough time.  We had hoped since we missed the first stop we could have been at least given the whole day there. Another full day at sea high winds extremely rocky boat (bouncing off the wall rocky).  Then Turkey another lovely day just to short.  Onto Split, another day and night of horrid day and night extremely high winds. We are 4 hours late docking in Split because of the wind. they did extend the time some but  it really messed up the tours for the day.  Ours went off but was cut short and really was not worth the cost. To make things worse my husband became ill and spent the last 3 days in bed sick. 

We pre-paid all transportation, to, from port, Hotel, and to, from airport. We missed our connection in Paris, as we had expected due to security. Called Choice Air emergency #, woke the rep up. He assured us that he would let RCL know we were on a later flight to Venice, and gave him all the flight info. Caught a later flight to Venice, saw an RCL rep waiting for the plane from Germany, she did NOT have us on the list of late arrivals. We were one of several couples who missed the connection in Paris.. Showed her the transfer info, she told us our luggage would be on carousel 2 , and told us where to meet.  When we got to the meeting point, she and bus had left with the folks from Germany, and without us. We had to pay for a taxi to the port, 45 Euros, when we already pre-paid all our transportation. Got to the ship at 4:40p.m. They did, however, give us a room credit, but we DID NOT get reimbursed the original transfer fees we paid. If that wasn't bad enough, we stayed over 2 nights in Venice. We did get our transportation to the Hotel from the ship. However, after checking in, we find out that we do not have our voucher to the airport from the Hotel, which was pre-paid. After several phone calls to RCL, concierge, and the booking agent, another miscommunication occurred and we would not be picked up the morning of the flight home.. We had to make our own arrangements, which cost us an additional 110 Euros, and again, not reimbursed for the pre-paid transfers. We have little faith in RCL.

RCL did not have control of the weather, which made us leave Venice late and miss our first port of call which was one of the reasons we took the cruise. Rhodes and Split were great. Bad weather, bad vibration on the ship in the cabin in some instances making us queasy. The ship was old and cabins run down, with overhead lights broken. Would we sail again on the Splendour? NO. RCL? Not sure.

The cruise itinerary was above my expectations. I totally enjoyed the Ports of call.

The service onboard the ship was very good. Improvement is needed in the areas of onboard entertainment. There was not enough daily activities on board the ship compared to the other cruises I have taken  for the past 20 years.

What happen to ice sculptures etc... .  There was talk in the dining room of the company stopping the waiters from entertaining ( singing and dancing on specific nights) . That is  a big NO NO. guests totally enjoy that experience.

Splendour of the seas is an older ship. It is not as updated as the newer ships out there. The shows also were not the best and especially the ones in the main lobby. There is no seating and they are only 5-10 min long. The ship could have had more activities going on during your time on the ship. Most of the activities were from the Casino or shops. Good was great and the staff was great on the ship  

Also Royal Caribbean did not notify us until we got on the ship that the port of Athens was on strike so we were not going to that island. Had I known that in advance k would have tried to change my sailing date. That was one of the main places my wife and I wanted to visit.