Europe - Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

everything was first class weather was good overall nothing to complain about.staff on board were excellent. We have done over 30 cruises and only one or two we could say we have nothing to complain about. Hope we can say the same about our next cruise in April on the Constellation!!

I enjoyed all of the ports. The ship's staff were eager to please.  My favorite  person was Gina, the front desk manager.  Gina went above and beyond.  Kelly at the Japanese restaurant was awesome and most of the servers  remembered our names. Best cruise yet! The staff made the difference.  I would have liked to have found breakfast food at a later time and the restaurant on deck  8 wasn't good.  The food seemed to be warmed up and not cooked.  

As a first time cruiser, I think Celebrity have set my bar!  Everything about it was fantastic, from the quality of the food and service to the ship's decor and facilities.

Our daughter and her fiance decided they wanted to get married on a cruise having sailed with P&O a year prior and they couldn't have chosen better.  The wedding, held in Blu, was well organised and we were all looked after right down to free pressing of wedding outfits of not only the bride and groom but us guests.

I went with my boyfriend and we met plenty of other couples our age (25-30). There are sections just for adults so you don't have to worry about being surrounded by children all the time. This was our first cruise and it exceeded our expectations! Food, entertainment, excursions, customer service, cleanness. I'll list a few tips below 

 - Disney allows you to bring on board 2 bottles of wine per person. No beer cans or hard liquor.

- Pack coffee mugs to put your wine in if you want to take it out of the room

- rooms services is 24 hours and free

- make a reservation your first day to eat at Palos. It's $30 per person but it's all you can eat!

- Pay your gratuity in advance so you don't have to wait those long lines at the end of your cruise 

-

The evening entertainment was outstanding night after night.  The live orchestra was also fantastic and added much to the performances.  Our cabin was comfortable with a sofa in front of the television.  We chose a cabin with an obstructed view but still the view was more than adequate and we enjoyed sitting on the balcony weather permitting.  The dinner menu seemed bland to me.  The pastas and Indian dishes offered more flavor and spices.  The service in the Moonlight Sonata was excellent as well as in our cabin. If you want to make the most of the ports, you need to do your homework. Even when you take the ship's tours, you are not necessarily told about sights of interest that you can see during your free time. If you decide to do the port yourself, you receive minimal information while on the ship.  All in all we had a very good time. 

Overall, we had a great time on our cruise. 

A few notes:

We stayed in Barcelona a few days before the cruise. This way we didn't feel rushed getting to the ship on time and got to get used to the time change. We also got to explore Barcelona which was awesome.

On the first day, we got duped into going on a Spa Tour when I wanted to make a pedicure arrangement. Don't do it! It took an hour of our time when I felt like we could have been enjoying something else on the ship. 

Check-in took over an hour- allow yourself enough time to check in.

Food for the main dining room was just OK. It is cooked for the masses and watered down to appeal to thousands of palettes- so don't expect anything to blow you out of the water. One cool thing is you can try multiple appetizers or dishes if you want. We felt very rushed and didn't get the best service. Also, Formal night is packed and we waited over an hour for a table. 

At first we weren't going to try the other restaurants that charged money because we didn't see the point in paying for food when meals are already included- but we were glad we tried them! JiJi's, the Italian restaurant, and Steakhouse were absolutely delicious. It was nice to have asian food at JiJi's in the middle of the trip to break up the monotony of european food the entire 10 days! I live in San Francisco and have had some of the best different types of Asian food (burmese, indonesian, cantonese, etc) and this restaurant definitely did an amazing job at capturing the flavors. 

Mambo Magic, the house band in the Havana Lounge, was absolutely amazing. They played a wide range of Latin music and absolutely were awesome. We watched them every night! The vibe of Havana Lounge was also awesome and the bartenders made great mojitos.

We had a balcony room which I felt was worth the price. It was nice to wake up to different scenery each morning and we watched a thunderstorm out at sea one night. 

We booked excursions through both Carnival and United Shore excursions. The United Excursions were smaller groups, better service, and better planned out. I really recommend them! For the Pompeii and Amalfi Coast, we only had 6 people in our group- that made for an amazing experience, rather than being on a 50 person tour bus. This will not always be the case but they will almost always be smaller because most everyone books through Carnival.

The carnival shore excursions were absolutely awful and I will never book an excursion through them again. The groups were always 50 or more people, and even though they required a lot of walking for long distances, senior citizens were on the tour and would slow everyone else down. We were in a group of 50+ people in Rome, and there were a group of 5 senior citizens that slowed the entire group down. Because of that, we had to rush through everything and it made for a less than great experience. 

This was our first cruise and we had an amazing time! The ship was beautiful and filled with so many fun things to do! The food was outstanding. We chose this cruise because of the Ports of Call - they were everywhere we had wanted to go for so long! We had envisioned sitting on our balcony but only had a very short time one day to do that. The trip was jam packed with excursions to all of the wonderful, interesting places we have wanted to go. So unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time aboard the ship. Our travel agent, Sharon, with United Mileage Cruises was absolutely fantastic! She offered so many helpful suggestions and her recommendation on hotels and excursions was outstanding. She was patient with me during the booking process and so responsive and informative. The whole trip overall was wonderful. The staff aboard the ship were all friendly, helpful, funny and engaging. We loved the cruise and hope to go on another one sometime in the future! We loved the Royal Princess!

we enjoyed our cruise , the places we visited were all that we expected and we could not fault any of them the ship was very good the food and entertainment were all that we had come to expect from Princess ,the only fault we could find was that my husband had served in the army and we found out that he should have received £200  on board spend we missed out on this  . Other than this we enjoyed our cruise

Having traveled with Celebrity on numerous occasions, we were happy to step aboard once again, having young adults with us to show around (23 & 24)

The check-in procedure was outstanding, I think we were through security, checked in and on the ship within 10 minutes - better than any other year.

Our Cabin, was as always first class, although we did notice a few minor things here that we hadn't in recent years.

The bedding, although clean, was very tired and worn, so much so that my husband actually put his foot through the threadbare sheets, something to tackle in the middle of the night.

As we had bought a comprehensive drinks package, we did have use of the mini-bar as part of the all-inclusive this time round, which started our cruise off wonderfully, as going on deck for sail-away was out of the question due to the inclement english weather.

WE also found a difference in the dining room, the menu selections had been cut drastically, and although the food was scrumptious you were sometimes limited for choice for the fussy eaters. WE had two waiters, one was outstanding and the other was a little hit and miss, as I think we were only offered coffee after dinner once - but no point complaining and I suppose if we were that desperate we could have asked.

The buffett style dining was as usual outstanding and I would suggest that anybody who struggled to find something to eat, should not really have been on the cruise.

We had booked shore excursions, and I will say these were probably better than the year before with the exception of Florence where we queued over an hour to spend 10 minutes in the Academia Museum - totally not worth the money, and this would be the one thing that I would say Celebrity do let themselves down on - the extortionate prices they charge for these tours.

I would say one of the most disappointing things was Celebrity's decision to do Casual chic instead of formal - come on Celebrity EVERY woman loves to dress up - make it compulsory !!!!

All in all, I would say that the standard had slipped slightly, but it wouldnt really stop us going again.  

One suggestion though - why have they stopped doing a 14 night cruise to Norway and the Fjords - anybody know ??

The MSC Magnifica  honors its name.  The ship is beautiful, very clean, and its staff very well trained.  On our day at sea we encountered a thunderstorm which lasted a long time, but the ship was smooth as glass. The itinerary was very good, only one day at sea, which was a big plus for us.

The passengers were from all over, but a very large majority were from Italy and there were a lot of children that had the run of the ship.  This was mostly evident in the buffet restaurant and the pool area where they seemed to be unchaperoned.  After a very hectic experience at the buffet restaurant, we went to all our meals at the sit down restaurant, adjusting our days to their opening hours.  This experience was shared by all the passengers at hour table, avoiding the 13th deck at all cost.

Next time I will make sure that schools are back in session before I book our trip.

This was the first and last time we will cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line.

It was totally geared up for American customers although a large percentage were

European etc...

The ship it self was very nice, clean etc.. however some staff were lacking and

in a couple of instances quite rude and abrupt.

There were lots of hidden extras such as WIFI, drinks were extortionate prices

and food in some bars and restaurants poor.

We will be going back with Fred Olsen next time

The food was great;  they offered variety of music; loved the jacuzzis; Excursions were terrific; on board shows were top quality ;  Yes would highly recommend 

We were on a 3-week cruise leaving from Barcelona, however the ship also made two stops in Rome and Athens to embark and disembark passengers.  We were relatively pleased with the Royal Princess ship, mini-suite, service, and food.  The entertainment was fairly repetitious from one week to the next which I expect was because of the changeover of weekly passengers.  But the performers were good. In addition, the Princess excursions were satisfactory except that the large number of passengers from the ship made the ports and shops overly crowded.  The unfortunate downside to the cruise was that Princess made more than 7 changes to our original 17+ ports of call and replaced them with destinations that were not equivalent to ports in our original itinerary.  Aside from ports in Tunis/Carthage and Turkey, I believe most changes were for the convenience of Princess cruises.  Scheduled stops in Sicily, Naples, and Malta were cancelled with little or no reason.  Added to the 3-week cruise changes were stops in Kotor and Corfu twice each, plus Elba and Gibraltar. None of which was on the original itinerary or worth stopping at twice.  My oral and written concern to Princess Customer Service was dismissed with their stating that the Passage Contract gives them to right to make any change.  No compensation was offered or interest in customer retention considered.   Buyer beware, I would not recommend anyone make long-range plans with Princess Cruises.  Due to Princess Cruise Lines apparent indifference and lack of customer commitment we are unlikely to use them on future cruises.

Enjoyed every aspect of the cruise. Embarkation and disembarkation most efficient I have ever experienced. The ship was spotlessly clean. All members of staff were were friendly and helpful. The food and service were first class. Excellent choice for ports of call and of course the weather was superb. Best cruise ship I have ever sailed on. I have previously sailed with Cunard, P&O, NCL and Royal Caribbean.

Enjoyed every aspect of the cruise. Embarkation and disembarkation most efficient I have ever experienced. The ship was spotlessly clean. All members of staff were were friendly and helpful. The food and service were first class. Excellent choice for ports of call and of course the weather was superb. Best cruise ship I have ever sailed on. I have previously sailed with Cunard, P&O, NCL and Royal Caribbean.

Wonderful cruise, especially the itinerary.  Every port was thrilling !  The ship an staff were warm and caring. Special dietary requests were always handled properly.

Highlights:

1.  Stops in Cannes, Cinqe a Terre and Turkey--all very nice

2.  Attitude of the cruise staff, especially Tanya and Orlando

3.  Quality of the fitness facility

Needs improvement:

1.  Stops in Rome and Malta--difficult to enjoy the sights

2.  Food quality and variety

3.  Mediocre entertainment, with the exception of the one-man show

We really liked the places visited and amenities , hospitality and food cruise , in other words almost everything was excellent. The only problem was to get a chair in the pool area because people leaving towels and leaves and are reserved all day

Great cruise with stops in great places. The biggest complaint is the shower size. The service is five star on Azamara and not having to pay for the basics ( coke or beer and wine) makes it even better.

Aqua class was definitely the way to go! Loved having the restaurant Blu dedicated to Aqua class because it was open seating whenever you wanted to go. The staff was excellent and the ship was impeccably maintained. Enjoyed everything but that overnight stay in Athens, wished the overnight was any of the other ports of call.