Europe - Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

The cruise was overall very good and the boat was overall very good.  

Pros:  Clean, good food, lots of options for entertainment and eating, friendly staff.

Cons:  If you intend to do Rome on your own, there is a shuttle to a parking lot where you have to get another shuttle to the train station.  Its horrible.  Taxi's won't take you - so just be aware of that.  Cagney's on the boat is not the best steak on the boat.  You would think, since its the steakhouse it would be - but we had better steaks in the main dining room.  

The boat was clean and nicely appointed. The buffet was disappointing in its variety and quality for all meals. The orange juice was terrible and tasted very artificial. The Black Crab was good for dinner. Our waiter, Jerry, was very accommodating. The waitstaff had trouble taking drink orders -- if it wasn't a daiquiri or Rum and coke the staff had difficult understanding the order. Language barrier. Breakfast at the Black Crab was disappointing. It took a long time to get a simple glass of water. Many times the waitstaff didn't understand what we wanted -language barrier. We could not get maple syrup at one breakfast. 

We did not like being charged for gelato when the "self-serve" ice cream was frequently unavailable/ran out and only available for a very short time during the day.

Daily newsletters said we had to carry out passports at each port. Why were we required to carry our passports when disembarking when we were never asked to produce them upon embarkation at each port?! 

Daily newsletters should be delivered BEFORE evening so we can plan earlier for the next day.

Very disappointed with the entire cruise. 

My name is Aris My wife Angela

One of the main disappointment was that my wife's cruises were not corrected to equal mine. Numerous calls and letters requesting correction,to your US customer relation department by me by my Travel Agent has hit a deaf ear.!!! The request was to update  Angela Stambolian records for equal sailings and nights as mine. I am sure this personnel does not treat every one equally..

Amenities: No special treatment, or amenities upgrade for Diamond member. Absolutely NOTHING special, Room is the same , service is the same. The embarkation is the same as to all.

Dining/Food: the food selection in Main restaurant is poor,  said poor selection forces passengers  to dine at alternative restaurants   Veranda restaurant and pay extra. Why, the higher cruise fair DOES NOT JUSTIFY 

The selection in Lido is slightly better than the Main Britannia restaurant.

We have requested table for two by window. Our assigned  table was table 591 Said table was in a horrible location facing the back wall of the ship with a abstracted view... During the 14 nights we dined at the assigned table only ONCE!!!

Requested change, was told that "nothing available

This was our 83 sailing. From the 83 sailings this was totally unacceptable and disappointing sailing that we have done since 1950.

And to top everything  our luggage was delivered at the Airport broken. filed a report with your port agent. NO reply!

Honestly this will be our last cruising with CUNARD I am going to cancel all future cruises I have booked with CUNARD Cruise line.

Disapointed Aris & Angela

*** EDITED 7/21/15 BY COMMUNITY MANAGER TO REMOVE PERSONAL INFORMATION ***

We very much enjoyed the cruise ship, the staff, the food and the entertainment.  We are looking forward to doing another one in the future with Celebrity.

I never write reviews, but feel the need to do so this time. To keep it straight and to the point, here are the pros and cons. 

Pros- Ports of call, clean ship, big cabin with balcony 

Cons- FOOD is AWFUL, early morning announcements on loud speaker in at least 4-5 different languages, back of ship loud when coming into port, infinity pool drains heavily at times over onto balconies along back of ship where we stayed, wait staff can be RUDE, entertainment super cruise ship awful 

Would never sail with this cruise line again. 

Loved the ports of call!  Never a cloud in the sky.  The Splendour of the Seas was an older ship.  Apparently they added more staterooms which made my time dining nearly impossible.  We had to make reservations, the first available was 9:30 pm, which in my opinion is not my time dining.  We opted for the buffet but I felt cheated.  We did manage 3 nights in the dining room with reservations made way ahead of time.  Also breakfast, we were asked to leave our tables as soon as we were finished eating due to lack of space.  On the last sea day the waiter asked my kids (kids, 25 and 21) to leave a handicapped table.  Five vacant handicapped tables.  No other seats available.  They ate by the pool.  By the time my husband and I got to looking for a table all five handicap tables were occupied by unhandicapped people.  One table for two that hubby and I sat at.  Really?   We had met the waiter and chatted with him everyday at that table.  Never mentioned we shouldn't be sitting there. 

Overall we enjoyed our cruise, but the eating situation was definitely and issue! 

This was a highly enjoyable cruise. We really have nothing to complain about. We took the transfers...which were great...and were pampered from being met at the airport to embarkation and to the cruise itself. The Mediterranean is one of our favorite places to visit and we had a delightful balcony cabin that was conveniently mid ship. The crew did all they could to please us. The ports of call were beautiful and the excursions were well done too. We found the food fine so we really did not eat in the specialty dining rooms.  We will have to try that next time. Princess took good care of us. All -in -all it was a fine week that went by too fast.

My favorite part was being with family celebrating togetherness, one daughter's birthday and my mother's legacy.  

The things that were difficult were the extreme heat and overwhelming  crowds, especially in Rome.

This is a cruiseline for those that like to get dressed EVERY night. They say formal and casual - should be called formal and formaler. You are treated like a criminal after 6PM if you do not have a jacket on and formal dress. Banished to the 9th floor - cant eat in the dining room or see the show.  Choices of Buffet or 1 dining room included. Drinks are top dollar with no drink packages available. Tour excursions are not all good and complaints go unanswered. Bathroom is the smallest I have ever been in.

 The best experience. The friendly and hardworking staff.

The cruise director Mercedes did a great job, she organized a lot of shows during each day, many of them took place at the same time. 

My wife and I celebrated our 15th anniversary aboard the Rhapsody of the Seas and had an incredible time.

The good:

- The staff is absolutely amazing.  Fabio in guest services, Karen in the Shore Excursions team, and even Bennett our stateroom attendant, were all excellent and went way above and beyond to answer any question and fulfill any request we had.

- The shore excursions were awesome.  A bit pricey but you'll get that on any cruise you go on, but there was a wide variety of unique opportunities (like kayaking around Santorini) to choose from to fit every taste and physical ability.  Would recommend booking early like we did however, as many of the ones we went on were sold out before the cruise even started.

- The specialty restaurants (Giovanni's, Chops Grille and Izumi) were spectacular with amazing food and waitstaff to match.

- Though older, the ship was very well maintained and extremely clean.

- The headliner shows offered on board were awesome and catered to many different age groups.

The bad:

- It is one of the smaller ships in the RC fleet so don't anticipate many of the amenities that other, newer ships have to offer.  That said, there are only two pools, each of which are not very big.  One of them was adult-only, but inside in a solarium.  If you wanted to be outside, there is only one pool area and on days at sea you better reserve your deck chair well before 9am or you'll be waiting a looong time for one to open up.

- The RC singers for their evening shows were awful.  Most of their "lead" vocalists were often off-tune or very pitchy such that we only attended the first of three shows featuring the RC singers and dancers.  Many audience members left during the first performance of the cruise.

In summary, though Rhapsody isn't the newest ship in the fleet, it was a teriffic host for an amazing cruise.  The destinations combined with the incredible staff of this ship made for an unforgettable experience!

JH

The ports of call that we docked at were great. Only 2 ports we had to be tendered at meaning you have to wait for hours to get off the ship. As soon as you board they are trying to get even more money from you. It becomes quite tiresome. After our cruise we saw that they had charged us twice for everything. I will not take a cruise with them again.

Our Epic cruise began July 1 in Rome and ended there on July 8. The massive ship (world's fifth largest) is operated with remarkable efficiency considering it can hold 5100 people which it came close to on our voyage. The ship embarks and disembarks in both Rome and Barcelona, which enables passengers a quick entry or exit in whichever port they choose. In other words, 5000 people are not doing the same thing at the same time. Barcelona embarks about 2/3 of the guests on average. It is a beautiful and well organized vessel. There are plenty of dining options and so as to make eating as peaceful as possible. On days at sea however, one feels the enormity of the guest list. 

The food was the most mediocre we have ever experienced on a cruise ship which is no surprise considering how many people need feeding at all different times. This was our 18th cruise by the way.The speciality restaurants weren't much better than the main dining rooms with the exception of Cagney's Steakhouse. 

The entire staff was wonderful, remembering our names and preferences and always greeting us with a smile. Considering most are on board 9 months at a time, we found this remarkable.

The pools are small, crowded and noisy. Why can't cruise ships offer decent pools? The adult pool was the size of a hot tub, and the water was not refreshing. There were plenty of lounge chairs, although most had no shade protection. As this was a summer cruise, kids were everywhere. If you are considering taking a summer trip on Epic, be prepared to spend a week with a lot of other people's families. Peace is hard to find.

Our mini suite with balcony was wonderful. A tremendous use of space with tons of storage. Brilliant design. The divided bathroom might put some people off in terms of privacy, but we have been married 17 years, so privacy is not a priority. The bed was quite short, and we are average heights, but the bedding was very comfortable.

We found little to do after dinner except gamble. Many evening adult activities are by reservation, and we didn't want to feel tied down. We wished for more adult-only nightclubs for dancing. This was our biggest complaint.

The Epic is going into dry dock in Fall for a month for upgrades and general service. It will come back even more attractive and perfect for those who can tolerate the goods and bads of a small, floating city.

Great itinerary. Two days stay in Sorrento and Dubrovnik allowed to plan the independent tours of Amalfi Coast, Capri and Croatia without concern of being late back to the ship. Everything was organized extremely well by the very friendly staff. Well prepared food for the all tastes, and excellent dining service. Very professional entertainment every night, and the ship's captain should be mentioned separately for his humor and jokes.  

We had a lovely cruise and took many fantastic private excursions at the ports. Did not like the fact that because of some Italian laws, the liquor/tobacco store was closed throughout the trip and due to the 2 overnight ports, the casino was closed. This impaired many cruisers.

I chose this cruise specifically for the Rome departure and return so I could see more of Rome. Rome is difficult as the port, seaport and city are far apart, but we managed to use the Italian trains and busses successfully. All of the ports were on my 'bucket list' but I did not need a tour for Mykonos and I wanted to see Herculaneum in Naples and don't believe there was a tour option for that. They were all excellent; the only regret for myself and others on the bus that was the Ephesus tour did not include seeing the Virgin Mary's house. The ship was fantastic; spotlessly clean and very good food. My only (minor) complaint would be the entertainment was not as good as other ships. As we had so many full day port visits it was not an issue.

Since the towns at each port were so far away there should have been free shuttles. Most of the excursions were so long that you could only participate in one per port.

Trip of a lifetime!  Great experience.

Beautiful boat with exceptional amenities.

Our only suggestions would be:

1.  H2O adult area needs to remain adult-only to later than 6pm.  Understand the need for family movie time, but movies didn't start until 7:30 for the most part.

2.  H2O area would be stripped of lounge chairs, beginning around 6pm.  Floor area surely needs this, but the upper levels should remain untouched as many passengers wanted to continue "lounging" well past 6pm.

3.  Should offer a wider selection of food options around the clock.  The Irish/Scottish bar is inadequate for late in the nights.

4.  Need more comedy acts.

Really, it's just little things mentioned in the suggestions ... but the little things can go a long way.

I have to admit that I was reluctant to cruise on Allure of the Seas as I rather prefer to cruise with smaller ship (2000 to 2800 passengers is generally what I chose)

After this cruise, I still prefer smaller ships but I have to admit that Allure is amazing and that I had a very good time. The quality of the entertainment was just impressive and all amenities were great.

The crew was very nice and the service was good.

What I found specially positive is that almost all parts of the ship are accessible to disabled persons. Such big ship do welcome complete families and it's the perfect opportunity for a real family vacation with a disabled kid, parent or grand-parent. I was impressed to see how nice and helpful the crew was in such circumstances.

I would definitely recommend this cruise.

Kind regards

The ship and ports of call were perfect.  Our only concern was that we didn't have time to explore each stop as thoroughly as we would have liked, but that is of no fault of the cruise line.  We would recommend this cruise.