Europe - Western Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

Symphony is a great floating resort (more than a cruise ship)! Beautifully designed and constructed ship, but the overall experience is becoming less "inclusive". Lots of add-ons required to buy-into inclusiveness. We cruise for an "all inclusive" experience. RCL is inching to more al la carte experience, which is what you can get on a "land" vacation. The day is past where there is exquisite cuisine and service in the main dining room, the better meals and service are in the specialty restaurants. And even those have common presentations that are on parity with on-shore restaurants. If the experience offered an "all inclusive" high end experience - then I would rate a 10. We've booked Jr. Suites (now Sea Class) on our 3 cruises, but the perks that go with that level are very low when comparing to Celebrity or your competition. Sea Class isn't considered a full suite, so Country Kitchen is restricted to dinner (and you have to knock on the door for access), Although authorized dinner reservations, you can't get in the door without meekly knocking. As the doors are all electronically controlled, access could be enabled during authorized dining periods. Carousel was broken for the entire cruise. Some hand washing stations were inoperable in Windjammer and Solarium Bistro. Food is average except for the special restaurants. Service definitely better in specialty restaurants.

I’d go back on the ship But more cautious about my cabin. Also My wife had the attitude about some of the problems we encountered, saying, what do you expect from a cruise ship? We’ve been on worse. Maybe we should’ve complained more. But we were on Vacation! Why spend your time raising a stink. No pun intended.

Loved our cabin, the crew is awesome, the food yummy, and the ship very accommodating for families.

We had wonderful experiences on this cruise! The ship was wonderful and all the places we visited were amazing. We didn’t like our city view excursion in Palma de Mallorca (nice places but always with the intention of taking us to places to buy souvenirs, jewels, etc). We should have chosen another one. But all the other excursions were amazing! And the ship specialties restaurants are wonderful! We loved it al!!!

Over all the cruise was good. The staff was top notch. The buffet was ok. The restaurants were better. My only gripe is how can bottle water, coffee, red bull and other simple drinks not be part of the drinking package I bought for almost $700 USD. The cost for a 12oz bottle of water was over $6 USD. Thats outrageous!!

Sample the Balearic Islands and Italy in style with this Mediterranean cruise. If you want to combine gorgeous beaches with a variety of architecture and cultures, this itinerary is a beautiful appetizer of all the best offerings in the region. The small Azamara vessels can get you up close and personal, and you'll enjoy every minute of your time onboard.

excellent cruise with amazing hard working staff that always excel themselves to keep you happy on holiday

The constant loop of Jeremy Beadle “You’ve Been Framed” type videos at poolside wore thin after a few days. A selection of music videos/VH1 would have sufficed. Maybe a suggestion if there were phone charger stations dotted around the ship as majority of people had Wi-Fi or even tablets for reading and from my family’s experience they were constantly going flat. Also maybe a good idea to put drinks dispensers on the top deck as well as the promenade.

Having been on this ship in 2012 ,we were disappointed this time ,refit has been a disaster ,not enough seating in bars etc ,many unsavoury ,badly behaved guests spoilt this cruise for us ,found ourselves having to retreat to cabin after shows as it was impossible to get anywhere to sit in any of bars etc . Although rules set ,no saving sun beds or seating anywhere ,this was not policed ,staff seemed very scarce at these times . Certain guests seemed unable to control there children ,there were incidents of small children in the ladies toilets ,crawling under the cubicles whilst occupied .I know the company have no way of knowing the character of guests ,but I feel the the type of some of the guests leave a lot to be desired ,I don’t think we would cruise on this particular ship again .Having said all this ,the staff ,food ,shows ,cabins were excellent .

FOOD: The quality of food is very inconsistent. Some dishes were great, som were good but there were also at lot that was just okay. STAFF: A few of the staff were good, but too many just didn't care. INFO: Generally there was a lack of information regarding many aspects of the cruise. You have to figure stuff out yourself. DESIGN: The shop is BEAUTIFUL. Lots of great spaces to sit and eat and just be. But the deck plan can be confusing.

The ship is smaller, so the offerings will be relatively less. But the overall experience was very good. The crew and staff were outstanding!! They would go the extra mile again and again!! They made the cruise a success!

This was my first cruise. That being said, I expected a lot more for the price. NCL is purported as one of the "nicer" cruise lines in comparison to Carnival (which is much cheaper) - interestingly enough, I came across several passengers who were as underwhelmed as I was with the Norwegian Spirit and felt that they did not get their moneys worth. The ship was beautiful and had the character that I had hoped for, however, there were other aspects of the cruise itself that were in need of improvement. - The bathrooms in our cabins needed serious updates (aesthetically and in functionality): shower doors would not slide or shut correctly, bathroom shelves sat slanted so everything slid off, tiles in the shower were worn. - There is NO REALISTIC STORAGE for two people sharing a room for 10 days and I can't imagine how it was for people staying longer. The biggest disappointment was the food. The ambiance in all the restaurants was pleasant, but the food was lacking in more ways than one. Steaks from Cagneys was the best food throughout the entire cruise, unfortunately everything else was mediocre at best. We ate breakfast at Raffles almost every morning before our excursions and every morning we said the same thing (scrambled eggs are watery, no labels on the honey or syrup, bread is hard, food taste old and bland) (at night it was that the ice cream machine is broken again or everything is cold or taste like cafeteria food- sorry). My family and I ate at Windows one morning and noticed the same menu as Raffles which would have been fine if our food wasn’t ICE COLD. I have been in the service industry for years and let me say that customers remember the small details. -- If you are going to bring out a basket of cinnamon rolls wrapped in linen, please make sure they are hot. ALL FOOD SHOULD BE HOT when brought to the table. - If the cabin bathrooms are going to get cleaned, make sure the tissue box gets restocked at some point. - If you have elevators on your ship, make sure they are working. - If passengers bought wine off ship, return it to their cabins. - If there is a photographer walking around taking pictures – make sure they ask about group/family photos, the young man onboard took single photos every time he ran into us. The service member that really stood out was Manuel in housekeeping, he was a life saver and so accommodating - awesome personality – awesome person – awesome worker – THANK YOU!

Let’s start with the room it was okay but small for a so called suite we also were not crazy about the smoked glass toilet so if someone is in the there you can see and hear everything so you better really love that person your with. The doors were loud as well so no sneaking in the bathroom at night. Other than that the room was fine the next thing we weren’t happy about was we had the beverage package and pre paid the tips no matter where we went we always had trouble getting the second drink seemed to be as soon as they found out you had the beverage package they never came back. We have gone on many cruises I would say the food was great no matter where we went we loved everything. Now as far as entertainment that’s where this cruise lacked as we have done many cruises over the years we all agreed they really need to step up thier game. This was our first Norweigan cruise we thought we would try it not sure if I’d do another one.

The cruise was excellent despite the cuts in staff resulting in the staff having to work excessive hours. They continued to provide the superior service we have come to expect from Royal Caribbean.

We had a great hoiday the food was good the entertainment was average overall a very good cruise

This cruise was a great way to see a lot of places without the worry of traveling around them ourselves. This ship was beautiful, the rooms were clean and quiet and comfortable, and actually bigger than I was expecting. Our 15 year old son spent the week on the pullout sofa bed, and said it slept great. We only ate at the casual places (burger grill, pizza, buffet) but the food was really good, and didn't make me wish that I'd brought nicer clothes for the main dining room.

the cruise itself was amazing, good food, wonderful staff, and accommodations, my main problem with it was how far a lot of the excursions were and how I had to spend many evenings trying to figure out where we were docking and how far it was from where I wanted to go

Our family really enjoyed this cruise! I admit as a travel agent I was a bit skeptical of the number of passengers on this ship as we are used to traveling with 3,500 or less passengers. We had never experienced this volume of passengers but Royal Caribbean did an outstanding job of creating spaces everywhere on this ship. It actually never felt crowded. There was just so much to see and do and the ship is so large. The entertainment was exciting and refreshing! We went several times to see some shows again because they were that good. There was never a line in the buffet. We rarely ever saw anyone in our hallway. We had no trouble at all disembarking at any port or embarking either. Its like they took all the feedback of past customers of all cruise lines and fixed everything! A big plus for me was no one soliciting beverage packages, squirting me with hand sanitizer (there was a mandatory hand washing area before entering the buffet) GREAT idea to have soap and sinks to wash your hands and real shower doors and not those flimsy curtains. We were really impressed with this ship. The service was really attentive. Surprising is how friendly and willing to chat the staff was. The staff was making sure we were satisfied and happy. Thank you, we loved the cruise!

Very good trip the ship was wanderfull the resturants were with excelant the stuff ere very polite and with a lot of kindness. I am not happy with napoli. I don't understand why I have to pay to the main diner/show and why I don't recive the remain credit

Great way to see a variety of European cities. We didn’t really get to experience the ship as much as we would like since we would be on excursions all day and would come back exhausted. I would definitely cruise again on the Epic in the Med!