Europe Cruise Reviews

Nice ship! Very good food! Cruise director is very good and professional! Good ports! Excellent service! Vry good shows! I highly recommend this cruise line to all my friends and family!  Thank you so much for the excellent service!!!

Fantastic cruise, we loved all the ports we visited and the fact that we still had 3 sea days. Princess was an enjoyable experience and we thought the food was fantastic.

Absolutely one of the best vacations ever!  The food and service was 5 star!! Beyond what we expected. The locations we went to (French and Italian Riviera) were gorgeous. Cabins were nice, small but arranged well, and ours was quiet. The only negative was that many of the land adventures were cancelled do to low participation and when we had the crew book private tours we learned that they had doubled the actual cost and the ship made a lot of money--really lousy!  We will do our own land adventures bookings in the future.  I think people who have taken Sea Dream already know that the land adventures are overpriced and that may be why no one signs up, but does their own thing instead. Really too bad! Would still highly recommend, and have already signed up for the Greek Isles in Sept.

the itinerary is great. The service is great. Clean. Friendly staff. The ship has much fewer activities than larger ships. Entertainment was poor. Go for itinerary but bring some books to read while on board. 

the royal carribean cruise was good but didn't have much to do during the at sea days other than pool casino and spa. The night shows were ok. Talented people performing and very friendly employees working.  The first cruise also was cancelled and the second cruise ended up with two port changes.  The contact through was never available and call backs always were needed if I didn't use the generic customer service contact. 

Nice ship, great ports.  Horrible service.  Costa is far below other major cruise lines.  This is by far the stingyest cruise line when it comes to, well..., everything.   Stingy with the food.  Poor selection and very limited hours to eat.   For example, the dinner buffet only runs from 7:30 to 9:00.  That's a ridiculous hour and a half to eat, of which you'll spend half the time line, 15 minutes trying to find a table, and just a few minutes to eat.  There aren't nearly enough tables to accomodate the passengers.  Coffee is only offered 2 hours a day 7am to 9am.  Then it's piss warm water the rest of the day.  The ice machines were not working most of the time.  Non-Europeans will have to pay for water in the dining room.   There is NO FREE FOOD after 9pm on this ship.   Ports were nice, but shamefully short.  The ships docs from were only 4 and 5 hours, docking at 7 or 8 am.  You know what's open at 7am in a port city?  Nothing.  The ship went to great lengths to make sure they fed you as little as possible and gave you as little for your money as they could.  NOT the cruise for those that enjoy food as one of the best parts of cruising.  Entertainment limited, service was meager.  A somber, unfriendly crew that is unhelpful.   Forget about Costa.  They just don't get why people cruise.   They take your money, have THE WORST port docking times, that convienently make you miss one or two meals since their food service hours are so limited.     NEVER AGAIN with Costa.  Not even an option as a cruise line.  Write them off.  

The ship could have used some refurbishing.  Service was standard, at best.  Food was not so good.  I had a prime rib with so much membrane that I couldn't cut it, let alone eat it.  No matter how your steak was ordered, rare, med rare, med, it all came out the same way...Well Done.  Princess used to be our favorite cruise line, but not based on this one.

Norway ports were beautiful took an excursion offered by Travel Agency in Stavanger was good. I booked on line the Flaam railroad it was excellent & price fantastic, walked around the ports with ease or booked a excursion at a port. (Hop on Hop off) The Crown Princess was excellent, food, entertainment, services provided by crew.

The sites were fantastic. The ship was very good. The food was very good. The service was excellent. The shore excursions left a lot to be desired. Some were cancelled and the there was little concern by the on board shore staff.

The itinerary is most fascinating. I just wish the staff will take care of the supply of sugar free cakes  to the cafe Al Bacio

The staff is very kind and polite. Gluten free cakes are served regularly 

My husband and I really enjoyed this cruise.  Alexandra (the Captain's Club hostess) and Tari (waitress) made this cruise extra special.  We love itineraries with overnights.

Very enjoyable cruise. Especially liked the port of Tallin which is a very clean city. We did a tour to a dairy farm outside the city which tuned out to be a great choice. We would definitely do this one again.

We have cruised with Crystal, Silver sea, Seabourn and many others looking to promote "luxury cruises".  Oceania promotes itself as the "foodie cruise".

The ship was very nice and well done, but that is the easy part isnt it.

The service and attention to detail is where a cruise line can do well to separate itself from the others.... Oceania does not!  Although the dinner options and the food served there IS better than standard cruise lines like Royal Carb. It is only slightly above the quality of those such as Azamara and Seabourn. But that is only concerning dinner.  The Lunch, and Breakfast offerings are Par with Royal Carb at best, and the room service and offerings ( none ) between meal times is far "below" par!!  I have not cruised with a higher end line before and had such poor room service, or options available .

Nor on any other line have we been Pushed out of dining areas during afternoon hours.  I have never written a review before, but felt the value of this cruise was poor enough that I would provide this one. For the cost of the Oceania option, spend the same with Silver Sea or Crystal and enjoy far better service and higher quality cruise over all.     

The entire cruise was lovely. The only negative on the tour side was the tour guide in Riga Latvia. He was not informative and had a very difficult time expressing himself in English. We came away from there knowing almost nothing about the people or the countries history.

The other negative was the beds. We had a Jr. suite and both the king bed and the hide a bed were AWFUL! We have been on this ship twice before in ocean view with balcony and never had this problem. When u pay this much money for a cruise you expect restful sleep.

We are RC loyal and have never and don't plan to ever change cruise lines unless something isn't done about the beds. They are truly unacceptable!!

We had saved and planned for this cruise for several years. This cruise was well worth the wait. We can mark this off our "Bucket List" . What a Trip!

All of the ports had exciting things to see except Klaipedia, Lithuania.  In Rostock we took the train to Lubeck which was an excellent choice.  I liked the sequence of the itinerary  because each port got increasingly better, culminating with the king of all ports, St. Petersburg.    The ship is clean, easy to maneuver, the food was very good, and the service was impeccable.  

We were aware that some of the berths/terminals were not the usual ones so knowing & planning ahead of time ensured us a very pleasant, satisfying experience. 

I recently went on a Holland America cruise which was fantastic, and I expected a similar quality on the NCL Jade.  Unfortunately, my expectations were severely crushed.  The service on the Jade was horrendous.  Truly awful.  Bartenders and servers did the bare minimum to get by without interacting with customers.  No "hi, how are you?" or "how was your day?"  or even a smile!  My husband and I started playing a drinking game to see how many NCL staff members we could get to smile.  Needless to say, it wasn't many.  The bartenders also did not know how to make a drink.  Or pour a beer correctly.  And the dining room staff refused (multiple times) to get me a cocktail... apparently because they don't have a full bar in the main dining room.  And they also refused to get my husband a beer that was offered in a lounge not too far from the main dining room.  So basically be prepared to only drink wine when eating!  The quality of the food was subpar when comparing it to Holland America.  Now, think of the quality of the cheapest restaurant you can eat at.  That's pretty much what the Garden Cafe is.  The main dining room is better, but the food is still hit or miss.  I would order the same dessert almost every day.  Sometimes it would turn out fine, others not so much.  Absolutely no consistency.  We scheduled all of our shore excursions through NCL.  On the first shore excursion I was told, "all of the guides in Norway are originally from a country other than Norway, so don't expect much."   If they are not confident in the quality of their guides, maybe they shouldn't hire them????  Or perhaps not charge so much????  The first guide we had in Alesund was bad--- she was very nice, but her English was poor and she basically read all of her information off of a piece of paper that was printed off.  Yes, basically like being driven around while reading Wikipedia.  The guide we had in Geiranger was surprisingly good!  He was from Germany, but was well read, able to speak English, and knew a lot about the country.  We were very pleased.  Then we went to Flam, and it all went downhill from there.  The guides were in over their head.   I don't know if they were college kids who were trying to make some quick cash and didn't know what they were doing.  But we had four buses show up to lunch, and the lunch place was only expecting one.  Huge commotion that lasted way longer than it should have.  Basically wasted a half hour of time.  When collecting us for the train, the guides had a very poor plan, and basically left someone behind.  And they didn't care.  They still had no idea what they were doing.  And the tour ended... but no one told us.  It was pathetic.  Surprisingly, the next day in Bergen was worse.  The guide told us about 5 times that she was too tired to remember names, dates, or information.  So unprofessional.  The tour was supposed to last 3- 3.5 hours, but only lasted half of that.  She took us to the top of Mount Floyen, and it was cloudy, so she said we would leave in 15 minutes.  Thinking we were leaving right away, we didn't wander off and explore.  After about 15 minutes came and went, she said that we would be up there another 20 minutes.  20 minutes came and went, and she said we would have to wait for another train.  So another 20 minutes.  All of this time we could have spent walking around and exploring, but we didn't want to go too far and be left there.  She didn't tell us that there were goats on top!  Or walking paths.  She just said, "there's a troll over there."  Maybe give us SOME information.  It was the worst tour I've ever been on.  I was embarrassed for her.  I finally decided to complain to NCL's shore excursion team and was dismissed.  They told me that she was probably just making jokes (about being tired?  and not knowing names, dates, or information?) and that I was wrong because the tour guide had been living in Bergen for 14 years.  They gave me 10% off in the end, which I thought was poor service.  If someone is giving me half a tour, shouldn't I get half off?  It ruined my entire day in Bergen.  I think the way the shore excursion team handled it was the nail in the coffin... definitely no more NCL cruises.  Ever.  Also, the cruise entertainment staff compared Michelle Obama to an ape.  And then laughed hysterically about it.  I was appalled.

There are a couple good things to say about the Jade.  The cabin was nice, although a mini suite is comparable to a regular room on Holland America.  Also, the nightly show was of decent quality.  Not a Vegas show, but that's not what people should expect on a cruise line.  

Food was poor and presentation was mediocre. This was the first cruise I've been on that the buffet food is better than the restaurants on the ship, even the paid meals.

Entertainment was poor relative to the weather. 

Cancelling the port of Tallinn Estonia due weather (which is understandable) without making up for it in any way was unacceptable 

Also the photo packages were extremely commercial. After purchasing the whole package for $249 they charge you for each additional photo if you want it a different size.

Great cruise but due to unpredictable weather in the Baltic Sea we missed stops at Berlin and Tallinn. St. Petersburg was  beautiful but President Putin delayed our departing by an hour and a half jamming the ships GPS systems while he attending a soccer match in St Petersburg. 

The free style dining, and the excursions to St. Petersburg and Stockholm were the favorite parts of the cruise. The most dissappointing were the omission of Tallin and the Helsinki walking tour. I think by now the wind patterns in Warnemunda must be known and another port should be chosen to avoid excluding Tallin again from any future cruise. It was unclear why we had to navigate in circles for 24 hours, you have been doing this cruise for a while and should have prepared better.The Helsinki walking tour should be taken out of your list of tours, it is good if you want to walk but did not provide any information that cannot be found on line, we were not able to see the rock Church, one of the main attractions, because of how the tour was organized; there were no bathroom breaks and I had to go in a filthy and smelly public bathroom. I think the tour is very long to just see 2 Baltic Capitals. We flew to Copenhagen and did not find it an attractive city.

The worst restaurant was Savor as far as food and service is concerned, Taste was average; and Le Bistro and Ocean Blue the best. La Cucina had great food and service but the oso buco entree was so huge that it made me think of how much food gets wasted And felt bad about all the hungry people of the world. It is not possible to appreciate the quality of food when the quantities served are so large. The Garden Cafe was always good with healthy choices available.

I would not recommend this cruise to my friends.