Other (Asia/Africa/Middle East) Cruise Reviews

First cruise and probably our last. Expectations were so high (i.e., fabulous food) and we were very disappointed.

we took 3 cruises with azamara and loved it till a spa problem.

The ship was an older one but was very well maintained.

I cruised on the Quest from Hong Kong to Beijing in Feb. 2009 and it was a complete disaster. The norovirus was going around the ship and everyone was sick. I stayed healthy but passengers were threatened with instant removal from the ship if they didn't report their illness. It was their first time in these ports and immigration was terrible. We disembarked 4 hours late in Beijing and got off before our bags which were literally thrown in a pile on the dock. As a widow who travels alone (24 cruises on Celebrity) I was informed I could not eat in the specialty restaurants alone or join another table. I had to find someone to dine with before I could make a reservation. I felt invisible on this ship. Hopefully they will get their act together as I really would like to cruise with Azamara again.

This was our first cruise - indeed, our first holiday outside the country together - and was for our honeymoon, chosen for the itinerary, not the ship or company of which we had no prior knowledge. We'd booked the cheapest cabin (an inside), figuring we wouldn't spend much time in there (which turned out be true) but everything far exceeded our expectations. We were by some way the youngest on board and soon discovered that nearly the entire ship was deserted of other passengers by the middle of the evening; this left us to wander around from bar to bar, checking out venues, having the run of the ship and exceptional service from the staff who would sometimes almost fight one another to serve us first. The Wake Bar was a great little discovery but we spent most of our time up in Skywalkers where the DJ would play anything we wanted as there was almost never anyone else around. The feeling of being the centre of attention especially at night was great but it carried through fabulously into the days as well as we'd often wander into a lounge, catch the eye of a waiter, and have our usual drinks brought over without any further interaction needed nor any need to present a cruise card because we were obviously so memorable. Ship's decor was great, service excellent, excursions fantastic; nothing could be faulted.

NEVER AGAIN WITH COSTA EUROPA STATEROOM'S CARPET WAS SOAKING WET FOR THE FIRST FOUR DAYS WHEN FINALLY IT WAS DRIED WE WERE LEFT WITH THE MOLDY ODOR FOR DAYS.A/C THERMOSTAT WAS NOT WORKING SO COOLING WAS CONTINIUS !!! WE HAD 62 DEGR.WE HAD TO SLEEP WITH 2 BLANKETS AND OUR HEAD COVERED.THE TECHNICAL STAFF DID NOT HAVE SPARES TO CHANGE THERMOSTAT.COFFEE WAS UNDRINKABLE FOR THE FIRST THREE DAYS SO THAT YOU HAD TO BUY THE COFFEE COUPONS FOR COFFEE FROM THE BARS AND NATURALLY NO DECAF AVAILABLE. NO MATTER TO WHOM YOU COMPLAIN (MANAGEMENT)THERE WAS ALWAYS A GOOD LISTENER BUT NO ACTION TAKEN. THE CHERRY ON TOP OF EVERYTHING CAME ON DISEMBARKATION DAY : THEY MADE US LEAVE THE CABIN 04.30 IN THE MORNING TO SLEEP ON THE SUN CHAIRS,BY THE POOL,AND TO BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE SHIP AT 10.00...... THAT IS CRUISING ITALIAN STYLE???

Took China trip on this boat. Trip of a lifetime.

By far our longest cruise, not certain if HAL has offered another voyage anything like this one since, as four sea days took place place between Kenya and Oman just when the pirate activity was getting worse. HAL had to talk the Dutch government into supplying a warship escort for us over that stretch.    It was a wonderful trip and most ports visited were a first for us. We learned an lot about the continent and other people. There was so much that to try and relate even a small percentage isn't practical for this review. A lot of it was unique to cruising, let alone the warship escort there was much more, for instance as we progressed south down the west coast of Africa and neared the equator the captain decided it was within his purview to alter course about 100 miles. He did this in order to take us further out into the Atlantic to "zero-zero". A rare experience indeed. Zero-Zero refers to zero degrees longitude and zero degree latitude. After completing that the ship's company put together nice certificates for all of us stating where we had been.   The cruise began in Fort Lauderdale Florida and ended in Lisbon. Itinerary: Lauderdale, Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Maarten, Funchal Maderia, Casablanca, Agadir Morocco, Senegal, The Gambia, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Walvis Bay Namibia, Luderitz Namibia, Cape Town (3 nights), Durban, Richards Bay, Reunion Island, Mauritius, Seychelles, Kenya (3 nights), Oman, Safaga Egypt, Suez Canal, Alexandria Egypt, Libya (canceled and replaced by Malta), Tunisia, Malaga Spain, Cadiz Spain, Lisbon.    The Prinsendam is a great ship, in that it is designed and fitted for exploration cruising.  Indeed it was, for instance, when we left Agadir Morocco a huge sandstorm off the Sierra Desert was developing and blowing west. For two sea days and nights we were engulfed in sand even though we were well over a hundred miles off the coast of Africa. The ship was covered in yellow sand all the way to the water line. Sea water couldn't be used to wash the ship down and since the fresh water made by the ship's desalination plant (Fresh water at those African ports was in short supply and wasn't potable enough for the ship to purchase anyway.) was necessary for all on board functions so we had to run covered in grit. To make matters worse, one night we had a slight shower which didn't wash any sand off but simply made a muddy mess upon the decks and the gooey stuff would drip down from higher up onto those walking outside. At one time, the ships deck crew got humorous and started drawing smiley faces in the sand high up.    When we booked the cruise we had some concerns about the length and being cooped up in a small stateroom for so long, we did have a balcony, A-152. (This was a last minute upgrade from a non-balcony cabin and was on the port side which gave us a view of the continent for the entire voyage, yeah.) Fortunately, we loved it, matter of fact, we could have stayed on a lot longer, a TA to Florida instead of terminating in Lisbon would have been great, but the ship was scheduled for European sailing that forthcoming summer season, actually, we were on what amounted to a long repositioning voyage. 

this is a very good trip

We were on the first cruise for RCI out of Singapore to Hong Kong in January 2008 and let me tell you there were issues. Long delays leaving the ship on shore excursions. Totally unprepared for the new venue in this area. Also the local guides were nearly impossible to understand but very nice. We were told by RCI to bring our own visa's for Vietnam and Cambodia and after forking out $400 for the two of us we found that RCI provided them onboard for $25 each. Again the right hand didn't seem to know what the left hand was doing. Nothing though could take away from the beautiful countries visited or the great weather and good ship board experiences. I think with time RCI will work this all out and it will go smoothly like Alaska, etc. At the time there were some pretty annoying happenings but on reflecting back I would do it all again mostly because of the wonderful service from our great Waiter Ahlok, and his assistant Yuan to our friendly happy go lucky steward Yueray we were pampered and spoiled and treated royally and isn't that what a cruise is all about.

We recently sailed on the Sapphire Princess from Bangkok to Beijing. Intended ports of call were 2 in VietNam, 1 in Taiwan and 2 in Japan. Because we encountered two typhoons we were unable to land at 4 of the designated ports. There was a marked lack of communication from the ship's officers regarding the situation we were in. A group of passengers did begin a protest and attempted to meet with the Captain. This was difficult to arrange and was not amicable when they did meet. It is my understanding that were threatened with police action when they reached Beijing and all their meetings reporting back to the general passenger group were videotaped by security. The Captain seems to lack public relations skills to say the least. Ultimately, the company offered a $250 shipboard credit which we found insulting and further negotiation brought forth a time limited (1 year) offer of 50% off a future cruise. How many of the passengers would be able to schedule anoither cruise within a year - not many would be our guess? When the Queen Mary II encountered a similar situation with missed ports because of an equipment malfunction, they refunded the cost of the cruise. While no-one was blaming the cruise line for the weather, it does appear strange with long range forecasting that this bad weather trip with 27' waves could have been avoided by changing the itinerary and explaining to passengers what was going on. Poor show Princess Lines.

I recommend the Costa Allegra if you do not require a top of the line ship for your cruise, because the splendid itinerary is what's most important (Hong Kong, Philippines, Borneo, Malaysia, Sultanate of Brunei, Singapore, 2 ports in Vietnam, Sanya on Hainan Island (China). We had fabulous experiences in each port and several sea days for relaxation. This 17 year old ship had a mini facelift when it was repositioned to its new home port of Hong Kong last year, and everything is clean and sparkling. Its 4 and 5 day cruises are aimed at asian guests, but this 14 day itinerary was offered mainly to travellers from the UK and Europe. I found that onboard activities on sea days were unimaginative, but service was uniformly excellent, the evening entertainment was superior, and the quality of the food was rather good.

As large ships go, the Sapphire Princess is probably one of the smaller, but still very large. This cruise had about 2600 passenges. There are many entertainment venues for varied interests. The Asian itinerary was exciting and comprehensive, but in some ports there was too little time to explore many highlights, and some port calls were unexplainedly long without corresponding choices of excursions. The food served in the International dining room was, at best, mediocre. The meats and fish courses were generally overcooked, while vegetables were undercooked. The soups appeared to be all made from the same stock base, thus lacked individual flavors. Dining room stewards, however, were attentive and excellent, and deserve a better place to work. The Horizon buffet on the Lido deck is a worse story. The service personnel moved and acted very lethargic, slow to respond to requests and inattentive. The food served was much like that in the dining room, but sometimes even worse due to being out in serving areas too long. The pizza parlor compared in quality to the cheapest store-brand frozen pizza. The sole exception was the poolside grill on the Lido deck where the choices and food quality were very good. Beverages on the ship were extraordinarily high priced, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, in consideration of being at sea in tax-free areas most of the time. Worse, though, was having to pay additional for after-dinner cappucino or any coffee other than the regular or decaf mass-brewed version. And having to pay for ice cream (other than one hour of vanilla-chocolate choices each afternoon in the Horizon buffet) was almost insulting.

Mariner is compact enough for less traveled ports and large enough to weather a category 12 hurricane. Ship is more classic than flashy, clean lines and casual elegance. Passengers well traveled and very sophisticated in a low key way. Ship aims to please and succeeds brilliantly.

Have been on many cruises wanted to go to the Holy Lands. Took 14 family and friends on the this ship. Was delightful! Got to know all the staff never felt hurried or rushed.

We were excited about this cruise for some time. Since we did a Danube River Cruise two years prior and had such a wonderful expierence we were so looking foward to another river cruise. We did pay for an upgrade cabin on this cruise and we were shocked when we opened the door to our room. It was barely 6 feet wide and not enough room for two grown adults. The walls are so thin between rooms that we could hear the guests on both sides of us all night and day. Thank goodness that we had good neighbors and we all decided to make an extreme effort to be quiet, this also means opening and closing cabinets and closets. The bathrooms were not just small but again, walls so thin that if the light was left on during the night you could see through to the adjoining bathroom. The drains in our cabin and adjoining bathroom backed up at least three times during the 14 days aboard. We had to go to the front desk and they would have to call someone to come and clear the drains. This was a single drain for the sink, shower and toilet, can you say YUCK. The air conditioning was extremely poor and just as the room cooled off in the middle of the night the sun was coming up and it would get hot and stuffy for the rest of the day. You could open the window and get a decent breeze, but this would only let in more noise from the ship next door and lots of mosquitoes. One night we were going through was is called the White Lake and there were some strong winds and rough water. The ship was making such a noise that many of the passengers woke up at about 3-4 am. When I went to the front desk to see if I could find out what was going on the other passengers and I only found a young lady who did not speak english and all she could say was reception reception. We did meet a lot of nice people from all around the world who were just as miserable as we were and we did decide that we were there and there was nothing we could do except tell everyone who asked about this trip the ship was so bad DO NOT BOOK THIS TOUR.

Viking River Cruises did not put us into the hotel we requested in Beijing saying they were not going to use it on our itinerary. Once the tour commenced we discovered that the hotel was indeed utilized and we ended up spending over $600 to stay two nights in Beijing when we could have used our hotel loyalty program points to cover that cost. The ship was fine for three nights. Anything longer would have become somewhat monotonous. Aside from the musty/mildewy odor that permeated the 2nd deck (where our cabin was located) and the observation lounge the ship was OK. The food was good, the service wonderful, and the cruise director was very informative in his presentations. The voyage down the Yangtze was delayed 10 hours due to the river being quite turbulent as a result of flooding upstream. We missed the shore excursion at Fengdu but went to the Chongqing Zoo (to visit the pandas) and the General Stillwell Museum instead-- a decent alternative to what was planned. Once underway the voyage was great and the scenery fantastic. The river water level is rising quite a bit as the new dam project finishs but it still has a lot further to rise. By 2008 much of what we saw will be underwater and the gorges will not be as dramatic as they once were. Viewing the newly relocated towns was fascinating. The land portion of the cruisetour in Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai was fine but quite hot, humid, noisy, and crowded. The discomfort was worth it as we experienced the Great Wall and the terra cotta warriors. The brown air in these cities was discouraging. We did not see any blue sky until we arrived in Guilin/Hong Kong on our post-cruise extension. China has a formidable task to clean up the environment before the 2008 Olympics. On disembarkation day we had to vacate our cabins by 10am but we didn't depart the ship until after lunch around 1pm. We had the option to view a documentary of Chairman Mao between 10am and lunch at 1130am. Internet was available but the connection was slow when we were able to get it going.

Super cabins! Friendly staff and good organization. After 32 cruises I think I have a feel!

I would avoid the Regent cruise line at all costs as they do not honor the trip schedule as sold. Our 14 night cruise from Tokyo to Hong Kong was to include 11 days in ports, including 2 1/2 days in Shanghai and an entire day at the end of the trip in Hong Kong. What we got was a full day less in Shanghai, no time in Hong Kong--in all 2 1/2 days less in the locations we travelled to see. The Regent had know for three weeks prior to departure that they had a problem that would force changes to the agenda. Yet they chose not to notify anyone until after close of business the Friday before sailing, at which point they sent an email to travel agents. Most were unaware of the change until after flying to Tokyo and settling into their cabins. Clearly it was too late to do anything at that point. I selected this trip specifically because of the itinerary. It included the places my 81 year old mother wanted to visit while never having consecutive days at sea. I am upset in the schedule change, but even more vexxing is the fact that Regent actively avoided telling passengers that they would not be getting the trip that they purchased. They had all of our e-mails. And for the record, Regents idea of compensating us for missing days was a $250 shipboard credit for all and a $500 credit towards our next Regent trip. Somehow I just don't feel that makes up for what was lost and there is no way that Regent will every get another nickel for me. If it happened to us, it could happen to you. Let the buyer beware.

The Pacific Princess, a former Renaissance ship, is much more compact than the rest of the Princess fleet. She has, now, two sister ships in the fleet, all holding just over 650 passengers. A beautiful and well-designed ship, Pacific Princess is large enough to offer lots of choices of activities and public spaces, without being overwhelming. Our 21 day cruise, to the sites of combat in the WWII Pacific Theater had many sea days, which were full to the brim with lectures, group discussions and other activities and options such as in-room period films, documentaries, and replays of lectures. The cruise was one of the most moving experiences I've ever had, visiting the sites of WWII battles with a large number of veterans and/or their children. There were two lovely wreath laying ceremonies during the cruise - one in the Coral Sea and the other at Iwo Jima, and a very moving memorial service at the American Memorial Park in Saipan where veterans and their family members were honored with a certificate of thanks and a medallion presented by the governor. The ports were a little to a lot out of the ordinary, and the people we encountered were not much accustomed to cruise ships calling, so some of the port excursions were less than slickly done, but more than made up for that with genuine welcome and sincerity.