adult only cruise to Med

Aurora Cruise Review

Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Reviews: 3
Helpful Votes: 38

Overall rating:

3.6 out of 5
Aurora

Western Mediterranean Discovery

Sail date: April 26, 2024

Ship: Aurora

Traveled as: Large Group

Reviewed: 7 months ago

Review summary

The stop in Gibraltar needs to be longer. There needs to be more entertainment around the pools on sea days and not just talks by guest speakers.

Embarkation

3 out of 5
Arrived at allocated embarkation time to be informed that embarkation would be delayed by 1.5hrs due to ship needing deep clean after a virus on the previous cruise. When we eventually did get on board cabin was not ready. We were given a voucher for complementary drinks that could only be orange juice or prosecco. Eventually cabin was ready. You still have to go to your allocated muster point and get your boarding card scanned to show that you have attended. Then you have to still watch the emergency video on the television

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5
Food very repetitive and have seen better choices on the celebration nights on other ships. Staff very friendly and very helpful They need to have better choices of vegetables.

Raffles

4 out of 5

Staff excellent very helpful and pleasant mainly used this as a coffee stop

Lido Grill

4 out of 5

Food to a good standard as it was only burgers and pizzas

The Glass House

5 out of 5

Food excellent staff very helpful well worth the visit

Sindhu

5 out of 5

Excellent food. And staff very helpful well worth the visit

Medina Restaurant

3 out of 5

Staff very helpful and friendly. Menu very repetitive on seasonal veg. Have seen better choices on the menu for celebration nights

Horizon Buffet

4 out of 5

Food at a good standard had excellent choices for breakfast and lunch. Staff very helpful

Onboard Activities

1 out of 5
Did not use the facilities

Entertainment

4 out of 5

Carmen's

4 out of 5

Herbie Adams the comedian was good. Sammy Lomax the singer was excellent. The group pulse did the best that they could only went to see them the once staff very helpful and attentive

The Curzon Theatre

4 out of 5

Headliners were to an excellent standard as per usual. The flyrights were excellent would like to see the again. Into the ARK were good they have an excellent future a head of them.

Masquarade

4 out of 5

Used this venue for bingo it was ok

The Crow's Nest

5 out of 5

Excellent for pre dinner drinks and if you want to have somewhere quiet to read a book during the day

Service and Staff

5 out of 5
Staff very helpful and attentive no matter where you want on the ship. They always had a smile on their faces.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5
Aurora is an old ship and it is starting to show in certain areas of the ship. Found that several toilets were out of use whether it was due to people not using them correctly or due to the system needing a deep clean or serious maintenance

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5
Cabin was off adequate size was cleaned to a good standard every day by cabin steward Victor. When defects were reported they were quickly rectified

Ship tip

Bring your own coffee with you as the coffee in buffet is very strong even after adding extra hot water to dilute. Be aware that this ship does not have a photographer on so you cannot get photos on celebration nights. If you are going to do your own laundry onboard bring wash tablets as duty free does not sell them

Ports of call

Dubrovnik, Croatia

3 out of 5
Did the cable car and Cavtat excursion was glad that we did the early excursion as it was getting very busy at the cable car. View from the Top cable car station was beautiful down to the old town and to the port Cavtat was a very pretty town really enjoyed the town. Did not go to the old town as it getting to busy when returned from excursion. If the ship is going to use tenders to dis embark passengers you will be dropped off at the old town so if interested in doing the cable car and old town no need to book excursion as cable car is walkable from old town. You will be charged 5 euros to walk the old town walls if you want to walk them. If it is the height of the season or several cruise ships in expect old town to be very busy

Gibraltar (U.K.)

3 out of 5
Disappointed to find out that the visit was only from 0800 to 1330 as this was the port that the ship used to embark fuel. It is a 20 minute walk to town. There is a shuttle bus that operates to town if you do not want to walk the Charge is £4 or 6 euros return. The horizon leaflet will inform you to use euros in this port my advice is use British money as the Shops prefer sterling. Berthed here on a Sunday so shops did not open until 1000. So everything was a rush if you wanted to do shopping and an excursion. If you just want to do the cable car to the top of the rock. You can get a bus from the casements to the cable car and go to the top own your own. The tour operators ashore or cheaper than the excursions arranged on board. Not long enough In the port. We did our own thing here as had been here before several times

Zadar, Croatia

3 out of 5
Did not do any excursion in this port just went ashore for a walk round the port was very nice. Really enjoyed the sea organ. If berthed at cruise terminal it is about a 25 minutes drive on the shuttle. Walked around the town well worth the visit. The taxi drivers at the shuttle drop of point will try to get you to get a taxi back to the ship. P&O lay on a free shuttle service

Cagliari, Sardinia

3 out of 5
Did the traditional Sardinia experience and it was very enjoyable well worth the trip. Did a walk around the city own our own in the afternoon the people were very friendly. Went the the Irish bar in old square was not very Irish would have at least expected a lively bar was not very lively

Southampton (London), England

5 out of 5
Did nothing in this port as boarded here

Trieste, Italy

3 out of 5
Very pretty port berthed next to the town did our own thing and found a nice restaurant to have some lunch. Yet again it rained in this port

Cartagena, Spain

4 out of 5
Very clean city well worth the visit did our own thing. As we had been at sea 3 days and just wanted to walk around and have a look. Berthed very close to town it was within walking distance.

Messina, Sicily

3 out of 5
Berthed right next to the town very enjoyable port. The only thing that let it down was that it rained the day that we were in. Did a walking tour on our own as had been here before

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
My dis embark time was between 0915 to 0945. Was off the ship and on my way home by 0930. I still think that as you have to be out of your room at 0800 on the day of dis embarkation they should supply some sort of refreshments for when you are waiting to dis embark as it can be along time in dis embarkation area.
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4 Comments

Gwbigdog     7 months ago

Thanks for sharing

javawoody     7 months ago

Appreciate the detailed review

cruising2004     7 months ago

Thank you for your detailed review.

HeavySeas     7 months ago

Thanks for sharing

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