I would highly recommend this cruise to someone that wants to explore the middle east in significant safety and luxury. We passed through a high pirate risk area for over three days. We took on specially trained security crew for that period of the cruise, and the ship was blacked out at night to help make us harder to see. The Middle East is a very unique are of the world and someplace to explore with a very open mind. We loved the trip!
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Express with Butler helping us to our room.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
What is available is very well prepared and presented.
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
Small ship so very limited when it comes to activities. I had problems with fitness center equipment many times. I think they may need to be more proactive when it comes to the equipment. The exercise room was also very warm. More fans would help.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
The one guess lady singer was very good. The gentleman was also good. Only issue is three nights of them entertaining gets a little repetitive. The on ship entertainers were a range from Very Good to not good at all. A couple of the singers were so off key, it was painful to hear them sing some times. It would have been nice to have had one more entertainer come on board to bring up so many of the same entertainers singing so much. Just need more change.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
The vast majority of the staff were excellent.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
We had a major problem with noise in our room as we were in a suite directly above the main entertainment venue. The various entertainers would do should checks, practices etc on and off all day. Sound crew would work on sound in the middle of the night. One night they blared out loud music and very strong bass sounds until 4:45 in the morning. I had to call up and complain a couple times even after complaining and talking to the cruise director about the problem. The bass was so loud it would rattle the vase on our coffee table. We joked that we really didn't need to sit in the venue because we could hear the show so well from our room and they had been practicing for hours before the show time.
Cabin / Stateroom
3 out of 5
The loud noise from the entertainment venue below us was major issue. We would really prefer not to have this room again. I don't understand while they would have a separate bedroom and then not put a door to close the bedroom off from the living area.
Ship tip
Great Crew. Rooms are small unless you get a suite. Our Butler Ashok, was FANTASTIC! Stay away from the front of the ship over the entertainment venue. Just to much noise day and night from below.
Our chosen tour was cancelled, so we did a small group tour of Jerusalem. We had a bad guide. Many of us complained and got 50% refunds on the tour. Jerusalem was extremely crowded and having a bad guide that did not seem to really care if he lost someone, was not a good thing.
Extremely long bus rides to Luxor and other tourist/historical sites.
Three plus hours each way. I question how safe it was to be driving in total darkness on the out back roadways. Maybe they should have the buses caravan together. Safety in numbers? Our lady guide to Luxor etc was EXCELLENT. The best guide we had on the trip!
My second day I did a snorkel trip very near the cruise port. The sea life and coral were amazing. Excellent water visibility. I have snorkeled and scuba all around the world. The guys doing our trip needed some training. They had some very wear swimmers. One had to be towed. We had too many guests in the water to have only one guide in the water. They should have divided us into two groups and have the poor swimmers with one guide closer to the boat and good swimmers go with another guide. They had plenty of crew on the boat, but only one guide in the water actually watching too big of a group. I also felt one of the crew members was downright rude. It wasn't clear who was really the captain/boss on the boat, so I did not complain, but the guy was very lude and rude towards the single women.
Traffic was extremely heavy and we didn't have a very good guide. They had us off and on the bus way too many times. Last stops in total darkness. The tour we did should have started earlier or been shortened. We got back 90 later then scheduled.
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