Rugeley Tim

We are due to sail on the same Baltic cruise having had our Fjord cruise cancelled last September, 4 months seems to be a long time with this bloody plague and it could go either way. Whilst we will be happy to travel I am concerned that the restictions will impact the  on board experience and probably limit the places thar you can visit if this is the case I would rather cancel and go when things are more normal.

We have now been back from our cruise for a week having sailed on the Majesty for the Aegean Delights and Adriatic Adventure and thought I would give you my perception of this ship.

We travelled with another couple primarily to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary, this was our 3rd cruise having sailed on the Spirit and with P&O.

FLIGHT: Although we live in the Midlands we decided to travel from Manchester as we could then meet up with our friends, unfortunately the flight was delayed by 2 hours, when we eventually boarded the plane it was a First Choice aircraft which provided plenty of legroom even in the cheap seats. My only comment would be that each seat has an inbuilt entertainment system which you could not use apart from the safety video so no in flight movie or radio for the 3.5 hour flight.

CHECK IN: On arrival we were obviously lucky and our baggage was straight off the aircraft and we were meet and on a coach for the short drive to the port in double quick time, check in was just as smooth and very quick as we were the last ones to board. Even then by the time we found our rooms our baggage was already there.

CABIN: Having read on this site the many comments regarding the cabin size I expected the worst, we never bother with a suite or balcony as we rarely spend any time in the cabin apart from sleep and getting changed. The inside cabins on Majesty are small but perfectly adequate my only minor complaint would be the size of the wardrobe which is fairly tight, we kept our suitcases under the bed and used them to store t shirts, shorts etc. An added bonus was that all cabins now have tea & coffee making facilities which I believe was new for our cruise. The bathroom was ok and had good water pressure.

SHIP: The ship is certainly much nicer than the spirit (and no judder) and has recently had a complete carpet refit (as well as having balconies built) whilst it is a nice ship I struggled with the layout especially in the evenings when you had to walk from one end of the ship to the other to see entertainment, I would also agree with the comments about the pillars in the Main Theatre which are very annoying. The Dining facilities (Four Seasons, Seven Seas and both buffet dining rooms on deck 10 are perfectly adequate as are the other public areas.

FOOD: We tended to eat in the buffet at lunchtime and in The Seven Seas Restaurant in the evening, the food was ok, generally hot and plenty of it. I would say that it was better that P&O BUT was not as good as the Spirit, our evening meal was always nice with a good choice but was no more than that, I found this slightly disappointing as we had what I could only call a fine dining experience on the Spirit. First time cruisers would probably be impressed by the food. I am still amazed by the amount of people to make packed lunches on the ship to take ashore, I always love to try the local delicacies which are usually very cheap and means we can help with the local economy.

DRINKS PACKAGE: We were lucky to get an early bird drinks package at £68 per person per week, we certainly had our monies worth! There is plenty to choose from and the House Wines are palatable, there is a good selection of cocktails which are included in the package, we made the mistake of thinking they were not very strong and found this to be completely wrong after 5 or 6! An added bonus is that coffee i.e. Latte and cappuccino are included in the package as well as fruit juices.

STAFF: My overriding memory of the Spirit was the staff, who were primarily Filipino or Indian and were fantastic, whilst the staff on board Majesty were generally excellent there are a lot of Eastern Europeans who from my experience can be surly by nature, I think this proved the case on the Majesty. The waiters in the Seven Seas were excellent, we used the same table for 4 every night and our every need was met by our waiters Ricky and Matt and the Wine Waiter Allen ensured a glasses were full all through dinner.

ENTERTAINMENT: There are shows in the main theatre most evenings, again using the Spirit as a gauge I was slightly disappointed. On the Spirit the shows were generally based around West End productions (not all but most) where as the Majesty show team tended to concentrate on artists or themes. If I am brutally honest the guys were very good and harmonised nicely but the girls were average at best, I have to admit that I even walked out of one performance during the Michael Jackson tribute as it was so bloody awful! The quizzes and shows in Royal Fireworks were well run and generally great fun. There are a number of supporting groups which include Music Unlimited (excellent) and Rhythm of Three who were ok depending on what they were singing.

GIMMICKS: This is the only way I can describe them, Thomson sell lottery tickets which are drawn by using the roulette table each week all I would say is read the small print, there is also a Jackpot on the Stud Poker table again read the small print, additionally each week a draw is made for a free trip to Vegas, again this is not what it seems as you only win an entry into another draw, again read the small print!!!

DESTINATIONS: This was a busy cruise (back to back for us) with only 2 sea days, whilst all the destinations are excellent our highlights would have to be Venice (get in early and out before the crowds start) Kusadsi for Ephesus (worth doing the trip) and Kotor in Montenegro (do your own thing the town is next to the port and is stunning), Piraeus for Athens (the acropolis is amazing). All the other locations including Bodrum (shopping), Corfu, Koper, Zadar etc are all absolutely stunning and well worth visiting, most can be explored on your own as the ship is docked very near to the sites of interest.

RETURN: Unfortunately we had an evening flight out of Corfu which meant we were hanging around all day, we paid £35 to keep a room until 5pm which I believe was well worth it, there is an option to use a room provided by the ship for a shower and to get changed. Now comes my biggest gripe Corfu airport, when we arrived there were 3 queues the longest (ours) was 300 yards long outside the airport on the pavement. The only saving grace was that it was early evening and slightly cooler I dread to think what it would be like during the day. There was a complete lack of information from the Thomson staff and for me the biggest travesty was that there were a significant number of old people who were left to stand and queue for more than 2 hours - bloody disgusting.

SUMMARY: Quality destinations, OK Ship. We had a nice holiday but it was not the most memorable. Would we sail with Thomson again? Probably not in the foreseeable future and certainly not if it involves Corfu Airport.

This is my thoughts, experience and opinion from this cruise and obviously I fully respect that other cruisers may have a completely different perspective on the same journey.:)

The Caxton card is completely fee free and has the added bonus that you only load what you need I tend to put a few hundred Euro's on at a time and if I loose it the impact is limited plus the company will replace it very quickly. From my experience the exchange rate is substantially better than the banks and has 'happy hours' with excellent exchange rates on a regular basis.

Obviously each to their own but as a member of the Motorhome community I know that this card is very popular.

We travel abroad frequently and have had a Caxton Currency Card for the past couple of years, we sail next week so loaded currency on the card today, the exchange rate was 124.26 which is the best I have seen so far. It is simple to use as you log onto your account and simply transfer money from your account into your Caxton Account. You can then use it to pay by Card or draw cash from machines whilst abroad without incurring charges, it uses Visa so is accepted everywhere. :cool:

Sailing on this back to back cruise at the beginning of August and reading the reviews know that both have popular destinations but would be grateful for some advice on the best trips/do your own thing for each cruise, my other half has a thing about coaches so the less time spent on them the less ear ache I get!! We both love history and having spent quite a bit of time in the Balkans during the war (Army) I am especially keen to see another side to the area. Also as a Black Country lad happy to walk rather than pay the extortionate prices normally charged by the company!

Having been on both Thomson and P&O previously we made the decision to go back to Thomson for our 30th anniversary (having done our 25th on the spirit) we are doing both the Aegean Classics and the Adriatic Explorer in early August, although I know it is 2 cruises of 7 days each it has cost £4,000 (with drinks package) but with only a basic (tiny) room, I would have to admit that I left it to our friends to book this as I away with work for the past 6 months with HM Forces. I have done the last thing you should do and been on the internet looking at other options and feel slightly sick at the prices and options available for the money we have spent. However,,,, we loved our time on the Spirit and know that we will thoroughly enjoy our trip. As a comparison P&O nice ship but crap food, entertainment and staff... say no more.