Miascuzza

The only real complaint from the OP seems to be the food and as we all know, this is purely personal. Such a shame, Eden is quite a beautiful ship.

Yes, the main complaint was the food and the ship is beautiful in the common areas but not in the cabins which desperately need refurbishment. This is planned in June I believe.

I agree that food is subjective but I'm a chef and I can recognise badly prepared food when I taste it. We met many other well-travelled guests on the ship who felt the same way and we're surprised by how very bad the food was compared to other ships. A real shame as the food was the major drawback. Certainly wouldn't sail P&O again if that's their standard.

Not sure I can reconcile "average age about 80" with "Noisy kids dominated the pool area".

Well quite clearly there were both age groups dominant. It was senior staff who stated the average age, not me. Most of the staff agreed that it was a highly unusual 'old' group. But that doesn't preclude children who were poorly supervised by parents being present. No, I'm not an old grump but I raised my children to be respectful of others when they're outside the home. This wasn't evident on the ship.

Recently went on my first cruise with a friend who is a seasoned cruiser on the Pacific Eden, Fremantle return via Broome. Wasn't I in for a surprise?

Average age was about 80, noisy kids dominated the main pool area and surrounds, land tours extremely overpriced. I could have accepted all of that but worst of all was the food. If you didn't know what good food was you might have been happy on the cruise.

The Waterfront restaurant was the worst of all the restaurants. Totally tasteless and not as represented on the menu. You can't advertise chocolate ganache and then serve mousse. A very bad mousse at that. Satay chicken without satay was totally tasteless. Service and comprehension of English by staff was extremely poor.

Then Angelo's, the Italian restaurant. Grissini with fennel seeds, oregano and Parmesan sounded good to me as a light entree but plain, powdery grissini appeared instead. The reason given by the chef? No fennel seeds, oregano or Parmesan was loaded onto the ship. How strange! Parmesan appeared as my dessert. Osso Buco with gremolata was my choice for main ... anaemic dish that only tasted of strong rosemary. As for the gremolata, it was substituted with some very roughly chopped parsley and garlic. Now that's not a gremolata! Radicchio salad contained the old brown outside leaves that should have been discarded. Surely it's not hard to serve the red inside leaves? Saving grace was a $65 bottle of Italian wine.

The Pantry (buffet style eating). Headed for the fish and chips the next day but was direly disappointed again. Frozen fibrous tasteless fish covered in thick batter leaving raw batter inside! By this stage I wanted to get off.

Next up was Luke Mangan's Salt Grill which cost $49 ph. At last, a meal that didn't make me choke. Well worth the price. Steak was over cooked but they happily cooked another that was just perfect.

Angelo's again. Menu had changed so decided to give it another go but sadly no better. Parmesan cheese plate was good though.

Back to The Pantry. Indian and Mexican stations were the best but still quite poor.

Don't want to even remember the Asian restaurant.

Treated ourselves to Luke Mangan's on the last night and it was very good as usual.

The ship was like a floating aged care facility come RSL. Time for P&O to get their act together.

Made some espressos in the cabin but stopped doing that when the cabin staff only wiped out the cups and the teaspoon leaving coffee residue on both.

Not a happy cruiser.