Kees Harding

We were on Costa Allegra last year.Our cruise holiday to the Far East onboard Costa Allegra was absolutely excellent. The staff were great and the itinerary was very good. My only two headaches were the exchange rate on board. Entertainment on Costa was also poor. The ventriloquist René Luden spoke 4 different languages, and when the language of the audience had been done by him they started talking...he may have been good but with all the different nationalities on board it didn't work....

This years cruise started with a much smaller ship the MSAlbatros from Phoenix Reisen in Monte Carlo, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Jemen Seychelles and we ended in February in Cape Town.

I had anticipated seeing the Seychelles...and it rained and rained. Entertainment was very good on board, even though it was only in german. My wife asked occasionally what they were saying, when she didn't understand properly what was said. It's funny last year it was the other way round, because her english is better than mine. They had from Dubai onwards a magician called Kalibo, the second magician in a row. -he was good too. I liked the first one he was a great talker. After that we had a juggler she, Mika had her cabin next to ours. She would apparantly do her rehearsal/practice/warm up at 5 o clock in the morning in the Lounge, without ALL guests seeing, I saw when i went to my early morning Jog. The MS Albatros was really the smallest ship i have ever been on, but they are by far more together than the italians on Costa. My wife got seasick. I think th e ship had less stability than the bigger ships we have been on.

We rented bikes in Mauritius, where we stayed on extra day for 5 days because of the weather. Israel, Jordan, the Suez Channel and Egypt (especially Cairo), Madagascar, Cape Town and Richard's Bay in South Africa were some of my favorite places.