Sandy Beech  

Age: 34
Occupation: Project Manager
Number of Cruises: 8
Cruise Line: Festival Cruises
Ship: Mistral
Itinerary: Venice-Dubrovnik-Greece-Venice

We arrived in Venice by train and checked our suitcase in at the station for a fee of 8000 lira. Didn't have to worry about it again until it turned up in the cabin. If you have a few bags this may get a bit pricey. You could just as easily carry them yourself to Piazza Roma and put them on the coach (for free) that takes you to the ship. Just remember that there are a lot of steps in Venice!

Embarkation took forever as a group of about 400 retired Girl Guides from England was given preference over other passengers. We had to wait for them to be processed before we were allowed to go aboard. The wait was made a little more bearable by the complimentary biscuits, tea, and coffee provided in the waiting area. After getting on board we were escorted to our cabin (a nice change from our experience on the Carnival Destiny where we were given a map and left to fend for ourselves without so much as a point in the right direction). Unfortunately the trip was all downhill from here. Everywhere you went you were surrounded by retired girl guides.

The shows were fairly mediocre. The tours were excessively overpriced but you were left with little choice but to go on them if you wanted to see anything as the time in port was so short that you wouldn't have been able to do it yourself. Also, they did not widely broadcast the fact that you had to pick up disembarkation tags at many of the ports so that you could get off the ship. This meant that we had to wait over 2 hours in Dubrovnik before even being able to get on a tender. The ship was only in port for a few hours so the visit was fairly short and therefore disappointing. Also, as it was a Sunday, most of the businesses were closed. At Katakolon the only thing you wanted to see was Olympia which was some distance from the port therefore in order to see it you had to go on the shore excursion. I do not believe that you would have been able to do it by yourself in the time allocated. Even so all the tour buses returned late and the ship had to wait for us. If you had been on your own you could not expect them to wait.

The time in Santorini, again about 4 hours all up, allows time only to go on the tour if you wish to see the excavations at Akrotiri. If you tried to do it on your own I believe you would be very lucky to make it. Don't forget, if you're not on a tour you are last off the ship whether tendering or not! Mykonos can be done on your own although you will probably have to get the return bus ticket or a cab as the public bus I caught the last time I visited this port no longer appears to be operating. Rhodes is beautiful and you can do this town on your own as it is the only port where you seem to have ample time to look around the town on your own and you are within walking distance of the walls.

Piraeus (for Athens) was the biggest joke. We decided to do this on our own as we were supposed to have more time and the tour was massively overpriced to doing it yourself. Only we arrived late (as usual) and they told us we had to be back early (only the tours came back over an hour after the time stated). The ship docked at the wharf furthest from the Metro station. A good 30-40 minute walk. To get off faster we blended in with one of the groups getting ready to go on a tour and flashed one of our earlier tour tickets. I believe we saved over an hour doing this. We walked to the Metro station, caught a train to the Acropolis and visited the Parthenon. Then we rushed back to the Metro returned to the port and walked back to the ship. This took up the whole time we were there if you believed the ship return time. We saw the tour groups while at the Parthenon. Talking to people on the tour later they didn't see anymore than we did. When we returned to Venice it was raining and the ground staff gave us incorrect directions to the coach to Piazza Roma several times leading to us getting very wet and capping off the cruise in a very fitting way.

However, I have left the worst part until last. The dining experience. When we booked several months before departure we requested a table of 6 for dinner. When we arrived at the Dining room on the first night I saw that we had been put on a table for eight. I thought that this would give us several people to talk to throughout the cruise making the experience all the more enjoyable. Imagine our surprise when no-one else turned up so there we were, two people at a table for 8. To make it worse, the Maitre D came up to us and made stupid jokes about it instead of offering to find us another table with other people. It only got worse from here. During the meal the waitress kept wishing us a 'Bon Appetite' as each plate came out. The Assistant Waiter would bring the cheese for the pasta when there were 2 forkfuls left on the plate or the salad dressing as you were placing the last of the lettuce in your mouth. The next night we turned up again to find our table had turned into a table for 6. After more bad jokes from the Maitre d and still no offer to be moved to another table we had almost had enough. Then waiters from other tables started using the cutlery and glasses from the other 4 place settings on our table as spares for the other tables in the dining room. Having the serving area right in the middle of the floor and next to our table was no picnic either. At one point a waiter came out of the kitchen with a tray full of soup bowls and plates, just before he got to the serving area another waiter bent over to tie up his shoelace and then stood up just as the other waiter arrived hitting the bottom of his fully laden tray with the top of his head and sending everything flying. The waiter carrying the tray ended up with soup all over him and noodles hanging from his glasses. My partner was so distressed by this that for the next three nights we ate in our cabin from room service where the service was infinitely better, the company no worse and we didn't even have to get changed! However this is not what we hoped to get from this cruise. On the third last day I met one of the retired girl guides at a craft class and told her about our problem. She said she and three friends were at a table for 6 at the same sitting in the same restaurant only on the other side of the partition and that their Maitre d and waiter were really very good and would we like to join them. So we went to dinner at their table the next two nights. When we turned up we explained to their waiter and Maitre d what had happened and that these ladies had asked us to join them. They were really very good about it all. The only problem was that the new Maitre d had a go at the other waiter and maitre d and on the final morning at breakfast our original waiter hunted us down and started to verbally harass my partner to the point where he had to ask her to leave several times before she finally left. Another problem was the fact that we booked a double cabin and ended up with a twin cabin with two single beds on either side of the room.

Overall we had a really lousy time on this cruise and were disappointed with many aspects. It could have been much better. Surely they could allow more time in the ports so that you could do your own thing and not feel so hurried. Also, the service in the dining room seems to need major improvement. In addition to this, they appear to put the people staying in the suites in one restaurant and all the rest in the other. This means that there is enough room to ballroom dance between the tables in the suite restaurant while the rest of the passengers are squashed in like sardines in the other restaurant. They should divide the passengers between the restaurants more evenly. Another irritating point is the fact that every announcement on board and at each show and at trivia quizzes and Bingo is repeated 5-6 times in different languages for all those on board. It can become rather tedious at times. I would not sail with Festival again.

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