Anna Sciberras

Age: 36
Occupation: Academic
Number of Cruises: 2
Cruise Line: Island Cruises
Ship: Island Escape
Itinerary: Mediterranean Essence

Departure Port: Palma, Majorca
Duration: 7 nights
Booked via Lunn Poly
Cabin number: 8038, Premium Outside Cabin, Deck 8
Previous cruise experience: Little – one 9day cruise in Turkey.

Obtaining tickets: disgusting. We paid for our cruise in February and after umpteen telephone-calls to Island Cruises got our tickets just 2 days before departure. I have written to complain about their rude customer service, but until now have not even received an acknowledgement.

Registration at Port: OK. They had eight desks operating, and we waited for about 15 minutes to get registered and photographed.

Cabin: First impressions were mixed. The soft furnishings were new, but the rest of the furniture wasn’t. We had a problem with the toilet twice (eventually the whole ship had a problem by the end of the cruise). Our cabin stewardess Miriam was great. She surprised us each day with the fresh towels’ presentation and when the sea was rough she was caring enough to come and see if we needed anything.

Public areas: These were very pleasant and looked new.

Food: A disappointment in that there was no grilled food or plain food without heavy sauces. Otherwise it was fine. It would have been ideal to have pieces of lemon available next to the tea urns and why not offer water at the Beachcomber – the 24hr restaurant. The Island Restaurant opened for lunch and dinner and offered a choice of waiter service and self-service. In order to get a booking at the Oasis Restaurant I had to get up early and had to queue twice, only to be lucky the second time. I guess some passengers were allowed to book in advance whilst other not. Shame really. Food quality was OK.

The informal dining concept (no sittings) worked pretty well, with little or no queues.

Bars: didn’t frequent the bars, so haven’t much to say.

Itinerary: Good. We did the Mediterranean Essence (Palma-Tunis-Civitavecchia-Portofino-Nice-Barcelona-Palma). Unfortunately we didn’t do Portofino, but went to Genoa. And from what I saw, it was not weather conditions as we were told, but because I don’t think that the tendering procedure could have been done twice in a row. We stopped in Villefranche the next day and the tendering procedure was utterly disorganised and chaotic.

Excursions: Generally good. There is a good selection of excursions at each port. The two excursions we did were great. The rest we did on our own.

Travelling back from the ship to Majorca airport and checking in was chaotic. Why do passengers have to lug their luggage from one place to another and prepare to depart from the night before????? Luggage were all put on the ground from early morning on the ground by the ship in scorching sun for ages on the day of departure. Using the adlib attitude!!!!!!!!!!!

Overall rating: OK on the whole, but I would not rate it a 4Star.

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