The Black Sea Explorer cruise out of Marmaris Turkey was good value. When I say that I mean you get what you pay for. It is a basic cruise with basic facilities and food for a basic price. The exception was the brilliant entertainment, which was as good or better than some of the higher priced cruises.

If I do not choose Thomson cruises again, it had nothing to do with the cruise, it was their ship's customer relations people. They damaged my wife's case on loading it on the ship. It was fine when we tagged off at dockside after the bus dropped us off. However, the Customer Relations people said basically tough luck, that the best that they can do for you would be a letter for your insurance company. They pointed to the T&C which said that was all that they would do in the case of luggage damaged from the coach to the Ship. I pointed out that this was not the case that the luggage was cracked when was transported within the ship, from the dock to our room. It may have been a bad omen, but as we were tagging our cases, I saw some's suitcase slide off off the conveyor that they used to bring tagged cases into the ship hold. The case crashed to the concrete dock about 6 feet or so below. I wonder if I had broken something on the ship, if they would have accepted my giving them a letter for their insurance company? In any event, we received nothing not even an apology.

For those with older and stronger luggage than ours, I will continue: Read more