I am driven to writing this review by the one written by another member who appears to have travelled on a very different ship to me, yet on exactly the same itinerary and exactly the same time and on a ship with the same name! That's a bit unfair, because I do agree with some of his statements. Yes, the food was pretty good in the Seven Continents restaurant, but if you were doing a back to back as I did it's a bit boring to be faced with exactly the same menu on the second leg! Where we fall out is in relation to the top deck cafe - the Lido. This has an ambiance akin to a motorway service station, has rotting floors, a leaking roof and, towards the end of the cruise by which time I think some crew had jumped ship in the Ukraine, continually short of cutlery and mugs. "Relax areas", may be adequate in cooler climes such as those when orford.len was on board, but woefully inadequate when the sun shone.
Points of agreement: Cruise Director Kate had the voice of an angel and the entertainment team, all Eastern European, were excellent. Yes, one of the comedians was pretty poor, but the Welshman had some wonderful observational humour. The Classical duo on the first 75% of our trip were excellent and had a good following until the venue was changed to the cabaret area where, let's be honest, constant chatting and drinking are not a good mix with classical music! Embarkation for us at Barcelona was superb, although I'll add some adverse comments about flights later on!
Back to disagreements now: one of the lecturers was dire - his talk on Churchill a great disappointment and largely a motley collection of "Churchill moments".