When I originally booked this cruise I was not expecting too much as it was such a good price. It was a week cruising the Canary Islands and Morocco for under 400 euros per person all inclusive and we literally thought if it got us around the ports then it was a good deal, but we did not expect a lot from the food and drink at that price. we had sailed on the ship about 9 years previously as Island Star and knew it would be an old ship, but we had very much liked it, we like the smaller ships and we knew it had undergone a recent refurb so decided to give it a go.

We were very pleasantly surprised! This was a fabulous cruise from start to finish. With Pullmamtur there was the option to check in on line and when we arrived at the terminal we were checked in and on board within 10 minutes, very efficient! The ship is looking lovely and you would not think she was as old as she is. We had an outside superior cabin for three adults which I had expected we may need to upgrade on board but it was very spacious and loads of storage space - 2 double wardrobes and 24 drawers along with lots of mirrors!!! We asked for extra coathangers and were provided very quickly with an extra 20 so no problems with cabin space at all (although I am happy to sleep on a bunk, some may not like this but the bunk was not actually over the double bed which was huge). The cabin and the public rooms were spotless.

The food is probably amongst the best that we have had on a ship and I have sailed with many lines. The buffet restaurant on the lido deck had a fantastic array of fresh salads and vegetables, a wide variety of hot mains, pizzas, paellas, deserts and every lunch there was a special carvery....the first day it was whole roasted salmons baked in salt, they did whole roast hake one day, the biggest beef joint have ever seen, roast turkeys and we were very impressed that they managed to mass produce pork with fabulous crispy crackling, not an easy task! The buffet is open breakfast lunch and dinner, we chose to eat breakfast and lunches there, and dinner in the main dining room. If you go to the lido buffet you need to find your own table whereas if you go to the main dining room the waiters seat you and get the drinks for you, but apart from that it is the same food and same buffet style for lunch and breakfast. It could be a slight scrum for a table if you hit busy time in the lido, eg when all of the trips were returning, but the opening hours were long and once you had your table everything was very nicely laid out and no queues. One thing Pullmantur do which we thought was a great idea is to have little paper discs on the table, green on one side, red on the other. If you dont want your plates cleared and are returning to your table you put the card to red so no helpful waiter clears it whilst you are returning to the buffet to get something else, meaning that one of you does not need to stand guard over your table the whole time....a simple idea but so effective! Read more