This was a repositioning cruise from Singapore to Sydney, which hubby and I chose, to relax and refresh before the Christmas mayhem. First, the good points: our cabin stewards, and the rest of the waiters etc were fabulous. The food was also of good quality and lots of variety.

However, it was all mainly downhill from there, with the embarkation process giving us an indication of what was to come. It took hours and passengers were forced into a "conga line" throughout the ship - with our carry-on bags - so that staff could take our passports. Surely there was a better way? I heard a few people behind me complaining that they had paid extra money for something called "faster to the fun" and what was the point? The lifeboat drill was a shemozzle as were later, boarding procedures for the tenders. The cabin was a good size, but only had one power point. Also the ship is poorly-designed with inaccessible areas in the middle of several decks, so that to reach certain points (eg one of the restaurants) passengers need to go up two floors, cross the length of the ship and down two floors. Passengers were not given a map of the ship on embarkation and the diagrams near the lifts only showed one inaccessible area - which was the galley. There is no promenade deck. What is euphemistically called the promenade deck is an internal walkway from the shops, through the poker machines, towards the coffee shop.

Unlike other ships (P and O in Australia and UK, Princess, Cunard) there were no quiet nooks to relax. Inescapable, loud pop music permeated the entire ship, and from bulkhead to bulkhead it was overrun with uncontrollable children. Apart from the usual running and screaming along corridors and up and down the stairs, we saw children standing on tables, jumping up and down on furniture and in the buffet helping themselves and coughing and sneezing on food. Because of children's' smaller height the protective screens in the buffet were useless in shielding the food. Read more