Ship Review: an older ship plenty of deck space and a good sea boat, spotless inside and out but lacks amenities newer ships have pool too small and always full, no fridges in cabins beds and sheets etc have seen better days especially my cabin bahamas 54 an inside 2 berth , ship still has starship logos above everydoor it has keys so you have to lug around heavy key with you, our bathroom had been renovated maybe 10 yrs ago supplied with little bottles and plenty of towels cabin attendant just did bare minimum a quick vac and concentrated on bathroom didnt say anything didnt want to get her sacked italian officers and front staff fillipinos, indonesian and madagascars did other work and some romanians in dining room / bar work.italians are a bit indifferent to passengers not me though as i spoke italian to them. most staff were pleasnt and always helpful. the ship was mainly italians/ germans / french and a handful of british / and aussies. germans obsessed with reserving deckchairs all day iv read about this in other review and yes its true. pleasant enough crowd though it was a port intensive cruise to canaries so i think we only had 2 sea days. when we left australia my partner told me she was looking forward to having paella, i told her dont stress they will serve it on ship afetr all we are doing 4 ports in spain guess what we never got it. food was pretty basic breakfast buffet was ok much better in dining room salmon etc a word of warning dont drink the orange juice from ice station its the vilest concentrate i have ever had.lunch buffets turkey hot dogs???? lots of chicken wings/ pork cheap cuts of meat pizzas were a disgrace i dont know how they can claim to be italian a sara lee type reheated pizza was served up at lunchtime buffet the pasta station was fantastic though. they also have a ethnic station at back cnr of buffet nobody went there italians arent into asian food. dining room lunch much better quality food dinner was a bit better good quality but basic pastas/ risottos/ fish steak most passengers loved it though. you wont see plump prawns big steaks here its europe wine about 18euro a bottle min buy a unlimited package if you like a drink. on the whole i used to think p&o australia food was crap but this is worse. didnt go to many shows as i thought they were pretty lame magicians that sort of thing and passenger type american idol stuff. the animator team were jumping around all day around pool good fun, im a bit over all of them sing we are the world on last nite though. we just went to blue riband bar and had a chat instead. nightclub was sort of busy but as we had new port everyday it shut by 1 or 2 am. plenty of shops booze cigarettes msc logo stuff they set up on deck everyday and again they trot out the chains by the metre and cheap bijoux watches and the same dumbasses buy that crap. ii think everyday we had 2 leaflets pushed under our door pushing shore excursions. most passengers seem to take the excursions but as we are aussies we are a bit more adventuresome and did our our own thing a tip take the yellow or red double decker bus trips about 12/15 euro much cheaper than excursions the itinerary was fantastic cartagena/ palamos/ aliacante cueta in spanish morroco/ tangier/ tenerife and and madiera we had some fantastic lunches in spain my partner finally got her paella it was fantastic 30 euro including sangria for 2 of us.we left from genova a ship lovers paradise fantastic weather though whole 11 nite a little cool on arrival back in genova we were 5 hours late back in genova no announcements didnt fuss us as we didnt have to worry about flights etc a massive free for all disembarkation hey its italy.just walked off ship no customs id do it again tommorow but not on this ship maybe on one of newer msc ships

Ship Review: The food and service top, the clean ship was a pleasure to sail on , the it crew were very nice and helful ,,,, I can't wait to do it all again ,,, just have to earn some more Rands !!!!!,