13 Nights Andalusia & Portugal with Madeira Cruise

Excellent Experience

Great cruise round Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Excellent service in everything. They especially look after solo travelers well. Excellent food. Only suggestion I have for improvement is to allow waiting list people in to first sitting if , after two or three nights original bookers have not shown up. There were a lot of empty places in first sitting and people couldn’t get allocated to it. Most trips were well organized except the hugely expensive (£200) outing to the Sky Lagoon. It would have been much better to do it independently. (Others did organize it themselves) The guide told us nothing about Iceland and seemed more interested in the fact that we were travelling on to Faroe Islands. But when we reached Sky Lagoon the Seven Step Ritual was a dream. There were about three quizzes a day and generally well attended- get there early if you want to be sure of a place. The gym sessions were good and not over subscribed.

First time with Fred Olsen and won't be the last.

First time with Fred Olsen after many cruises, mostly with P&O. I would put Fred Olsen at least as good as P&O and maybe jusy a bit better even. Attention to detail I think gives Fred Olsen the edge. Chose Fred Olsen because I wanted to sail from Liverpool. Embarkation and disembarkation so easy and quick. Cabin very comfortable with loads of storage space. I has cabin which I think was adjacent to an area with lots of maintenence going on. Check the deck plans when choosing your cabin. Shower very impressive, double size with solid panel and curtain. Good pressure. Dining excellent as you would expect. Only criticism is about the dress code on formal nights, very lax with open necked shirts and no jacket. Entertainment was very good, talented ship theatre company and very good guest performers. When cruising with my late wife we tended just to wander round the port area with a tourist map and maybe jump on the 'Hop on hop off' tourist bus. On this cruise I decided to go on the organised excursions and was glad I did. The amount of detail the guides give you is worth the cost and you have the security of knowing the ship won't leave without you.

A lovely cruse round Roman Spain

It seems we were pretty lucky going across the Bay of Biscay - other ships on the same night had real problems. Perhaps our ‘luck’ was the result of the excellent stabilisers on Bollette. There were a lot of lectures which would appeal to passengers selecting a Cruise round Roman Spain. It was also useful that you could watch them live or recorded in your cabin. We stopped at some lovely places, and it was easy to get to the town. The daily quizzes were good but always full. The Neptune lounge is well designed so you have a good view from just about anywhere. However, I found the cruise shows frankly disappointing though that’s perhaps a matter of taste (though I did speak to others who had left the show early). The food and service were both excellent. The free classes offered in the gym were really good. They were oversubscribed initially but very few people signed up later in the cruise. The swimming pool near the spa was good but rather awkward to get into, even for someone who’s fairly fit.