Summary:
The ship is fantastic and the crew were excellent and it was a lovely holiday. We were told a little beforehand that a large proportion of the guests would be Chinese. I have always welcomed cultural diversity and get quite upset by racist behaviour so I looked on this as a positive and didn't really appreciate why we were even being told this. However I was very surprised at the way many of these guests behaved, obviously it is just a different culture and not deliberately rude but it was still a surprise: I was barged out of the way at times, even on stairs; when trying to get in or out of lifts people would not wait for passengers to come out before trying to get into the lift; in the theatre fellow passengers stood up, climbed over seats at times and were quite noisy; while sitting on deck watching the sun set I had one woman sit on the arm of the chair that I was sitting in so that her bottom was pressed against me while she took pictures of her child and just shoved out of the way in queues. In the Windjammer people would queue for their food and then walk around eating it while looking for a table (noodles hanging out of their mouth) and, it when we did use it, it was packed and very difficult to get a seat. The staff told us that the restaurants were open for lunch and, when not on excursions, we used these or Two70 where it didn't seem quite so loud or hectic. The staff were excellent and whenever we joined a queue we were escorted to our table very quickly, once even being sent through a staff door to be picked up by a member of the staff the other side. While in the restaurants the staff were excellent and nothing was too much trouble The food was always lovely and they even prepared a curry for us after we mentioned that we liked a curry. The specialist restaurants were very good especially Chops.The girl who looked after our room was lovely and our room was always spotless as was the rest of the ship. My only criticism of the staff was when we all had to attend the safety talk at the start of the cruise. Obviously this is important and everyone attended. The staff even made sure that the noisier passengers were quiet and that they took their children off (literally) the pool tables. We then listened to a little song about washing your hands. Then the talk was in Chinese - we assumed repeating what we had just heard but it went on for some time and nothing else was said in English. Staff then came around to the passengers who were not Chinese and told us that we could listen in English in our rooms. If it is a legal requirement that we attend this talk surely it should be in Chinese and English! The Schooner Bar was lovely, nice and relaxed and most of the bars were quite quiet so good places to go in the evenings. We met some lovely people and had some really nice evenings, it was good that staff remembered us and what we liked to drink. The shopping areas were nice but quite busy and hectic on some occasions so we had to pick our moments. It was a lovely holiday, the ship was super and the staff excellent. Sadly you need to pick your moments for shopping, try to get near the front in the theatre, be careful on stairs and getting into lifts and avoid the Windjammer. Thank you to all the staff who really looked after us.