Welcome to Your Favorites, where you have the opportunity to share your travel experiences with fellow Internet Travelers around the world.

Airtours

MS Seawing

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Tracey Haldane
# previous cruises: 4
Date of Trip: April 13, 1998
Itinerary: Mediterranean

This was a one off cruise which sailed from Lanzarote to Cyprus visiting Tenerife, Cartagena, Barcelona, Rome, Messina, Athens and Istanbul. The Seawing is a very friendly ship, but could probably do with being refurbished now. The cruise was fantastic, even if the weather wasn't. The Captain (Philip Rentell) is a very good communicator and is great with the passengers - makes them feel at ease. The ship itself has crew of various nationalities and they all work in a team to create the perfect holiday atmosphere.

The public areas are spacious although they could do with being refurbished. The pool is very small, and if the weather is too rough the water is drained so that it does not become dangerous (although some of the staff in the purser's department do not realize that this is why there is no water in it). The decks have ample room on them, the one thing that is lacking though is enough sunbeds/chairs for when the weather is good and you are at sea for the entire day - especially if some people take more than one per person. There are four bars which are all spacious. The Piano Bar is a favourite with most people in the evening because Paul Madden is a good pianist (however, he is supposed to be finishing up in November this year so you will need to be quick if you want to see him).

The food this time was worse than before, with lots of people complaining. There is obviously lots of food (it is a cruise ship after all). There is a choice of breakfast in the dining room or a buffet, the same with lunch. Some people have even been seen to go to both the buffet and the sit down. The quality of both is good. Some of the meat was a bit tough and vegetables weren't cooked long enough for some people. There is six meals a day which is more than enough for anyone, even if you miss a meal you don't notice it because there will be another being set up shortly. The service is excellent, the Filipino staff both in the dining room and in the bar department are very friendly and like to see all their passengers smile. This is one of the things that makes the cruise so good. There is nothing that they won't do for you.

The cabins are the sort of size you would find in most cruise ships (I think). One thing I have noticed is that the showers in the outside cabins appear to be smaller than the ones in the inside cabins. There is a wardrobe space which is the same size no matter what type of cabin you are in. There are single cabins available, these cabins have less drawer space than double or family cabins. The cabins are clean and as there is so much to do on the boat it is probably somewhere that you will only be in to sleep, this means you don't notice if they are small or not.

Entertainment is flown out from the UK, on this cruise Bobby Knutt (from Emmerdale) was one of the entertainers. There is a wide range of entertainment from comedians, musicians, magicians, singers, to west end shows (put on by the ships own Entertainment team). There is also usually a quiz for all passengers to get involved in every night after seeing the show (if you are on first seating for dinner). There is plenty of entertainment during the day with deck quoits, golf, killer darts, deck quiz, ice carving etc as well. No-one will get bored on this ship.

Apart from the entertainment and eating when you are on board the ship there is plenty to do, there is a gym, the casino (which can only open when the boat is not in port), a shop (again it can only open when not in port), library, card room, film theatre. There is always plenty to do.

Tenerife was a good place to visit, only a few minutes walk from the centre of the town where there is lots of shops. The ship also offers tours in every port. We were supposed to go to Cadiz but the weather was too rough so we went to Cartagena instead, some people didn't like this because of the lack of touristy Spain. It was more like the real Spain. There is a promenade to walk around and there is lots to see and do within the town itself, lots of museums to go to. Barcelona was beautiful. If you are lucky enough to go there when there is a football match on you can go and watch that (if the boat leaves late enough - ours did). You can get a taxi or bus from the port to the centre (a word of warning though if you take the bus be prepared for a long wait because if everyone from the boat decides that they want to go into Barcelona at the same time as you there will be a queue and the bus can only take so many people). There are lots of different restaurants, we went to a Japanese one near to Planet Hollywood.

Civitavecchia is quite a distance from Rome, but you can get to Rome by train which takes about 45 minutes. Civitavecchia again has a nice promenade to walk along once you walk through an industrial port. The town itself can be a bit scary if you are a loan female walking about, especially when several people follow you. Messina looked nice, and the boat goes right into the centre of the town. A word of warning, there are two types of pedestrian in Messina, a quick one and a dead one. Athens is one of those places you either love or loathe, I loathe it so I never went ashore. We were in Istanbul overnight and again I was scared to go ashore by myself, they do have several duty free shops at the port.

The fellow passengers were alright. There were some that moaned all the time and complained about everything, especially if they had been on another cruise before. These tended to be the people who got the cruise cheaply from teletext. The first time cruisers loved it. There was a mixture of Scandinavians and British people on the cruise. The Scandinavians were good fun, however, there probably wasn't enough entertainment for them. The majority of the people on the cruise were 50+, this is the only drawback. There were only about 10 people at the disco at night. There weren't too many children on board, but obviously if you go during summer holidays this will change. There is a kids club for children but you don't notice them if there aren't too many of them. If there are lots of families you can notice them. So if you want a relaxing cruise without children the best time to go is January - March, May - June and then from October to December.