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Festival Cruises

MS Azur

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Carlton Dale
# previous cruises: 5
Date of Trip: August 12, 2001
Itinerary: Mediterranean

Great value cruise - booked only 2 weeks before and not sure what to expect! Always had the view "you get what you pay for". This cruise was great value for money. The ship had some negatives i.e. very small and cramped when full to capacity but this shouldn't spoil your cruise as the itinerary was very port intense with not a single day "at sea."

Public areas were well maintained and always spotlessly clean. The main lounge where the entertainment took place could be crowded. The ceiling was very low which made visibility from the back restricted. When this lounge was filled to capacity it made service from the cocktail waiters near impossible.

There were 2 sittings for diner (breakfast and lunch open sittings). As the ship was full to capacity the dining room was very cramped. This was more than compensated for by the quality of the food. Always superb. The menu offered an excellent choice and the service from the waiters bus boys and Maitre D' was fantastic. Most people for lunch preferred the buffet served on the Tahiti Deck. Unfortunately there was not sufficient seating, most people had to sit with a tray on their knees in the main cabaret room

Our cabin (outside on Information Deck) was more than adequate. Plenty of wardrobe and drawer space. Cabin steward was fantastic. Very attentive and friendly. The only criticism was that the decor was looking a little tatty. We didn't spend a great deal of time in our cabin so this did not detract from the enjoyment of our cruise.

We didn't attend any of the shows, however, our dining companions were very pleased with the quality of the entertainment and gave us a comprehensive review the next day of what a fabulous evening they had the previous night.

The itinerary was fabulous Rome, Malta, Tunisia, Menorca, Barcelona and Marseille. The excursions were a little expensive and the staff in the excursion office not helpful.

Festival let themselves down with "lack of attention to detail." There were numerous examples of small "niggly" problems. An example of this was on our itinerary (from Festival's brochure,) we were due to arrive in Bizerte Tunisia on day 3 at 10.00 we actually arrived at La Goulette (50KMs away) at 14.30. We paid 44 Euros for a full days excursion and ended up in Tunisia for less than 3 Hours! The excursion office offered us a "refund." When the final bill arrived (just before departure)they refunded us 20%.

We expected the majority of passengers to be English. In fact out of over 800 passengers just 22 were English. The nationalities represented came from Italy, Spain, France, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Malta. Our dining companions were great company and certainly made our cruise more enjoyable.

The age of passengers ranged from a baby of 9 months to the most wonderful couple aged 85 and 90 everyone got on so well - one advantage of a small ship.