Interesting thread. We’ve done about six cruises with FO, only company we’ve gone with so haven’t compared competitor prices. I do get a 5% discount thanks to my old employer which helps. Only interested in no-fly cruises.
We’ve recently done the Adriatic cruise on Bolette (initially called the Balkan cruise, name changed presumably for marketing reasons!). We enjoyed Bolette, first time we’ve had a so-called suite with balcony. Theatre was much better size than on the smaller ships. There were about 850 px on board cf capacity, I think, of 1,300. Same captain as the one we had on the Corinth Canal cruise, excellent guy (as mentioned above).
Shore visits were slightly disappointing as some of them were little more than a half-day.
Food was up to the usual standard, some days better than others. We did have a huge benefit in a £200pp on board spend.
Covid was a problem which I didn’t see mentioned above. Ship would only admit to 100 cases, but we suspect more. My wife was pinged, which meant she had to test daily before leaving the cabin. But this has put us off booking any cruises in the near future - the risk of being confined to your cabin for a prolonged period is just too great. Our final port was to have been Tangiers but they refused to let us dock because of the Covid situation on board.
Regards.