Athens Cruise ship August 2010

[johnniemo]

:(we recently had to cancel at the last minute, a one off Med cruise organised by Page & May on the Athena ship (not river boat of the same

name). Please can anyone gives us a review of the cruise, ship, food, entertainment etc, We note the Page & Moy have not scheduled another cruise on this ship in the future!

[janneke]

Albeit a little late, i can give some feedback here about the Athena ship from CIC cruise lines (Clasic International cruises) on a cruise to the Azores.

We were 450 of us (Swedish, German, Belgian and British) on a boat of 550 pax. The ship started in Kiel to take the Germans and then sailed to Goteborg to take the Swedish (who spoke absolutely NO English!!!). There it started to go wrong because the ship came in very heavy weather in the Skagerak, causing a one day delay (heavy front wind combined with countercurrent caused the ship to progress at a very low speed). Instead of mooring in Zeebrugge to take the Belgians, they went straight to Dover were they docked at 18.00

Here the Belgians came on board, together with the British. Also resupplying the ship took some time. Finally we left around 22 hour for Fallmouth, where we arrived at 16.00, a little late for the excursion to "lands end". Back on the ship around 21.00 for a late dinner

Three days at sea (with only one day of sunshine) was not very funny on a ship with practically no animation, except for the shuffle board game for the 80 + passengers. The rest red books in the lib.

The azores : three days of rain in the three islands left an unforgettable impression, we saw a lot of cows (there are more cows than humans on the islands) and a lot of fog and water mist , especially up in the mountains!

We moved on to Funchal in Madeira, Gibraltar and Mahon in Menorca , each time separated by a sunny day at sea.

The trip on itself was nice, but i would never do it again on this ship.

On the first sea day in the Atlantic, the ship was rocking and rolling, causing some sea sickness. The ship is not very stable despite the addition of the two "buttocks" at the stern and this does not make her mothers beautiest. The food in the resto is good, but not excellent, service is outstanding, though. Lot of east europeans have a difficulty smiling, as though their face has been "botoxed". I suspect they are never teached to smile in their home country. The ship on itself is just a rust bucket that needs paint every day just like a woman puts on make-up on her face.

This way the paint cracks are filled with new paint. This ship is probably one of the last ships with a real teak promenade deck, but this wood needs urgent replacement because when you step on it the water squirts up like stepping on a rotten fruit. It is time for a one way ticket to Alang in India for metal recycling. This is the ship that sank the Andrea Doria back in 1956, so it is almost payback time.

Because of the different nationalities, announcements were done in 5 languages (it felt like being on a Costa ship): Swedish, English, German, French and Dutch by 5 different people.

The evening shows are not really outstanding.