A disappointment. We got on board and found an industrial heater in our cabin. No explanation. After a while we switched it off and took it outside (we couldn't shut our cabin door). Took my shoes off and found that the carpet was soaking. Complained and they said that the sprinklers had come on (why wasn't the bed wet then?). Sorry, we're full, no other cabins. We spent the night there (with towels covering the carpet) but the smell got worse overnight so we complained again. Now there was a cabin (although it was a downgrade!). The cabin we had chosen was amidships (because of Edna's sea sickness) and this one wasn't - result, the worst night of the trip and Edna sea sick. Explained to Reception that we realised they didn't have a spare cabin but when we got back to England..... Asked us to see the Deck Manager (again). Our original cabin was now ready. About 20 yards away from it, the smell! Tried to tell us it was disinfectant (they should change their brand) but it was the same smell as when we left it. We'll stay where we were (but wait 'til we get back to England....). Surprise, surprise. They now have another cabin (had they thrown someone overboard?). Day 3 and we're moving cabin again. Of course, every problem now was exaggerated in our eyes. The Cabin Steward made mistakes every day (it wasn't just us, everyone we spoke to who had this Steward had problems). The Dining Room staff weren't up to scratch (I'm writing this in retrospect, we've been P & O since and the Cabin and Dining Room staff were fabulous). We kept getting messages and invitations for other people (obviously they'd upgraded others to make room for us). To cap it all the Oceania had a virus on board which caused a panic and the self service restaurant was changed to non-self service. This (apart from cutting down the room and making queues longer) was not, of itself, a big problem but it impacted on the Dining Room as many of the staff had to transfer to the self service causing slow service in the Restaurant!
Anyway, let's stop whinging. The problem is that I had expected P & O to be nearer Cunard than Airtours (no disrespect to Airtours, they have their market) and I should have realised that their Brochure price (with any discount you care to name) shows the market they are in. You get what you pay for. Naturally, we complained when we got back and got £400 off any cruise booked before the end of 2005. This is why we went on the Arcadia in 2006.

To get back to the cruise! We visited Gibraltar, Port Said, Limassol, Marmaris, Piraeus, Cagliari, Ibiza, Malaga.