Arcadia Caribbean Cruise, Christmas/New Year 2015

Just returned from Arcadia’s Christmas/New Year cruise. The ship was beautifully decorated, the transatlantic crossings pretty calm. There could have been more entertainment during the day, particularly on the many sea days. There were the usual quizzes, port talks and guest speakers and of course dancing lessons. The screening room showed some very good films but it is only small and seats had to be pre-booked. The more popular films were shown again in the Globe which proved very popular especially on the return journey when the weather was cooler. The Headliners Theatre Company were as good as ever, even if we had seen all the shows on previous cruises. The Killer Queen laser show was excellent. The guest artists in the Palladium theatre were of a very good standard and we were thrilled to see Ben Makisi and his lovely wife who danced to one song as Ben sang.
The ports stops were very good especially Tortola and St. Maarten. We did feel slightly cheated as we always seemed to be the last ship in port and the first out. On the return journey we stopped in Madeira but arrived over an hour late and by the time we got off the ship to go ashore it was quite late, but we still left at the scheduled time which was a shame as we love Madeira.
Our Captain was Aseem Hashmi who was wonderful, he was seen around the ship and would stop and talk to passengers. Also the two interviews with cruise director John Bartrum were both funny and entertaining.
The food was also very good particularly the Marco Pierre White inspired menus. The Sindhu restaurant was as ever excellent with superb food and service.
Disembarkation at the Mayflower Terminal was rather chaotic and took about an hour longer than usual, but overall we had a wonderful cruise and intend to return