Everything reviewers said it wouldn’t be…

Fab Med cruise from 3rd September and first time on Arvia. Really loved the ship – loads of choice, good food and hardworking crew.

Having read lots of reviews, we can only wonder what others expected and if they were even on the same holiday/ship. We heard a few moaners on board too… one person likened the food in the main dining room to Wetherspoons, and we overheard a rather stuck up woman saying her and her husband call the buffet “the trough”. Really?!

Some reviews said you can’t get in for food at a reasonable time, yet we always did. We just used the app and the virtual queue system and planned a little ahead. Never a problem for us, and we were in a group of friends ranging between 4 and 11 of us. I can only suggest that the complainers are those that don’t want to, can’t, or are simply too stuck in their ways to adapt and use the app.

On the flip side, the sunbed situation. There seems to be a thought that lots of reclining chairs everywhere will make up the sunbed numbers. They don’t, and I anticipate a problem on hot sea days. Also, the reserving of sun beds for hours. Two beds observed left with towels on for 7 hours while the couple went on shore for the day. Bad behaviour by guests, yes, but staff response was that the implementation of towel removal was only on sea days. This needs sorting and shouldn’t be left to guests to resolve or miss out.

Our cabin was a little on the narrow side but perfectly formed, although with a bigger bathroom than some other ships we’ve been on. Great selection of films on tv. Could have done with a few drawers, but we coped just fine. Really quiet and cosy.

Really liked having a number of meet up bars for pre drinks and some good entertainment. Close up magician floating around was fabulous. The first two comedians, unfortunately, were old hat and not at all funny. Couldn’t understand how standards could be at either end of the scale. Loved the silent disco too.

We’re back on next year and pleased we’d booked the Arvia after this trip.