After booking our Island Escape Canary Islands / Morocco Cruise - and before embarking upon it - we read some recent traveller reviews that were a cause of concern, but remained open-minded. However, we found that genuinely, there are many negative issues about this cruise ship that need to be addressed.
Our cabin, which was on Deck Four, needed a general overhaul - for example, the carpet was completely worn and grubby, the shower cubicle contained some cracked tiles, and the bed linen had "seen better days" - the pillows being "rock hard." The two bedside cabinets between our beds didn't have any drawers in them, so only their top surfaces could be used. Our main gripe involved the sound insulation - or lack of it - between our and adjoining cabins. For example, when sitting on our beds, we could easily hear the guests next-door talking, and clearly hear all of the telephone conversations of a woman there. When the family returned to their cabin in the early hours after late-night entertainment, we were woken by their conversation. We have had several different cruise holidays, not necessarily more expensive ones, but this only occurred on the Island Escape.
The Beachcomber and the Island were the two restaurants which we used. The Beachcomber was normally very over-crowded (although we didn't go to meals at late times.) Usually there were many different queues for self-service buffets such as cold salads, heated theme day food such as Indian, deserts and drinks, etc. There was a separate section, shaped roughly like a horse-shoe, where staff served hot main meals, such a chicken, pork and beef, along with vegetables. There were often several different queues for this section, so it wasn't always easy to see all the food bits and pieces on offer, once you'd joined one of the queues.
The meal plates looked "well worn," the plastic mugs (supplied for tea and coffee) were normally sticky, and the cleaned cutlery was sometimes dirty.
We found that one of us had to remain sitting at a table while the other chose their food, to stake a claim to a table. We also found that if we left a new plate of food or filled mug / glass on a table, and went away to get something else, these were normally removed by staff. Sometimes because of how busy the place was, if you reached the front of a self-service queue for an item, it was still difficult to get to it, because a queue for a different buffet was (unintentionally) in the way. All in all, because of all of the different queues moving around in all directions, the restaurant could have done with being better laid-out and organised by the management.
At the Island Restaurant, guests were asked to wait to be seated, rather than just choose where they wanted to go. There were some long tables next to windows, set out for eight diners, which were packed closely together, with large, bulky chairs around them. We found that especially if we were seated next to the windows - as the tables were being filled up with diners - it was difficult to get up from the table to go and get some food, as you became wedged in through lack of space.
Generally improvements need to be made in various parts of the ship, as plenty of corridors and rooms of different decks, had an unpleasant, stale or mouldy smell about them, and in addition, sometimes there was a strong smell of sewerage in certain areas of the inside of the ship. Much of the furniture and furnishings were very old, worn and dirty. When we occasionally visited the "Library" - which consisted of a small amount of books on a couple of shelves in a wall cabinet - we were greeted by a rotten smell, way before we ever reached that area.
After returning home we were both ill with a vomiting virus.
We would not recommend this cruise ship holiday to anyone.
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