Reviews can be like Marmite………

Here at cruise we really pride ourselves on the fact that we offer a very personal service. After working for the company for ten years + I have clients who I have been booking for years and we get to have a very good relationship. Its lovely when they come back to me year after year , cruise after cruise.

One of the things that I like to do is give my clients a call when they return from their cruise and check how the cruise went and if it met their expectations. Its nice to wish them a welcome home and get some feedback.

This week people were returning from a two week cruise on the Royal Caribbean ship Independence of the Seas . This ship recently went in for a massive multi million refurb so lots of passengers were excited to see the new changes and extras that had been added to the ship.

They had added a brand new splash Water-park for the kids  , a virtual reality trampoline experience , Sugar beach candy store , Playmakers sports bar and arcade , Fish and chips and much more.

The Independence has always been one of the most popular ships in the Royal fleet and she was warmly welcomed back to Southampton after moving over to America for a few years, the Brits really missed her.

I went on this ship when it was first launched and it was my first experience of a really big, all singing all dancing ship. I loved it even back then and thought it had such a good atmosphere on board and the food was gorgeous.

I was really quite keen to hear about people reviews of the new style Indy and what they thought. What I wasn’t prepared for was the polo opposites I got from two clients coming back off the same cruise and it made me think how reliable is a review and are they really helpful in finding us a holiday.

My first client that I spoke to had been on the ship numerous times before and had a nice holiday but really wasn’t a fan of the ship.

He said that he felt that with new cabins that had been added and seating areas being removed there was a real lack of places to sit and the ship felt crowded. The staff were very light on the bars and it took an age to get served a drink. There was also a few badly behaved passengers on-board that had to be removed in Barcelona and he felt that the standard and quality may have slipped from his other experiences.

I felt quite sad at the end of the call because I have to say Royal is one of my favourite lines so I felt disappointed that it wasn’t up to scratch. But wow how different the next call was to my other client who had been on exactly the same cruise.

She thought that the ship was fantastic and loved the new elementsof the ship. She found the service fantastic and always got a drink when she wanted it. She told me that the staff were brilliant on there and along with the shows and entertainment , great food and lovely ports of call she was looking to book it again for next year.

I suppose the point of the blog is never let one review be the ultimate decider when choosing your holiday. One mans paradise could be another mans hell.

We all come  with a different tick list of things we want out of our holiday and it can range so drastically.

I do always think that people are always so much quicker to rite a bad review also when sometimes if you’ve had amazing holiday you just tell all your friends but then don’t take the time to write a review.

Use Reviews by all means but just make sure you look at how may reviews have been written and what the majority feel is. How old are the reviews and also what are these people standards and expectations. If you have only ever cruised with six star Regent cruises and then go on a P&O cruise they are going to be very different and may not be everyones cup of tea.

We do ask all our returning cruisers to write a review on our website. It’s a good source of information for people and can be very interesting to see what peoples experiences have been.

Added bonus as well with us if you do take the time to write a review then we will send you a cruising Berlitz guide in the post.