Voyages of Discovery...she needs a little TLC

I was recently lucky enough to take a short trip on Voyages of Discovery's MV Discovery.

This company prides itself on giving excellent on board lectures 'for people with mutual interests who are equally keen to learn more about Discovery's fascinating destinations and their culture, history and wildlife'.

Lectures included,

Duncan Macmillan- 'Modernist Barcelona including Gaudi and Miro

Christopher Walton  - Port lecture on Cartagena

Sir David Durie - 'The Rock as Fortress up to Trafalgar'

All these lectures were held in the Carousel Lounge which was quite spacious and can accommodate upto 500 passengers, with the ships capacity around 650 passengers you will have to fight to get a seat.  They do televise all lectures in your cabin in case you couldnt get a seat in the lounge.

The ship was looking tired and needed a spruce up, however she is due to go into a refurbishment at the end of the Summer and return in February 2013 however she will be operated by Cruise and Maritime. This will allow shorter cruises from UK ports at a more cost effective budget for passengers.

The crew on board were EXCELLENT.  As you know I am an ex crew member and the service they provided was the best I have ever had.  They remembered your name after the first drinks order and nothing was too much for them to make your experience fantastic.

The food was very nice (I have had better and worse) More about the food in a later blog.

Entertainment on board was lacking.  We had 3 days at sea until we arrived in Leixous in Portugal and the quiz's were 10 questions long and lasted 8 minutes, the games were very weak with golf putting, bean bag throwing, quoyte tossing, hardly very entertaining.  Passengers were disappointed about the lack of things to do on sea days.  The shows were ok but the stage in the Carousel lounge was not too large so it wasn't 'West End' type shows.  There was a string trio on board but again very average.  Of cause this was noted to the Voyages personnel on board who hopefully will pass this onto the scheduling dept for the launch of their new ship Voyager which arrives in Portsmouth in December 2012.