Thomson Holidays

Thomson Destiny -Tropical Transatlantic Dec 2008

We booked this cruise in October 2007 and obtained an all inclusive deal as our last cruise cost us an extra £600 pound, mainly in drinks costs! We had previously cruised with Thompson last year on the Celebration and think that I actually prefer the layout of the smaller sister ship for a number of reasons, which I will probably touch on later in the review.

The early ...
...but on arrival at Lisbon I could only describe organised chaos. In all 5 flights had arrived from the UK with cruise passengers and all landed within a very short space of time and due to a malfunction of the baggage handling system, all the luggage arrived for all the planes at the same time, which had a knock on effect on the rest of the usual embarkation process which left a lot of angry complaining passengers. It took us longer to get out of ... more

Thomson Destiny -Tropical Transatlantic Dec 2008

We booked this cruise in October 2007 and obtained an all inclusive deal as our last cruise cost us an extra £600 pound, mainly in drinks costs! We had previously cruised with Thompson last year on the Celebration and think that I actually prefer the layout of the smaller sister ship for a number of reasons, which I will probably touch on later in the review.

The early flight from Manchester to Lisbon was on time and uneventful but on arrival at Lisbon I could only describe organised chaos. In all 5 flights had arrived from the UK with cruise passengers and all landed within a very short space of time and due to a malfunction of the baggage handling system, all the luggage arrived for all the planes at the same time, which had a knock on effect on the rest of the usual embarkation process which left a lot of angry complaining passengers. It took us longer to get out of the airport than it did to fly across in the first place! Personally, I find moaning, complaining passengers a pain in the neck, as they tend to let rip at staff who have no means available to them to rectify the situation. I am all for making my point if I perceive something to be wrong, but always ensure that whoever I speak to about it is actually in a position to do something about it. Anyway minor moan of my own over.

The Destiny had been in Gibraltar the previous couple of weeks in dry dock and had had some refit work done inside, new carpets and some other upgrades but this had not extended to the cabins on deck two and although clean and comfortable, ours was a bit shabby with the repainted enamelling chipping off the sink. We had a cabin with an optional 3rd bunk which rattled a fair bit but was quashed with a pool towel strategically placed. We were also near the rear of the ship and often thought that the props were miss-aligned as sometimes the drumming and vibration in the cabin was unbearable and I often resorted to sleeping with my Ipod on in an attempt to drown out the drumming.

As always the cabin staff were great and our steward Rea was always happy to help and went out of her way to find me extra coat hangers etc when requested, and also had the art of making animals out of towels down to a T. We were allocated first sitting for dinner and arrived at 6.30 on the first evening to be seated with our fellow passengers on a table for 10. The food was lovely and plentiful but found that we preferred the less formal menu offered by the lido cafe with its buffet style service. The staff were just as attentive but I thought the choices were better, especially since on some occasions I only ate a large salad and this would not have been an option in the Seven Seas Restaurant. The downside with the lido cafe was that it is actually situated at the rear of the ship on the lido deck and is semi enclosed from the elements by canvas panels, which is OK in the Med or the Caribbean but in the middle of the Atlantic in a force 6, is not so good, in fact it was downright cold. Again this is where the Celebration has the upper hand, having an inside buffet restaurant as well as the more formal dining arrangements.

We set sail for Funchal in Madeira, the weather was not the best but well tolerated by the ship, any outside events were moved inside and the pools were both out of bounds with so much water slopping around it would have been dangerous to attempt swimming in it. The movement on-board was not excessive but too much for some of our fellow passengers. Funchal was an interesting port and there were a number of trips organised (we did not go on any of these here) but had a walk around the town which was gearing up for Christmas. There is a lot of building work going on around the port. The crew also had their lifeboat drills in Funchal and all the lifeboats on the port side were lowered and were pottering around the harbour for a couple of hours.

After Funchal was the start of the 6 day transatlantic crossing, again the weather wasn't the best but our ever optimistic captain, Captain Psarrakis, updated us every noon with current position and the current and expected weather conditions always ending that he expected it to be better tomorrow. The usual was about a 2.5 metre swell with force 6 winds. The first morning out of Funchal, we stopped (not sure if we diverted at all) but picked up the crew of a small private yacht who had radioed a mayday because of a broken boom. I missed this as I slept in that day but the story was all over the Ship by lunchtime, so not sure what happened to the crew or the yacht but assume that we let the crew off when we stopped in Bridgetown Barbados 6 days later!

There was the usual games and activities on board, dance classes, cocktail making, quizzes and also some guest speakers, Maggie Stredder and Ernie Warner. There was always 2 different films showing on the in cabin TV's but all other channels were lost as we crossed the Atlantic and never returned once we entered the Caribbean as was expected. A cinema is missing from this ship, one of the things that the Celebration has. I think that it is fair to say that to really enjoy a transatlantic crossing you have to be the sort of person that can either switch off or keep yourself amused as I am sure by the end of day 6 some passengers were climbing the walls with boredom. No such problem for me, as the weather got warmer the pool beckoned to me as did the library. It was my idea of cruising heaven! It was also nice to be able to pick up emails and update friends and family on my whereabouts but not cheap, in fact I would say that it wasn't expensive either. IT WAS EXTORTIONATE! I think I checked my hotmail account about 8 times and updated my facebook details and was probably on line for a total of no more than half and hour and got a bill at the end of the cruise of over £50!

There was plenty of evening activities in the various lounges and bars on-board. I must mention the resident band that were in the Oklahoma Lounge, The "Top Men" Band. These are 5 guys from the Philippines and possibly the best band with an ever widening range of music that I have ever heard. Also of note were "Dan Darling and his lovely Chaps" who were a very resourceful Jazz band who had a go at any request they were given. There was also a trio in one of the other bars and Bill on the piano in Blake's bar. The show team put on a different cabaret act almost every evening and also did a play in the daytime which was really good.

Prior to arriving there were some on-board meetings about shopping in port from a lady called Jamie who was from America. I found her accent to be annoying and felt that she was sponsored by the shops she was 'plugging' as the only places to shop. It would appear that diamonds are the thing to buy in the Caribbean and there are plenty of shops to temp you, to my mind, if the price is not displayed I cannot afford it and anyway that was not my reason behind my trip anyway so not a priority for me and I could only tolerate about 10 minutes of the presentation before I had to get up and leave.

It was nice to arrive in Barbados but strange to hear steel drums playing Christmas carols. Again we did not go on any organised trips in Barbados but had a wonder around Bridgetown. On leaving the ship we were stopped by a number of taxi drivers offering to take us on tours etc and I did hear that others had taken them up on their offers and had a really good experience, I was glad to find that when we said that we were not interested they did not continue to hassle us but moved on to offer their services to someone else. We found this throughout the island-cruises-summer-holidays/">islands that we visited.

Next stop was Dominica, a very green island. Again we wondered around the port area, bought some postcards etc but generally just chilled out and relaxed on-board.

Day 12 was Antigua, we did go on an arranged trip across the island and had a really good time. Our guide Donna was very knowledgeable and it was obvious that the Islanders are mad about Cricket. We visited Shirley's Heights and got stunning views of Montserrat and some of the other surrounding Islands, plus Eric Clapton's old house. We also visited Nelsons Dockyard and Blockhouse Fort, where you can view Eric's new home and rehab centre in the distance.

We also wondered around the port area which had some specific port shopping areas and also town shopping. It was nice that most of the ports were only a short walk from the ship and did not need a taxi service.

Day 12 took us to Tortola, one of the British Virgin Islands. we were anchored off this island and took the tender to shore and went on another excursion around the island. This was disappointing, mainly because our driver's English was very hard to understand and in the end we just gave up trying to interpret and looked at the wonderful scenery as we travelled up and down some pretty steep hills. We had a stop off at Sage Mountain but only for 20 minutes. It would have been better to spend a couple of hours there as there were signposted walks and view points that we never got to see. We then moved down the mountain past some really pretty bays and beaches and stopped briefly to watch Pelicans diving for fish which was spectacular to see. We then had another stop at Pusser's landing which was just a commercial yacht marina with some tourist shops and a bar, again very disappointing. We got back to Road Town to find that the ship was lifting anchor and moving alongside in the port so opted to walk around to the port area through the town and wondered through more shops. The weather began to deteriorate slightly and it rained on and off as we boarded and the ship sailed later in the afternoon. Although I did get some absolutely stunning pictures of the most amazing rainbows I have ever seen!

Day 13 saw us anchored off Catalina Island, a small private island off the coast of the Dominican Republic. Bar and catering staff came ashore and provided food and drink to everyone who decided to join them, including other staff and crew who had time off to join us. (I imagine that this rarely happens on some other cruise ships). It was a lovely sunny day, with only a few spots of rain that dried up very quickly. A real idillic setting with blue sea, clean sandy beach and free beach chairs and umberellas. There was the opportunity for the more active among us to swim, snorkel (for a small hire charge for equipment) and to be pulled along behind a speed boat on an inflatable banana and then unceremoniously dropped in the water!

Day 14 and we were docked in the Dominican Republic and had to face the fact that it was time to go home. A number of drinks the night before had left me with something of a headache, which took some shifting since I had packed up the paracetamol's. The transfer to the airport was very quick and although it was difficult to understand even the announcements that were made in English on the tannoy system it is only a small airport and we boarded without a hitch.

All in all we had a brilliant cruise and I am already itching to book another. I still prefer the Celebration to the Destiny, as well as the points made above the Celebration also has self service laundry facilities that the destiny does not offer, so I had to ask Rea to get my trousers re-pressed when I would have rather done it myself. 

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