Cabin Review

Our cabin was only a Grade 6 'outside' but very spacious, with 2 portholes, making it feel light and airy. The vibration from the ship's engines was noticeable but not intrusive, and helped to mask the noisy neighbours we had on one side. The cabin insulation on Astoria is poor and if we had been in a quieter area, the noise from neighbouring cabins would have been very irritating.

Our cabin steward was something of a disappointment. He seemed friendly enough at first, but it became evident that this was conditional on receiving an additional gratuity at the end of the cruise. I had purchased one of CMV's advance packages which included gratuities, and did not feel that there should be any obligation to give any more! Perhaps CMV should consider introducing a policy completely prohibiting further gratuities, which would clarify the situation and avoid awkward moments with the cabin staff.

The storage area in the cabin was very generous and the bathroom very well-appointed, with a shower over the decent-sized bathtub.

Astoria seemed to suffer with constant problems affecting the vacuum toilet system during the first half of our cruise, which resulted in us having to call out a plumber one morning at 03:30 (!) to sort out our non-flushing WC. The repair was effected very speedily, which impressed us although it made for a rather disturbed night's sleep. During our call in Copenhagen a complete shutdown of the starboard side vacuum toilet system was undertaken in an effort to cure the problem once-and-for-all, which seemed to be effective as we heard of no further 'issues'.