Orient Lines Cruises, Marco Polo Review

Overall Rating

Interesting, very interesting destinations

The ship

Marco Polo Cruise from Barbados to Antarctica. December 2004. A sorry tale.

Cabin on Marco Polo

We had specifically requested the best available port side, external cabin, away from access doors and busy passageways, with uninterrupted views to the east out of the windows and with no deck outside the cabin windows, so passengers could not walk past. The location of the cabin we got was apparently exactly what we wanted.

There were a number of problems with the cabin which became apparent to us during the cruise. It also became very clear that these problems were well known prior to our arrival on the boat.

The cabin itself was basic, adequate for a 33 day cruise, being almost identical in size, fittings and quality to the cabins on the High Speed Rossyth to Zeebrugge North Sea ferry for a one day crossing. The only discernible difference between the ferry and the Marco Polo's cabins was that the Marco Polo's cabin had TV. It was not deluxe!

1. Inadequate air-conditioning. During our time in the tropics and crossing the Equator, the air conditioner was unable to lower the temperature of the cabin below 23c. Set on full cold, it took three days to achieve even this temperature which it could only do if the curtains were closed. I had taken work with me but the cabin was too hot to work in it during the first part of the cruise.

Despite numerous verbal complaints to the pursers desk only one engineer attended, on one occasion and he was unable to fix the problem. Several letters to the purser (copies enclosed) produced no adequate response and apparently no further effort was made by the crew to address this problem.

2. In the southern ocean and Antarctic phase of our cruise the air-conditioning was set to full hot for the entire journey but cabin temperature never got above 18c.

3. During the Antarctic cruise we were driven from our cabin on several consecutive days by fumes and noise. When we queried this, the purser confirmed that she already knew of this particular problem from previous experience.

She explained that the air intake for the cabin was directly adjacent to the workspace on the deck where the petrol engines for the dinghies are stored and refuelled and adjacent to where equipment was painted and prepared for the Antarctic voyage.

4. During the Antarctic phase we were repeatedly woken in the early hours of the morning (between one am and three am) by crashing and banging from beneath our cabin. Once again it was made abundantly clear by the purser that this was a well known problem with this "superior grade" cabin as heavy baking equipment, dough kneading machines I think she said, was permanently installed below our cabin and during the Antarctic phase, the night shift crew carried out baking and cleaning of heavy kitchen equipment directly under our cabin.

The purser admitted that the problems were genuine and well known. Though she knew exactly what the cause was, we were so disappointed with her attitude that we wrote down her answers to our queries, in her presence. Late in the cruise, after Santiago, we were offered a choice of two alternative starboard side cabins. One cabin, described as Sky Deck superior had very severely restricted views and the other was immediately adjacent to the main exit door at the open end of a very long corridor.

Again, when we mentioned these two very significant drawbacks to the purser, she acknowledged that this was true, that both cabins had the problems mentioned and she could understand why we would not wish to swap one problem for another. But she failed to take any other action and apparently simply washed her hands of the matter.

We advised her very strongly of our great dissatisfaction and she gave me the name of a contact at Orient Line. Unfortunately the only comment I can get from that source at head office is that "we have adequately dealt with the situation"

I have no idea what it is she thinks she has done, because we know of absolutely no action whatsoever. We certainly have received no offer of compensation for the known problems with the cabin for which we paid a great deal of money.


Food and consumables on Marco Polo.

1. It became apparent that the shower gel, shampoo and cleaning supplies in our cabin were being very heavily watered down. We queried this with service staff who confirmed that they had been ordered to ration some supplies and dilute others due to shortage of supply. Other guests reported similar problems and the purser admitted that although she did not know of this particular example it was not unknown for the Marco Polo to "run out of guest supplies as the ship does not have a base port."

2. The same happened with breakfast supplies when lemon tea bags became unavailable and orange juice would suddenly become unavailable at the breakfast dispensers. It is the first time I have ever had no orange juice available for breakfast in a so called first class environment. However, it turned out that orange juice, though not available free as part of the breakfast, was available to order outside the breakfast room, at $2 a glass. I ordered a glass of $2 orange juice but it had been so heavily diluted as to be undrinkable and it was sent back in disgust. Serving staff admitted that the orange juice was being heavily watered down due to lack of adequate supplies.

3. Breakfast on the aft deck was also occasionally strictly curtailed. Though hot breakfast was due to go on till 09.30, for three consecutive days I arrived at the aft deck around 09.20 to find all hot food cleared away and only an extremely limited cold buffet of fruits remaining. On the third and fourth occasion that this occurred I spoke to the maitre who was not at all helpful and so, on the fourth day of this rationing, at 09.25, five minutes before breakfast was due to finish, I went to my cabin, got my camera and photographed the breakfast buffet that was left.

4. Ice cream in the tropics was supplied at very limited times, though free. In the Antarctic hot chocolate was available at a high price and even then only at that price if you purchased alcohol. The serving staff obviously felt very distressed about this and expressed embarrassment over being forced to charge for these basic drinks.

In fact the serving staff frequently gave the drinks away "free" when officers were not present. Many guests were saying that they had never been on a cruise before where basic food and drink items were so rationed or had to be paid for over and above everything else. It was certainly a novel and not at all welcome experience for us.

Excursions from Marco Polo.

The organised trips ashore from the boat were exceptionally poor value and caused a great deal of resentment amongst some passengers. I know that a number of passengers received refunds as a result of complaints.

One tour which cost us well over £150 consisted of nothing more than an eight an a half hour high speed drive to a deserted beach, lunch then back to the boat. On another tour we had almost exactly three minutes off the bus to visit a large fishing village, Salaverry, in Peru.

We, like most passengers, took these tours because of very, very dire warnings of danger if we went ashore unescorted. True information was withheld and only dangers emphasised. After three or four such excursions, we took to hiring a taxi and driver for the day, as did many other guests. £150 for two coach seats, or $100 for an air-conditioned, private taxi and driver for the entire day.


The brochure states that all airport taxes are included, yet when we got to Buenos Aires we were told that taxes were not included and we had to pay them ourselves. $36 extra.