Ocean Village Cruises, Ocean Village Review

Overall Rating

Cleanliness everywhere spotless, staff lovely .
no tenders required ashore pulled in and walked off every day.
nice cabins and kept to a high standard
restaurants on the whole good, but bland curries .

Entertainment mostly awful with a rude entertainments manager. called wendy bent. slow service in the casbah and with on deck (blue shirt) staff.

We were in a large party but had a great time,
The ship is spotless through out, there is a fairly good choice of food in restaurants but they seem to cater for people north of the border (uk) so lots of curries (bland)and stews with chips. Some creole food would have been nice in the caribbean and more vegetables with the main courses would have been nice.
Although the atmosphere is casual most people dressed up a for dinner, smart casual, there was the odd idiot dressed in vest with beer belly and tattoes shorts socks and sandles (not a good look guys) but realy only one or two. A few kids on board but all well behaved and catered for, def dont book in school holidays if you havent got kids.
The staff in the restaurants cant do enough for you. (la luna and bistro are ok but cant cope with large groups, staff great again.)
The worst aspect is the entertainment.
When you come back from a trip and want to collapse on deck ,head for the back of the ship where its quiet, the main deck gets noisy with the entertainment staff (red coats) pleading with people to come up and learn how to juggle etc, they also play music to loud, hard to talk over, in the afternoon you want to relax not get blasted with pin ball wizard.
Dont see why entertainment is needed at all at this time of day guys.
The evening shows were of a very low standard, with the exception of a new act called double impact, the moon show on deck and eventually they flew in mia carla and jacqui graham who were great. Other than that not much good im afraid.
one night we were having a cocktail in the casbah which has a grand piano thats never played and very slow service, a man got up and played obviously a proffesional and the entertainment woman wendy very rudely told him to get off. There were complaints about her attitude, she was often drunk in the players bar at night, and her and her friends just treated that like a private party for them selves. OV need to address these matters and get a more experienced group of entertainers providing more up market entertainment. With someone who knows about showbiz and not pub style karaoke and quizzes,
Dont bother with off shore bookings do it all yourself when you get off and save a fortune! The 2 we booked i never did get the tickets for anyway. so do your own thing.
Besides that we did have a good time, we largley made our own fun. The ship was lovely The caribbean exotic and made for a great winters break. i would go again but i think i would look for another cruise first, something casual again but more upmarket in other ways. dont see why this cant happen.
Dont worry if youve booked though youll have a good time if you keep and open mind + they know they have to address certain matters.

Members' Comments oncruisenovice's Review

• shazza3 on 31st Jan 2009

  so what is it that folk from North of the Border eat ?..............I find you offensive and hope I never meet you on a OV cruise ............scotslass