Ocean Village Cruises, Ocean Village Review

Overall Rating

The staff who cleaned our rooms.

Just about everything.

We went with OV2 last November 2007, with one week prior to the cruise at the Accra Beach hotel in Barbados, that was fabulous, couldn't fault the hotel or Barbados.
We were then looking forward to the cruise, 'sugar and spice', well it was absolutely awful. If you like queuing this is the place to be, you have to queue for everything, the lifts, food, shops, getting on and off the ship, queuing everywhere.
The entertainment for children was almost non-existent, a swimming pool slightly larger than a paddling pool that smelt of pee, my son went in once and refused to enter again. I complained about the lack of facilities for children, considering that the cruise states there is plenty for them to do, I was told that there were only 50+ kids on board and if we had come the following week there would be 350+ kids on board and there would be more entertainment planned then. Hence the reason there are lots of children running around - nothing for them to do!
Due to the lack of facilities you are forced to take tours every day and that is very expensive, during our week in Barbados, we were taking trips and tours and on average I'd say the tours that you purchase onboard are up to three times more expensive.
The food and buffet service was unbelievably bad, fighting to get a table, the only food that was edible was the salad and fruits, impossible to get a drink while eating, not enough staff around and when it was really busy they totally disappeared. Ice cream and soft drinks are extra, my 12 year old managed with his room key to clock up £74 on them in one week. My husbands bar bill was considerably larger than that, but we won't go into that!
The sun deck is very small and we had a very bad experience with group of people, who after we had got two sun loungers and had been there for nearly two hours came up and demanded that they were theirs, no towels on them when we had arrived. They were very abusive all six of them, my Husband who has been at sea most of his life, knew to get the purser, and he left me alone for a short time with these awful people, and they reduced me to tears.
If you are traveling with children expect to stay in your cabin at nights because you will not be allowed them in the entertainment areas and since there is nothing else to do except watch the two films repeated daily or the news channel at night it will be very boring in the evening. If you buy duty free cigarettes or alcohol in any of the ports they are confiscated when you return to the ship and will be returned when you leave, considering that the drinks charges on the ship are what you would expect to pay in the pub back home. There are no stops on any of the islands where you can go ashore at night, you have to return by 5.30. Which is a pity because as a bad sleeper and sitting out on deck most nights I couldn't help but notice that we were sailing in circles most nights.
The ship itself is a bit tatty, refitted they say, tarted up I say. It can be a bit smelly, hideous yellow and orange everywhere, we had only two nights when the bathroom facilities not not work, but there is no drinking water in the cabin's and you have to pay well over the odds for bottle water. The room was kept very clean by an excellent cleaner, who was really lovely and couldn't do enough for us, he was the only one we left a tip for.
To summarise it is a extremely cheap and very nasty holiday. I would never ever return to Ocean Village again. This cruise has a lot of beer bellys, tattoos and generally unsavoury types. All the people who were at our hotel in Barbados and went onto Ocean Village 2 said exactly the same.