Hi Wadey

Just so we can he help a bit further, if might help if we knew a few things

1. Budget
2. Do you want it really casual, or quite like dressing up and going to dinner
3. smaller ship, obivously you can get to know staff and fellow passengers or don't you mind and would like a larger ship that will have more facilites.

in addition to the above

What research have you done?
From that what do you think you might like and why?
What do you think you won't lie and why?

Thank you for replies.

I don't think I would like to be very formal every night though wouldn't mind once or twice. I don't really mind size of ship, though not too small I guess. I did look at Thomson Spirit, but read quite a lot of negative reviews saying it needs updating and lots of vibration. Really wouldn't like that. I also saw NCL, but found lots of negative reviews about those too, especially around mealtimes. Seems there is a lot of queuing which I would not like.

I have done a little research and found that there is usually a large charge for flights to where ship sails from. One I saw from Barcelona worked out at £300 each, but could get flight myself for half that. My only worry was getting to ship from airport etc.

The above took me long enough and I don't have time to spend hours looking around different websites to find the most reasonable and best to book from.

Never thought trying to book a holiday would be so stressful

OK Most of the Thomson are less formal that say Costa Cruises and P & O and the pricing on Thomson may be a little less, you would need to look at pricing on their website. I have just come back from a week onthe Thomson Spirit Myself and I really did enjoy it, and do have to agree it was a bit 'tired' but that did not spoil the break for me at all. The crew made the holiday so pleasant and out of their way to make my experience more enjorable. If you have a look at my review it's only a couple of weeks old.I would go on the Spirit again, but would have a higher deck cabin hopefully with a more comfortable bed.

I was going to book a P & O cruise myself but it is a little more formal than I would like. There is also Ocean Village cruises, not tried them but they are very informal so I have heard - hopefully someone else who has been on cruises will add their comments to hopefully help.

Thomsons, Package so you know where you are on price, good product but older ships.

NCL we have done loads and any queue for dinner is easy to work around, usualy by changing time.
Some people seem to like to queue, we saw it on celebrity where you have fixed dining(time and table).
Currently our most frequent cruise line is NCL we do budget the alternative eating which helps a lot to make the cruise special.

Barcelona is the easiest to DIY flights, Taxi to the port about €30, much cheaper options by public transport(with research)

Specialist cruise agents will package flights to BCN(or anywhere), even BA can be got for around £100 return off season not sure about OCT.

Cheap holidays take research, cruises are no different, but if you get hooked, time well spent.