I'm booked to go on OV2 in July, hopefully by then the rave reviews will be rolling in

Biff

We will be on the maiden trip out of Southampton on 25th April. We are doing the Marinas and Medinas as well so 13 days at sea -can't wait
We are 3 newbies to cruising and have heard mostly good things about this cruise line. OV2 is now at Southampton

It's worth looking at the Ocean Village web site PRESS section as there is some interesting news about the ships arrival at Southampton

Hi Travelstar and welcome to HT!

I would be delighted if you would post a review when you come back by clicking on Cruise Reviews at the top of the page.

Hope you have a great cruise!

luci

HI

I was on OV2 for a ship visit on 22nd April and stayed 1 night on board. I was impressed with it to be honest and hadn't realised it was classed as a 4* ship as prior to boarding had lumped it in with Thomsons as a 3*.

We checked out all the facilities, the spa area is amazing. Plenty of bars, nice swimming deck. Food was good although I do hate buffets, but at least it was of a high standard.

I had a cabin on deck 11 with a balcony - very nice indeed and a 4* quality. I saw a video of the planned excursions, they certainly offer a lot of variety and are clearly aiming at the younger end of the cruise market with the emphasis on fun and family. I enjoyed the entertainment, we saw a dance group called Beat Street who I thought were very good. A nice change from that awful 'cruise cabaret' you see. They were much more contemporary.

I'm sure all sailing on her will have a fabulous time.

Hope that helps

Hi myself,husband and 2 childern aged 11 and 14,are taking our first cruise.We are stopping at la goulette,naples,livorno,villefranche and ajaccio.Which tours do you recommend we do by ourselves and which should we take with the ship.Any advise on this subject or cruising the med would be great
Thanks

We have cruised 6 times and would do all except Florence by ourselves, although others would say Florence DIY is OK. For yourselves as first time cruisers my advice would be to do Villefrance and Ajaccio by yourselves, but take an organised trip for both Naples and Livorno.

Cannot comment on La Goulette as we have never been, but a very high proportion of those who have would advise you stay on board and treat this port call as a "day at sea". The locals are extremely intimidating. From personal experience in Casablanca, which apparently is not as intimidating as La G, if your 14 year old is a daughter think very carefully. Our daughter was that age in Casablanca and all the local males, men old and young and the boys ogle at females as if they had never seen one before! This is an extremely frighteningly unpleasant experience for a child.

If you have never been in Villefrance or Nice, it is a lovely experience just to explore them both. Even if you wanted to go to Monte Carlo it is very simple, and cheap, by train from Villefrance. In Ajaccio simply explore the town on foot, and there is a trolley road train which takes you round, and out the town for a couple of miles and is very pleasant for adults and children.

One final thing, a health warning. Like us and many, many others you are at extreme risk of becoming hooked on cruising!!

thanks hanrag,I ll take your advise and take the organised tour to naples and florence and diy the other 2.I think i will also stay on board at la goulette as my 14 year old daughter would be with us and i would hate for her to get upset.I don t think my husband would take it too kindly if men where looking at her.Thanks for all your help can t wait to go on the 12 th june we only booked it last week so we don t have to long to wait

Should have made myself clearer for Naples, there are some options and the main one taken is generally Pompeii/Sorrento. Only thing I would say is that it takes about an hour to get from Pompeii to Sorrento and you only have a couple of hours there then another hour or so back to ship. We did not think Sorrento was worth the trip, but other people certainly thought it was.

For Livorno you can either do Florence only or Florence/Pisa which picks up the leaning tower area for a couple of hours on way back from Florence. We did that and felt it worked well, although if you are a serious culture vulture you would probably go for a longer time in Florence and give Pisa a miss.

Hi benji55 and welcome to HT!

I have merged your post with an existing topic on OV2. I would be delighted if you would post a review of your cruise on your return.

luci

very quiet thread of late. has anyone heard anything??
i know the last 2 reviews for the ship are contrasting to say the least. i was wondering if these 2 people were aboard the ship at the same time and had differing experiences or if they were separate weeks.

I second that. If the people who submitted the reports are HT members, couldn't we see their usernames so we could PM them? We're going on OV2 for our first cruise in September and the mixed reports don't make good reading!
Also, it would be good to be able to see the ports of call people went to on the cruise reviews, either just a list or, more usefully, people's comments about them.

i go in january roseweb so i shall look forward to your comments after your september trip.

im leaving for a med cruise on tuesday on ocean village 2.will let you all know how i get on.

Thanks benji55, we'll look forward to hearing all about it. Which cruise are you going on? Ours is Marinas and Medinas.

were also doing marinas

i notice there is a fresh (bad) review on the OV2.

ah well. there are always good ones to counteract the bad. anyone going soon, i wouldnt let it bother you because peoples tastes differ. although if the next few are similar i may start to worry.

Just come back and will post a review over the weekend. To put your mind at rest, its great! Only thing missing is a sports deck.

Had to laugh at the post that there is nowhere to walk to stretch your legs!! Erm the top deck sweetheart! Ten times round is a mile.

People will always find things to moan about though.

yay.

will look forward to reading it.

Went on a caribbean cruise with Princess in March this year which was fab but the ship was full of Americans who were very loud and over-excited which got on OH's nerves. Also he thought the food was a bit fancy for him as he is very fussy. Thought we might try a Med cruise on a ship which was mostly English people and thought maybe this could be Ocean Village. However, somebody at work said she had heard that it was like 18-30s - what do those people who have been on OV think? Also I understand OV isn't formal - is that right? Really fancy a couple of weeks next year, especially something that visits Rome, as we've always wanted to go but not had the chance yet.