The Island Restaurant opens for lunch and dinner and offers a choice of waiter service or self-service, we experienced a 15 minute wait for waiter service in the evening.

The Oasis Restaurant is a la carte and is open for dinner (bookings only). We dined here most evenings, it was easier to make a reservation after 9pm and you shared a table with other passengers. The food and service here was better than the other restaurants.

Overall, the food was OK - the service in the restaurants was good.

Bars: There are a number of bars throughout the ship. Drink prices were the same as you pay at home e.g. pint of lager £2.30 (Stella Artois). There was a happy hour each day at the bar near the pool 5pm until 6pm good time to relax with a drink after a hectic day.

Service: As expected with the number of passengers onboard.

Itinerary: Average. We did the Mediterranean Spirit (Palma – Valletta – Naples – Livorno – Toulon – Mahon – Palma).

Excursions: There are plenty of excursions available from the ship, however we chose to do our own thing which can save a great deal of money. For example in Livorno you can visit the leaning tower of Pisa, you can catch a bus to the railway station and catch a train to Pisa a return ticket costs 3 euros. In total the day including entrance tickets into the cathedral and museums cost about £12 pounds for two people.

Entertainment: There was a show every night in the Ocean Theatre. We didn't really see any of the shows due to the time we ate dinner. Daytime activities were a bit basic – lots of quizzes and bingo. One piece of advice, we played bingo on the final day of the cruise, the final winnings for getting the house was in excess of £1000 this only happens on the final day, on other days the prizes are allot lower.

Overall rating: OK, ship was generally pleasant, cabin was great, however the higher you go the more you feel the ship swaying I know because I was sea sick leaving Naples. Food was a little disappointing, the previous cruise we went on was much better. To sum up our first cruise was on a ship half the size of the Island Escape, in the future we will go on another cruise but on a smaller ship.