Larry and Carol Scholes
lscholes1@cogeco.ca

Age: 62
Occupation: retired
Number of Cruises: 1
Cruise Line: My Travel
Ship: Sunbird
Sailing Date: May 29th, 2004
Itinerary:

This was our first cruise and first time to Europe, so we had little in the way of expectations, a blank sheet so to speak.

We flew out of Toronto on a Friday evening at 1130pm and arrived in Palma at 100pm Sat. The overnight flight is great for those who can sleep. But for those of us who can't, it is a long 8 hours. Return flight during the day on the return was much more pleasant and we were very pleased with Skyservice Airlines service.
We took the Mediterrean Classics cruise, starting from Palma stopping at Tunis,Civitavecchia(Rome), Livorno(Pisa,Florence), Villefranc(Monaco),Barcelona and returning to Palma. We couldn't have been more pleased with the itinerary. Each day a beautiful new city to be discovered. We had read that the ship organized excursions we're very expensive so we planned from the beginning to do our own thing using the trains for Rome and Monaco. When we go next time, we would probably combine the ship excursions as well as our own. For example ,we used the train to get to Monaco.

Unfortunately we arrived at the station after a short walk from the ship only to find the train had just left and the next one wouldn't be until 1100am. It didn't leave much time to explore Monaco as we had to return to the ship's tender by 3pm! A ship's excursion would have been better as they generally cover most of the highlights.

As far as the Sunbird was concerned we were very pleased with the ship, the activities, the crew who couldn't do enough to please, the entertainment, and the food which really did surpass our expectations. If you'd like to see a sample of the daily activity schedule, the shore excursion list,a dinner menu, or have a question I might be able to answer for you, please feel free to email me.

The passenger group was probably 85% Brits (What a fun bunch they are!!) and would have been mainly 40's and up. There weren't a lot of children as school was still in although they did have a children's activity program which saw lots of participation.

I heartily recommend the Sunbird for a cruise and we are looking for to it again next May.

Would also like to say "hi" to Karina and Gareth from Wales with whom we dined with on the ship and our wonderful waiter Erwin.
Larry and Carol Scholes.