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»	Cruise Talk » Cruise Ships » Mistral, cruise from hell.

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Topic: Mistral, cruise from hell.

Amber
Just Boarded
Member # 1881

posted 03-25-2001 03:40 PM

I just returned from 2 weeks on the Mistral.
I read with great interest the reports of people who had a bad time on the Bolero recently...Same problem with Mistral..possibly worse.
We believed this ship would be a Greek crew (usually warm and friendly) Wrong..French crew and mostly French passengers. Nightmare, do the French ever smile?
Service...In the dining room it was a crime to order coffee, our 'charming' French waitress hissed and almost spat at us. Our room steward was having some kind of nervous breakdown and hardly ever showed up, we learned to fetch our own towels and ice etc, from a stewards trolley further down our corridor.
The crew were divided but universally miserable. The French were rude, arrogant and supercilious, the others were so miserable and suicidal waiting for their contracts to end that they were not exactly a bundle of laughs either!
Apparently this is a good ship for promotion, if anyone is brave enough to risk a second contract they are promoted instantly. Since most have the sense to never return you can imagine that the level of training and management is low to zilch.
On a plus side the cabin we had was beautiful and very reasonably priced..However, expect to be charged for extras at every oppourtunity, bridge visits, coffee,films on t.v, even for a water taxi ashore one day when the ship didn't operate its own tenders.
If you are French you may find this ship ok, I was ambivalent towards the French before, but now it would be an understatement to say that I detest them.
I have cruised with Princess numerous times and also Celebrity and with a few small Greek lines, I have always thoroughly enjoyed myself and found a warm, welcoming, and more importantly organised and efficient crew.
Several people I met onboard were on their first cruise and said they would never cruise again, hopefully I managed to persuade them that this was not a typical cruise and to give it another go with a competent line.

Posts: 2 | From: England | Registered: Mar 2001 | IP: Logged

Blizzard54
First Class Passenger
Member # 1824

posted 03-25-2001 07:59 PM

Thank you for the heads up. I sounds like a good ship to avoid.

Posts: 118 | From: Seattle,WA | Registered: Feb 2001 | IP: Logged

hooked on cruising
First Class Passenger
Member # 1221

posted 03-25-2001 08:08 PM

Hi Amber, sorry to hear your cruise was a disaster. We went on the Bolero last year and loved it, but the crew were mainly greek. It seems that things have really changed for the worse. I have been in contact with another cruiser I don't know if he posts on here or not but he reads the posts and he e-mailed me directly and asked about the Bolero. I told him not to worry and that while we were on the Bolero last year it was great we loved it and would go back in a minute. It seems that things have definitly changed. They left on Saturday for their cruise I just hope things haven't been too awful for them.

Posts: 243 | From: London,Ontario,Canada | Registered: Apr 2000 | IP: Logged

Ceefa's Mate
First Class Passenger
Member # 1857

posted 03-26-2001 08:57 AM

Oh No!!!!

First of all it was Leo & Ladybug cruising from hell on the Bolero, & now Amber with the same problems (or worse) on the Mistral.

My thoughts are with Patriciaq due to sail on the Bolero on March 31, & of course concern for ourselves due to join the Mistral on the 4th May.

Today I have e-mailed Festival Cruises, pointing them in the direction of all these adverse reports of their products, asking them for their comments and what assurances they can give that these problems will be resolved without delay.

I will keep everybody posted on what response I receive!

Posts: 77 | From: Buckinghamshire, England | Registered: Mar 2001 | IP: Logged

Patrick
First Class Passenger
Member # 364

posted 03-26-2001 12:05 PM

Ok guys, I used to defend Festival on the BOLERO-problem because a while age and during my time at Festival they were good, but now I hear similar bad reports about the MISTRAL.
I will forward these experiences to our Festival-office in Luxembourg. In this case I will stop selling them until these problems are solved.
Just one thing to Amber: The crew on the MISTRAL has never been entirely Greek. It is even published in the brochure that crew is international. Due to the flag of French Polynesia and the line´s crewing office in St. Nazaire (Auxiliaire Maritime, which also owns the ship) the crew certainly has a large amount of French people. But this is of course no excuse for the bad service.

Posts: 1680 | From: OSC Luxembourg | Registered: Nov 98 | IP: Logged

topgun
First Class Passenger
Member # 928

posted 03-26-2001 12:49 PM

Patrick, I would like to clarify my view of the Bolero 'problem'.

Up until at least mid february this year when I was aboard, conditions in terms of cleanliness, food and service were very high grade.

On this and subsequent sailings there were large numbers of very low level French National passengers. Their manners were no better than guttersnipe quality.

Any complaints at that time were largely as a result of these people.Many of the reports about the condition of the ship were in my opinion unfounded.

Since then, there has apparently been a change in service staff . This change is a problem.

As I understand it, the ship is under charter to Air Transat/Regent. These companies, not the cruise line are responsible for the passenger problems.

We have detailed daily records and can supply them to Festival on request.

Posts: 759 | From: Burlington ont,canada Cruise center of North America | Registered: Nov 1999 | IP: Logged

Patrick
First Class Passenger
Member # 364

posted 03-27-2001 12:45 PM

This is exactly what I have mentioned in the "BOLERO - cruise from hell" topic. It is clear that it very difficult for an operator or cruiseline to attract to their clientele when a ship is only under charter for 2 or three weeks and then goes to another operator. Each operator has another clientele which comes from a different country and have different cultures.
Therefore in my eyes, Festival, in this case can´t be really made responsible since the charterer has to manage this matter.
But, in case of the MISTRAL, Festival is the company which has a full charter on this vessel. And they should by now be able to provide a service at least of the standard which Celebrity was known for when they started in 1990 with the HORIZON and MERDIAN. Festival and Chandris were working close together in operating THE AZUR and both companies did an excellent job and Festival does still a good job on the smaller vessels. But in my eyes, they don´t really get along in managing the much bigger MISTRAL together with Auxiliaire Maritime (the owner). The MISTRAL is a similar product to the HORIZON and ZENITH and it should be possible by now that situations like Amber has discribed, don´t happen onboard a ship of this line.
I am curious what Festival will answer about this situation.

Posts: 1680 | From: OSC Luxembourg | Registered: Nov 98 | IP: Logged

Cunardcoll
First Class Passenger
Member # 1226

posted 03-27-2001 12:52 PM

Does anyone out there have photos of the Mistral grounded a few weeks ago ?

Please post them here or send them to TitanicJochen@pandora.be

Posts: 947 | From: Belgium | Registered: Apr 2000 | IP: Logged

Italian Cruiser
First Class Passenger
Member # 1684

posted 03-27-2001 01:28 PM

About the terrible experience on the Mistral as I have already said in a precedent topic it's often very difficult to interact well with them.In Itali Festival is suffering many problems with the management of the Mistral.Sorry to disagree with Patrick but this company doesn't offer the premium product of Celebrity.The only good thing is that Festival operates its ships in several languages.

Posts: 887 | From: Orvieto (Italy) | Registered: Nov 2000 | IP: Logged

Johan C
First Class Passenger
Member # 1201

posted 03-27-2001 01:36 PM

I took a Norwegian fjord cruise last year on board Festivals Flamenco. A lot of crewmembers just came back from the Mistral. They told me that the ship has a bad lay out and they cannot give a good service because of long walking distances and so. They were all happy to be back on the Flamenco.
Festival seemed very budget to me and they save on everything like on drinks during captains wellcome (strictly one drink for everybody)

Posts: 256 | From: Ghent, historic city in Belgium | Registered: Mar 2000 | IP: Logged

Amber
Just Boarded
Member # 1881

posted 03-27-2001 04:23 PM

No doubt Festival is a low budget line, you cannot begin to compare it to Celebrity.However, to be fair to Festival we were not expecting it to be up to the Celebrity standard.
As I mentioned initially, our cabin was beautiful, very large with a nice balcony. We paid far less for this than we would have done for a regular cabin on a company like Princess(Though bear in mind Princess is a lot more expensive for us Brits to book than it is for Americans)
When it came to 'product' then the old adage 'you get what you pay for' was true. We were in the more upscale Rialto restaurant, I pity those in L'etoile. We joked that we got one shrimp per passenger per week...Truly, one shrimp (beautifully presented I might add) as an appetiser. Only sign of lobster was served on the private island stop when the crew go ashore and do barbecues etc.. The lobster was available at an extra charge to your shipboard account and they included a glass of wine (makes a change from paying for excursions...paying for lunch) There was also a charge for a fruit bowl in your cabin...I could go on and on, you get the picture. All in all if you paid for all the stuff that you would expect as the norm with lines like Princess and celebrity then the price would come right up and fall more into the same line ( which I guess is fair enough)
It is the service I had the problem with rather than the 'product'.

Posts: 2 | From: England | Registered: Mar 2001 | IP: Logged

Ceefa's Mate
First Class Passenger
Member # 1857

posted 03-29-2001 05:13 AM

Lets bring some balance in here.

Being very concerned about what we are to expect on board the Mistral, I contacted
my T.A. They in turn contacted Festival & they at least had the courtesy to telephone
me direct. All within an hour of my first call! They did seem genuinely concerned
about the adverse postings on this forum.

As far as the Bolero is concerned, they confirm that it has been on charter to a
Canadian T. A. and therefore they had no control on either the staff or clientele on
board.

Regarding my great concern about the Mistral, they have informed me they have not
received any letters of complaint regarding any recent cruises ( Amber - why not?)

All officers on board are French (she sails under the French flag) but the rest of the
staff are of an ‘international mix’.

Maybe it is a bit unfair to compare Festival with some of the other ‘big six’ cruise lines, they are after all selling their cruises for an awful lot less. Frankly I would normally expect to pay for a bowl of fruit or flowers in my cabin, if I wanted them. It is far from the first cruise that we’ve been on that charges for bottled water in the cabin (our first cruise, the all inclusive Topaz did that!). Room service for breakfast is not charged as an extra, only requests for drinks etc. at other times of the day are.
They do charge however for the bridge visit! That is a bit off & I told them so!

Maybe this is all about attitudes. As long as we are treated with the normal common
courtesy’s, and with the right ‘outlook’ why shouldn’t we be well looked after? I am
reasonably confident that we will have an enjoyable cruise. I WILL LET
EVERYONE KNOW!

Posts: 77 | From: Buckinghamshire, England | Registered: Mar 2001 | IP: Logged

Malcolm @ cruisepage
Cruise Director
Member # 301

posted 03-29-2001 08:50 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Ceefa's Mate:
Regarding my great concern about the Mistral, they have informed me they have not
received any letters of complaint regarding any recent cruises

People are a strange breed! Many are happy to moan to each other about food service and standards etc. but they are reluctant to formerly complain to those responsible!

Things will never change unless you complain!

Posts: 19210 | From: Essex (Just Outside London) | Registered: A Long Time Ago! | IP: Logged

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