South Quay Travel Limited (“SQTL”) – which traded under the name Cruise & Maritime Voyages – was placed into administration on 20 July 2020, meaning CMV is no more. CMV Magellan was subsequently beached in India for scrapping on 30 January 2021. Be sure to check out my other gluten free cruise reviews.
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I’d like to think I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to cruises. I started sailing on ‘older ships’, and initially for me cruising was more about the destinations than the ships.
Sailing on Marella Spirit recently reminded us of that – the ship was dated (it’s now scrapped in India!), food was serviceable but not great, but overall we had a good time.
I think today might be the first time I’ve got off a ship disappointed.
Myself and mum had booked to go on a Halloween Overnight event on CMV Magellan, berthed in Liverpool.
We live in St Helens which is very close to Liverpool, but I’ve never cruised from the city. There are currently only two lines that turnaround in Liverpool, Fred Olsen* and CMV.
Now, I like the look of Fred Olsen, but I didn’t know that much about CMV, other than recognising that Magellan is an ex Carnival ship (she’s got that iconic funnel). I thought this overnight would be a good way of having a bit of a nosy around the ship, suss out the gluten free situation, and decide if it’d be good to cruise on it.
Honestly? I’m not convinced.
Boarding – a questionable start
We booked this event late, I’ll admit some of the issues may be down to that, but they shouldn’t be. We booked on Thursday ahead of the Saturday evening event.
We hadn’t been given any embarkation time, but upon Mum contacting customer services were told 5pm.
A note for if you’re embarking in Liverpool in the Autumn/Winter – take a coat – the terminal is basically a big tent and it’s freezing. Cruise Liverpool is getting a very fancy new terminal built though, so that’ll be a thing of the past.
They were calling out lettered embarkation groups to queue for check in, and everyone seemed to have some documentation that we didn’t have. We had no boarding letter because of this, but we asked a member of staff who advised us to just join the queue. All fine.
As the queue snaked round, there was a desk to collect your cruise card. Here was the first problem – there was a card ready for Mum to collect but not me. Absolutely fine, a supervisor checked our booking confirmation and went and printed off a card for me. We checked in, registered my debit card against our cabin, had photos taken for security, the usual.
There was no X Ray, just a quick bag search – I’m guessing that’s due to the nature of the event. We were guided onto a shuttle bus and taken down the ramp to the ship.
So we go to embark, Mum scans onto the ship, security stops me. My card isn’t working. They ask me if I’ve checked in. Yes I had.
Are you sure?
Yes….
“You’re not on the passenger list madam. We’re not expecting you on the ship”
Well…that would explain there being no card ready. But why was I able to check in and register my debit card?
We were taken to reception who had the same “Are you sure you checked in?” conversation. After about 45 minutes of waiting I was manually added to the passenger list – success!
We went to our room and got ready for the evening – we were on second sitting but I said I’d rather just go out and stay out.
There are fifteen categories of cabins and suites on Magellan – our cabin was a Premium Twin Ocean View, and was perfectly nice. There was a kettle which was good to see. One thing to note – take EU plug adaptors – we hadn’t!
Off we went – we stopped off at the Taverner’s Pub and grabbed a drink. Drinks price- 2 double Tanqueray’s with Tonic was about £19.
We went for a wander, exploring the spa (which looks to have cheaper prices than a lot of ship spas!) and getting a look at a suite they had available for viewing.
Eating gluten free on CMV Magellan
We passed through the Raffles Bistro, the buffet on deck 10. One of the standout features for me on Magellan is that it seems to be really good in terms of identifying allergens and foods that are suitable for gluten free and other dietary requirements. I’ve been on ships like Marella where buffet options are marked as gluten free, dairy free, vegan etc but the buffets options here are actually marked with the 14 allergens, which I thought was brilliant! Bodes well for eating gluten free on CMV Magellan and hopefully their other ships.
We sat down for dinner in the Waldorf restaurant – great to see that again, the menu was marked up with the 14 allergens. All the main courses were marked as containing gluten, but the waiter told me to just pick what I wanted and they’d sort it out, he also said there’d be a gluten free option for me for dessert.
I went for a Smoked Salmon and Avocado Tartar with prawns, a Greek Village Salad, Lamb and was served a small chocolate cake for dessert – brownie points for it not being tapioca or one of the other weird gluten free desserts ships often serve! I’d describe the food as fine – nothing to blow you away but definitely not bad.
One sightly sore point was that on booking you were told you’d get half a bottle of wine each with dinner – on our table we were served one glass each and told we couldn’t have more. Fine but not what was advertised.
Once we’d finished our meal we went to get a seat for the show.
The Broadway Show Lounge is great – the seating goes over 2 decks with individual armchairs and coffee tables at the top and bench seating further down. We placed a drinks order but the waiter came back and said my card wasn’t working. Upon trying Mum’s, hers wasn’t either.
Down to reception we go and join the queue of other people having similar problems. Group waiting were told we’d need our debit cards to completely reconnect the cards.
Back up to the cabin, back down to reception again.
After some faffing, cards were fixed.
We’d missed half the show at this point but found a seat – it was standard cheesy Halloween themed music – Monster Mash, Thriller etc and a cool piratey dance number.
Once that was done, we went and got a seat in Sinatra’s Lounge Bar. Tried to order a drink and YEP you guessed it, the card didn’t work! Mum managed to use hers, some of our table mates from dinner joined us and we sat talking and eventually stumbled back to the cabin.
The end…eventually
Next morning was a very early start – you have to be out of your cabins by 7:30, not a good idea on a hangover, although that is of course purely self inflicted!
We went for breakfast in the Waldorf again – we were seated and offered juice, tea and coffee. The tea was in the form of tea bags on the table and hot water being poured – fine. The orange juice was so watered down I would have believed you if you’d said it was water with orange food colouring in. It had pulp in so was definitely juice and not squash, but squash would have been more welcome.
Hot food was a self service buffet for breakfast – once again everything was allergen marked. Sausages were off limits for me though people commented they tasted cheap – the scrambled eggs looked…well let’s just say feeling fragile I looked away from them pretty quickly! Mum assured me they tasted much better than they looked!
After sitting around for a while after breakfast with dad on the way to pick us up, I suggested we go up to get some photos of that iconic funnel – we’d been up briefly the night before but I wanted to get some good daytime shots too. We got in a lift and pressed the button for the deck, but the lift seemed to have other ideas and took us down to the deck for the gangway!
Ah well, we joked, this ship wanted us off it! So we join the queue to exit, I get my card scanned, and get told I can’t disembark because I’m not on the system!
Back up to Reception I go and join the queue of….other people having the same problem. Deja vu much?
Worryingly, Mum came to join at reception and mentioned security scanned to disembark her to check the card worked, when she said she didn’t want to get off just yet and wanted to come down to reception with me, she was told “Don’t worry about it, I’ll keep your card just go and join her”. So at this point a passenger who ‘isn’t on the ship’ is allowed back in – pretty sure this is a security breach?
The receptionist tries to get my card fixed, and low and behold after some squinting at the computer screen, it would appear I’m not on the system! I get given a new card though and we’re finally on our way and off the ship.
Overall thoughts
Things go wrong sometimes, and that’s just one of those things. But when you’re only on for one night and you spend a total of about 2 hours in Reception trying to sort out the same issue over and over, it just doesn’t feel right. We spoke to a few people who were first time cruisers, none of whom were at any risk of becoming fans of cruising!
I don’t blame the staff at all, I actually felt really sorry for them – it seems to be the technology and infrastructure letting them down. One comment I would make about the staff though is that there was a general air of aloofness, though this could well have been just that night and due to the various passenger frustrations that were going on.
I was hoping to be converted to wanting to try a CMV cruise after this event, but although the ship is nice, if a little bit dated, I wouldn’t personally be in a rush to give them a go.
It’s a shame because from what I’ve heard, CMV are great value if you are doing a full cruise – they’re nothing fancy but they don’t pretend to be. Plus they have smaller ships which can often get into those more exclusive ports and as a result they have some amazing itineraries. The drinks prices are decent, it’s all in sterling, and for those that don’t like flying they are a brilliant option, with sixteen UK departure ports.
From the sounds of the payment problems a lot of other people were having, it sounds like the ship has some operational problems when trying to offer a single night or even just dinner and show experience. If you’re looking to have a dinner and a dance in Liverpool, to be honest, for once in my life, I’d advise giving the ship a swerve and booking a hotel*!
Check out my other cruise blogs
- How to complete UK Passenger Locator Form for a cruise (with pictures)
- P&O Cruises expands international sailings with return to the Caribbean
- What you need to know about sailing with Marella in Summer 2021
- Sky Princess is returning as the UK’s homeport ship for third year in a row!
- Princess Cruises has announced details of their All-Inclusive UK ‘Summer Seacations’….and they include port stops!
Thanks for this review. I have a 2-night cruise on Magellan next year from Glasgow to Liverpool. I’ve not heard many great reviews and sad that yours was reflective of many others, so we’ll see! At least the food is marked well!
We talked to your mother while we were waiting for our problem to be sorted too….and they didn’t manage it. We ended up having to pay cash in the bars, and one bar refused to acknowledge this so we had to get the bar manager up to sort it.
The initial ‘problem’ did mean a whole bottle of wine for free rather than just a glass!
I’d agree with much of what you said – we enjoyed it overall and it was an ‘experience’, but the technological problems were really quite ridiculous. Because we weren’t staying overnight as we live locally, they didn’t seem to be able to cope with giving us a card when we didn’t have a cabin, and everyone else who were not staying on had the same problem – hence having to pay in cash.
Must say we didn’t think we would want a full length cruise with them. The show was fun but a bit ‘end of term at Wigan College’ standard.
Considering they so frequently do overnight events it seems bizarre that they didn’t seem to be set up to cope with people not being on overnight! As for the show, I have to agree a bit – they’re always cheesy but they did seem to be phoning it in a bit, but then I did miss the first half of the show. A shame as a cruise with them from Liverpool would be so convenient and they’re such great prices, perhaps you have to go into it with the same mind set you would a Costa!