M.S Marco Polo: 3* ship with 4* food

9th to 21st August
This report covers a voyage from Tilbury to Iceland. The Marco Polo is a well known cruise ship that is favoured by the Brits. It is geared up to them and despite the fact that none of the catering or restaurant staff hale from this country, the food is geared up to middle class middle English tastes. One thing that is somewhat out of place is that, unlike other cruise lines I have been with where the restaurant and bar staff are Philippine, on this ship, at the time of the voyage, much of the crew, restaurant staff, stewards and entertainers were Ukrainian or Rumanian. Even the ship's doctor was seemingly from Ukraine. Now to the best to my recollection, there is no culture of commercial hospitality in Ukraine, and even in the post-Soviet environment, there is still a bit of 'take it or leave it because we are not here to please you'. The staff is showing a different culture, and I guess when Putin has got bored, we may all be going on our package holidays to the Crimean Riviera.
You get three full meals a day with afternoon tea and bar snacks in the late evening. There is no midnight buffet.
Essentially you either eat in silver service restaurants or buffet style, but the food is pretty much the same. We ate most of the time in the full service for dinner, and occasionally used buffet for lunch and most breakfasts. The buffet food was fine, but never scored over a 7 for hotness. The full service restaurants that served up food by Ukrainian waiters, plated out was surprisingly successful, most hot food scoring an 8, and never having to send anything back for being too cold.

The buffet special on noodle night

Buffet meal

Aubergines making love

 Whilst my pictures are meat heavy, there were always fish options.
I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food. The quantities at each course did not seem great, but by the time you had had several courses, and a full day of eating, there was no issue of insufficiency. For the cost that is charged on Marco Polo, whilst not in the same league as Saga or Viking, the food is pretty good, and I would have no problem about using this ship again (from a food  and hotness of food viewpoint)