Royal Olympic Cruises, Ltd.

MTS Olympia Countess

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Operator:Royal Olympic Cruises, Ltd.
Year Built / Last Refurbished: 1976/ 1998
Length / Tonnage: 537 / 18,000
Number of Cabins / Passengers: 365 / 840
Officers / Crew: Greek / Greek
Operating Area: Europe in summer, Caribbean in Winter

Joining Royal Olympic's fleet in 1998 was the Olympia Countess, a ship I heartily dislike for oh so many reasons. Read on and you'll know why...

Built in a Danish yard and then towed to an Italian yard for installation of her accommodations, fitting and decor, this ship was the CUNARD COUNTESS. When she was building in the mid 1970s, some observers postulated that this ship and her twin, which went out from the builders' and spent most of her career as the CUNARD PRINCESS, would be the last two passenger/cruise ships to be built for any line, anywhere...well THAT sorry prediction did not come to pass but these two ships were the end of a line in another way...they were the last two ships built for Cunard, a company even then far removed from its pedigree as Britain's premier shipping enterprise. When these sisters were designed, Cunard didn't have much to go on, for reactive and conservative as ever, their management saw not one single trend on cruising's horizon and thus developed a pair of ships best described as an acquired taste. No one ever came away hating them, but few people screamed enthusiasm for them either...these twins have been serviceable choices for nice cruises...and when Royal Olympic manages to get her going on advertised itineraries, the Olympia Countess still is an OK ship for most people for a decent cruise...though given a choice at similar rates, this ship just doesn't stack up well against more modern competition...

Up top on Ouranos (pronounced OO-ra-NOS, meaning SKY in Greek and NOT what you naughty, naughty readers had in mind) is a multi-purpose lounge...featuring a piano bar, a musicians' platform, a dance floor, a bar, and conversation groupings. Card tables are set up in the aft, port corner and big, tall windows all around do give spectacular views forward and to the sides...this room is most popular at aperitif time...yet...like almost every other such lounge aboard cruise ships...it's underutilized much of the time..and I don't know why that is...Aft is open deck space, lido flanking the pool...near the funnel housing is a small gym...and aft are both table tennis and a space where you can practice your golf swing. Head down to Hera Deck and you find the open promenade, main lounge (the Sirenes) and the entertainment complex known here as Lounge of the 9 Muses.

After I embarked in the Olympia Countess, in the few hours I remained aboard before grabbing my bags and running away to the STELLA MARIS, I was bemused to find workmen hurriedly trying to fix leaks into the Sirenes Lounge from the swimming pool above, trying to get it done before the main body of passengers boarded...I mean it wouldn't do to have over 800 people coming through here with the problem unsolved, what with the chairs at the forward end stacked willy- nilly around workmen trying to restrain the unwanted fountain...I thought that leak unusual a few months later when I discovered that the STELLA SOLARIS enjoyed a similar mini-cataract in her Solaris Lounge... Aboard the COUNTESS, the Muses includes a casino, a slot machine room, a bar and a dance floor...and they keep the music loud so not much ever puts a damper on evening and late night revelry in here. Abaft is a terrace where more than one couple has whiled away a few romantic hours under an Aegean moon...just don't expect a lot of solitude...this ship has one of the lowest gross tons per passenger in the cruise business...she long has...(that's the figure derived by dividing the number of passengers into the ship's gross tonnage...and never mind the passenger capacity stated by the company's brochures...she has 967 beds and berths and whenever possible, they use as many beds as equal twice the number of seats in the dining room...) Below, at the after end of Apollo Deck is a small cinema, a library gallery and a video arcade for the teens so ubiquitous on warm weather Aegean trips.

During my admittedly short time aboard her, I'd call it a "cruiselet" I found her a interiors bit worn and that doesn't include the thick slabs of mildew and rot in the shower stall in our cabin or in the room assigned to a travel companion of ours. In general she looked a bit shabby, and her hybrid atmosphere (a former Cunarder that had spent a couple of seasons under the Indonesian flag...) was, well, neither warm nor appealing...I repeat... that's how I found it...

In her main Dining Room, the Olympia Countess serves her passengers at two smoke-free sittings...watch out when lunches or dinners are served in "open sitting"...get there early or you may just face a long wait for a table...of course you could take your food from the buffet...but American passengers, in particular, fond of breakfast and lunch buffets as they are...seem to shy away from dinner buffets when they are offered...The "outdoor dining" option here is under cover...shaded from hot Aegean or Caribbean sun...but if you want to eat under the noon day sun, a steward will carry your tray up a deck...it's curious, Royal Olympic ships can come across with some very nice food...the cooks in the ODYSSEUS and TRITON, particularly, have and usually do so...but the cost cutting measures taken by the company in the last year or so have wrought a toll on the food...one man in the know, a chef on board one of the ships lamented how tough it is to produce mouth watering tasties with the food budget per passenger per day cut to a figure you'd see from an airline...That said, though it is far from fancy, in general the food is good and both lamb and fish dishes the best options..Like each of the Royal Olympic clan, the Olympia Countess' kitchens have specialties...but I won't presume to suggest to tell you which dishes to order.

In my opinion and in a word, most of her cabins are awful...I'm pretty large and I like a lot of room in my room..and there is very little room in these ravioli sized chambers...I never liked tiny cabins and I have been pretty open about my lack of patience with ships with them so right here and now I pause a moment and think back to Chris and me and our usual mountain of baggage trying to fit into a TA grade room in this old girl...Fleetwide, a TA grade is a "deluxe" room but there is NOTHING deluxe about a TA room on this ship, nor is there an inkling of the deluxe about the next grade, a TB...no, indeed, and the company knows it...after all, nothing but a more midships location separates a TA or a TB from a standard A category outside room..and just about nothing save a window instead of a porthole or two and a location on a higher deck distinguishes an A category room from a B category room My biggest problem this ship is her cabins...and not just their size...I have closets in my house (walk-in closets, anyway) that are bigger than any of her standard cabins, dreary little spaces with walls so thin you and the occupants on either side might just get to know more about each other than you or they would like...coughing, hacking, sneezing, snoring...chances are you'll hear it all, and they'll here you, too, in one of these little cabins......geez I hate these cabins...with their tiny, tiny "closets", small alcoves segregated from the rest of the room by a curtain...the dreary decor and the focal point, an outer space-type table lamp over the corner table that doubles as nightstand for the lucky travelers in the beds set out in an "L" shape...and don't let me forget the bathroom, with the three corner showers big enough for Minnie Mouse, perhaps but not really suitable for a beefy guy like me...and the bathrooms are pretty dark...which is OK if you don't want to see if TIME has stomped further on your face...Except for her SB and SA rooms, all of her cabins are VERY small and for that reason I never took a cruise in her when she was the CUNARD COUNTESS and only my former close relationship with Royal Olympic (close enough when this was purchased by the company, it was a stack of items from MY collection of plans, brochures, photos, etc..that the NY office of the company used along with my own input to produce the first publicity pictures and pieces for her...so since she was a Royal Olympic ship now, I wanted to give her a try and a good review...In fairness, I would have to say the same things about the cabins of her sister ship, a vessel .now in MSC Cruise's fleet as the RHAPSODY...Don't look for me in either ship...)

In rooms graded SA and SB, the SAs perhaps justifiably labelled suites, while I would have to say rooms in the SB and SC are laughably called suites...(I mean a sofa in a bedroom does NOT a suite make) the OLYMPIC COUNTESS provides things like TV and refrigerator...

There are two other things I'll tell you about the world of cabins in the Olympia Countess...the thing about her that sent me RUNNING, bag and baggage back to the STELLA MARIS one stiflingly hot Friday afternoon in Piraeus were ANNOUNCEMENTS...coming through the cabin door at a volume approaching the noise of a New York City subway train...Knowing the timetable for arrivals in port, I suspected there'd be plenty of them and plenty early at that...so I asked the Chief Steward what time they started in in the squawk box..."6:30AM, usually" he told me, reminding me that the announcements were made in ENGLISH, GERMAN, SPANISH, FRENCH, ITALIAN and GREEK and some weeks, should the passengers number require it, in JAPANESE...and with no other cabin with a door mercifully distant from a loudspeaker available, that was all I need to know to get me to decamp PRONTO! I had further memories of this ship...years earlier one of my brothers and his wife made a cruise in the ship from San Juan...both told me they didn't like the cabin and both chuckled when recounting how one had to remain on the bed while the other dressed, there was simply NO other place to go. My father and two of his sisters with their companions and or spouses also made a cruise in the COUNTESS...when the price is right, most travelers will take any ship...None of the six of them returned with a single word of praise for ship or cruise...so, gang, it's not just me...I call ‘em like I see ‘em and report what I hear.

Does this ship have ANY cabins that satisfy me...the world's toughest cabin diva...yes, a few, but very few of them do and there is nothing about this ship or her itineraries to impel me to choose her over any other vessel on any run...I'd say if the price, the sailing date and the itinerary are right, go for it but remember, you've been warned...you KNOW what you're getting into...

But for all my diatribe against her cabin accommodation and her loud and frequent announcements in so many languages, this is one of those ships that is fine for most people...and most passengers seem to like her well enough...she has most of what you'd expect in a cruise ship - dining room, lounges, shops, deck space, stabilizers, air conditioning throughout, an outdoor pool, 2 jacuzzis and the gewgaws and gadgets to amuse you...but she just isn't up there on par with her competition...She isn't in the same world at Royal Olympic's flagship STELLA SOLARIS...I guess she's one of those ships some operators used to tout as "ships of democracy"...one class liners with low per diems...which a broad range of people could afford. For many people, the Olympia Countess is a lot of fun...Despite my take on her, the Olympia Countess is an adequate choice for a BIG market niche...She is a decent choice for the first time passenger, the group traveler or most people choosing her for itinerary. Notice I said..."most people" any really experienced cruise traveler will come away with some disappointment, for most of the time, the new cruise ships can be had for less money...you get my drift, no?

Yet many group passengers come away from the vessel satisfied with the ship, the cruise, the itinerary and with Royal Olympic Cruises but others don't and I have heard from quite a few of them...Let me remind the "English Only" crowd...if you don't like hearing foreign languages (then why are you travelling?)...summer time brings several different language groups to Greece and announcements are made six or seven languages...

This year Olympia Countess will be alternating between 3 and 4 day cruises leaving from Athens. The 3 day cruises leave each Friday afternoon and visit Mykonos, Rhodes, Patmos, and Kusadasi before returning to Athens. The 4 day cruises depart Mondays and visit Mykonos, Kusadasi, Patmos, Rhodes, Crete, and Santorini.

I think it's important to say a word about her published rates...it's an embarrassment, I think, to price her rooms as high as they do...ESPECIALLY in light of what steep discounted rates are made available to wholesalers...and for whatever inventory remains, this company has traditionally offered great promotional rates...moreover, the rates offered to the home market in Greece are a fraction of what they try to garner in the US or a few other countries so if you yearn to spend your vacation in the cramped confines of an Olympia Countess cabin, shop around...you'd be nuts to pay the brochure rate.

I think that many people can have a lot of fun in this ship because she has a great cruise staff and a friendly, hard working crew...but you realize that this is NOT the ship for me...but that's OK...NO ship is right for everyone...and you ought to be OK with that and the Olympia Countess might be more than OK for you...if the price is right...I just don't like her...too many people in not enough room and there's not enough room in her rooms...Your call.