I have posted a warning in the cruise forum to hopefully prevent others from finding themselves in the position we found ourselves when we took our Ocean village Cruise.

Here is the gist of the problem :-

I have just come back from and Ocean Village holiday, having had to endure the noise nuisance of being incarcerated in room A206. Due to the construction of the ship the last 4 cabins at the stern of the ship on this level (both sides) are prone to suffer a noise level incompatible with the expected comfort level of an A deck - (deck 11) cabin.

The problem lies in their position below the rear outside decking of 24 hour restaurant "Plantations" on deck 12. There is incessant scraping, graunching thumping of tables and chairs being dragged about at all hours of the day, causing sound to come through the ceiling of these rooms. I know of several people who complained on this holiday about this.

Further, the cabin we stayed in (A206 ) and presumably its mirror image on the Starboard side have an additional noise problem.
There is an external steel open staircase running down from deck 14 to deck 12 which has its root directly above these rooms ! It is absolute hell trying to sleep with heavy footed over fed people yomping up and down these stairs in the middle of the night. Some of the heavier footed people made the room vibrate.

As far as I am aware there is no Ocean Village representative to complain to on board ship (in the sense of the Cosmos or Thompson courier you might complain to in a hotel)

We complained to reception about both these noise sources (and had them logged) but could not get Reception to move us ( they claimed the ship was full ) and they took little action until I went down thumping the counter a few days later when I reached the end of my tether.

The action they took was to tape off access to the stairs above my room, (but not on the opposite side of the ship) which only helped the stairs problem for one night, but did not address the problem of diners taking breakfast at 5a.m and dragging tables and chairs about the rear deck overnight.
Whilst these stairs were taped off again overnight on subsequent nights it did not imprive the situation adequately, as some cruisers ignored the tapes and clambered up and down the stairs anyway. There are 6 means of access to that rear deck, the stairs above my cabin being just one of them. I also spoke to the manager of Plantations restaurant on 2 occasions about the noise and it was he who arranged the taping off. He also said that access from the interior of the restaurant to the outside was prevented overnight by disabling the automatic doors. This left 3 other means of access free.

It is a design problem which I'm sure previous occupants will have already complained about, and is unmanageable without posting guards on the deck overnight, since other means of access were still available.

It is impossible to survive in A206 without requesting a move because of the noise. In my opinion no-one should be expected to live in such a cabin, let alone pay the higher price to move 'up' into it ! I warned the reception that I was going to make a formal written complaint and they gave me a UK address for their passenger relations, for me to write to them.
I also took photographs of a side view of the ship showing my cabin window and the stairs directly above, and of the area above my cabin showing the table and chairs and the taped off stairs. There are also featured in this picture, a wheeled rubbish bin and a wheeled plate/cup collector trolley stored above my room. Ships rock and wheeled items roll about making noise - its common sense isn't it ?

My question is do I in the first instance write out my complaint, accompanied by pictures and just send it to the Ocean Village address I've been given ? Where does the travel agent (Lunn Poly ) who sold me the room come into this ? Is there any other party I should contact ?
I feel I deserve compensation for the discomfort and sleep deprivation which spoiled the full enjoyment of my holiday.