Ambassador Ambience review: Affordable cruises and great theatre

Culture Explorer uses affiliate links, including those from Amazon, which are identified using an *. If you buy something through the link at no extra cost to you, Culture Explorer may be paid a commission, which helps to fund running of the site. You can read more about this here.

Ambassador Ambience at a glance

Overall rating: 7/10

• Launch date: 1991
• Last refurbished: 2026 
• Ship style: Medium-sized, traditional cruise ship
• Passenger capacity: 1,400 passengers
• Crew capacity: 660 crew
• Restaurants and bars: 6 restaurants, 10 bars, lounges and cafes
• Stand out feature: Great for theatre-lovers
• Family-friendly: No, it’s adult-only
• Solo-friendly: Yes, there are solo get togethers and dedicated solo cabins
• Workation-friendly: Yes, the WiFi is good enough for video calls
• Perfect for: Couples, solo travellers, older guests, and those who prefer traditional, no-fly cruising

Design and atmosphere

Rating: 8/10

Ambassador Ambience’s low key, traditional aesthetic feels like a cross between rooms at a Premier Inn and an upmarket Wetherspoons.

That is, it’s perfectly nice and very comfortable but not especially photogenic. 

What I liked was that the public areas were divided up into smaller spaces, meaning it’s easy to find a quiet spot to read a book.

Because of that, the overall atmosphere on the ship felt calm and unhurried.

There was also live music everywhere in the evenings, which was lively and sociable rather than boisterous and loud.

Art, architecture and unique design features

Ambassador Ambience isn’t particularly well known for its art collection or unique design features.

However, there were two spots I particularly liked.

One was Centre Court, an atrium with bars and lounges overlooking it from higher floors.

It hosted intimate classical concerts and the atmosphere was fantastic when the music rose to the higher floors.

The other spot was the Palladium Theatre, where the seats were comfortable and spacious and you could get a pretty decent view wherever you sat.

Cabins and suites

Rating: 6/10

Ambassador Ambience has five cabin categories: inside cabin (17-18m²), ocean view cabin (18-19m²), balcony cabin (21-25m²), suites (38m²), and deluxe suites (52m²), which you can see photos of on its website*.

Standard across the board are twin or double beds, en-suite bathrooms with a walk-in shower, tea and coffee facilities, a fridge, a safe (it’s tiny), a hairdryer (wall-mounted) and a small flat-screen TV.

Many cabins also feature pull-down bunk beds for those travelling in a group of three or four and who want to share a room. 

I had an inside cabin for my cruise.

It was comfortable and spacious for one or two people, and there was a lot of storage space.

But it was also pretty dated, especially on the tech front (more below), and in need of some maintenance.

Ambassador Ambience went into dry dock in January 2026 so those issues should have been fixed.

Read this: What to pack for a cruise

Restaurants and bars

Rating: 6/10

On the food front, Ambassador Ambience leans towards the traditional, catering mainly to British tastes.

So you’ll find fry ups at breakfast, fish and chips on Fridays, roast dinners on Sundays and a proper hot pudding with custard at every meal.

There were plenty of dining options but compared to other cruises I’ve been on, the food was a bit disappointing.

There was plenty of variety for lunch and dinner but breakfast was always the same. And flavour-wise it was hit and miss.

Main dining room

Buckingham Restaurant on deck 7 is the main dining room.

Breakfast and lunch here are always first come, first served, but you usually have to share a table with strangers.

For dinner, you’re allocated a table at the start of the cruise, with the first sitting at 5.45pm and the second one at 8.15pm, which are quite awkward times.

Naturally meals here are much calmer than at the buffet but the options are more or less the same.

Buffet and casual venues

Borough Market on deck 12 is the buffet offering. This is also where you can help yourself to teas and coffees and filtered drinking water 24/7.

For breakfast, you’re pretty much limited to fry ups (eggs in various styles, sausages, bacon, hash brown, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms etc), pastries, cereal and fruit so there isn’t a lot of variety.

You also have to get there early or go late as it’s pretty much impossible to find a seat during peak hours – the space simply isn’t big enough.

For lunch and dinner, there’s a bit more variety. You can choose from stations serving salads, soups, pan-Asian fare, roasted meats, seafood, Italian and a special of the day.

There’s always hot and cold dessert, and a separate area for gluten- and dairy-free options.

Lunch at Borough Market is much better than in the main restaurant as it’s usually not too busy and you get much better views.

For dinner, it’s very quiet as most people opt for the main dining room.

Alfresco Grill, which specialises in pizzas, burgers, hot dogs and other fast food, is an outdoor extension to Borough Market and is open during the day only.

Speciality dining

There are three speciality dining options on Ambassador Ambience: Sea & Grass, Saffron, and the Chef’s Table.

Sea & Grass (£29.95pp) is a small restaurant on deck 12 with a surf and turf-themed tasting menu.

Saffron (£19.95pp) sits in a cordoned off section of Borough Market and specialises in Indian dishes, although on some nights it serves Chinese food instead.

And the Chef’s Table (£89) is a tucked away area within Buckingham Restaurant where you can have a more elevated menu.

I didn’t go to any of the speciality restaurants.

Prices for all three were pretty reasonable for what’s being offered but I wasn’t convinced it was worth paying extra for given how average the food elsewhere had been.

Bars, lounges and cafés

There are 10 bars, lounges and cafes onboard Ambassador Ambience.

Next to Centre Court on deck 5 is Dicken’s, which does coffees and pastries plus drinks.

It’s an open-plan space where people tend to congregate before sightseeing during the day, or when there’s live music at Centre Court in the evenings.

On deck 7, you can choose between Raffles Bar, a glamorous piano bar; the Botanical Lounge, a relaxed gin-centric sofa lounge; and SW19, which is basically a handful of seats overlooking Centre Court.

The Purple Turtle Pub is on deck 8, and it hosts regular pub quizzes, live music and a handful of theatrical performances.

Up on deck 10 is the alfresco Consulate Bar, which is supposedly the place for sailaway cocktails.

It’s not in the most obvious location – you have to walk past lots of cabins all the way to the back of the ship – so it’s pretty quiet and has shorter opening hours.

On deck 12, you have the Pool Bar and the Coffee House, which are pretty self explanatory.

Then all the way up on deck 14 there’s the Observatory, a panoramic lounge that hosts talks and activities during the day and transforms into a nightclub in the evenings.

I spent most of my time in the Botanical Lounge and the Purple Turtle Pub but found it quite hard to find a seat whenever there was an activity scheduled.

What I really appreciated was that prices across the board were very reasonable.

A small glass of house wine was just £4.50, cocktails were £7 and beers were £5.45 for a pint on my cruise.

You can also get drinks packages of course – the prices will depend on the itinerary you’re on – you can check the current prices on Ambassador’s website*.

Room service

Room service is available 24/7 on Ambassador Ambience, with a compact menu featuring burgers, pies and salads.

Everything on the room service menu is chargeable, with a service charge on top. The prices are quite reasonable, with mains starting from £6.95.

I didn’t need room service during my cruise but to be honest there wasn’t enough seating space in the cabin to eat a meal.

Entertainment and activities

Rating: 9/10

The entertainment onboard Ambassador Ambience was the best part of the cruise for me for a couple of reasons.

Theatre and shows

I love going to the theatre for plays but find it hard to get into musicals.

Most ships, however, focus on the music and dance side of live entertainment.

If done well, with Broadway/West End-style gusto, it can be a showstopper. But if it doesn’t have all the razzle dazzle it can often feel a bit jarring.

Ambassador Ambience has struck the right balance for me.

It’s the first cruise line I’ve sailed on that puts on plays as well as musicals – and they did a spectacular job given the limited line up.

There’s variety too, from hour-long murder mysteries to 15-minute vignettes to variety shows with guest performers.

Daily activities and enrichment

The enrichment schedule is pretty varied.

There are usually a couple of quizzes a day, some hands-on workshops where you learn to make stuff or a new skill, guest lectures on a variety of subjects and of course live music around the ship.

On sea days, it felt busy but not hectic.

I mostly went to the quizzes, which are extremely challenging if you didn’t grow up in the UK between the 1950s and 1970s – most of the questions involved cultural references from the era.

There were also a handful of interesting lectures, including ones given by conservationists from ORCA, the ocean charity onboard.

Pools, spa and wellness

Rating: 8/10

Ambassador Ambience’s fitness and wellness offering is pretty good given the size of the ship.

Pools and sun decks

The outdoor pools on deck 12 aren’t heated, which means on my winter sun sailing they were rarely used.

But there are plenty of loungers and seats, plus a bar with waiter service that’s handy for drinks.

There are also two hot tubs on deck 11 as an alternative.

Spa and thermal areas

The spa on deck 2 is a pretty decent size and offers a range of treatments, from massages to full body wraps.

The prices were very tempting, especially towards the end of my cruise when different promotional offers were being rolled out every day, although I didn’t end up booking a treatment.

The spa menu* is online if you want to see current prices.

On the same deck is a sauna and steam room, which are free to use – some cruise lines charge extra to access thermal areas so this is a very good deal indeed.

Gym, classes and wellness

There’s a modest-sized gym on deck 2, which is well equipped with a mix of weights and exercise machines.

Then up on deck 14, there’s a joggers/walkers’ track plus a fitness studio where you can play table tennis or join various complimentary exercise classes.

Occasionally the Observatory on deck 14 is used for dance and chair yoga classes as well.

Facilities for families

Rating: Unrated

Although there are occasional sailings where children are welcomed onboard Ambassador Ambience, the ship is very much geared towards adults.

That means there aren’t any facilities designed specifically for children, whether that’s a kids’ club or play areas.

That said, the pull-down beds in some cabins do lend themselves to a small family travelling together and the pizzas and burgers from the Alfresco Grill will certainly be popular.

Suitability for solo travellers

Rating: 10/10

Ambassador Ambience is a great pick for solo travellers.

It sets aside cabins specifically for solo travellers, and there is no single’s supplement on these.

There are regular meet ups throughout the day and special dinners with complimentary wine just for those travelling on their own.

And on my cruise there was clear communication about these events to my cabin so they were impossible to miss.

It very much felt like the cruise line went out of its way to accommodate solo travellers and that’s much appreciated.

Workation on the ship

Rating: 7/10

Ambassador Ambience has Starlink enabled, which means there’s decent WiFi onboard at sea and close to shore.

The WiFi signal is strong wherever you are on the ship though phone signal is pretty much non-existent in inside cabins.

I had hoped to rely on my mobile data, as my SIM plan offers free roaming in Europe, but I could only use it in public spaces.

Ambassador WiFi packages range from just for email and messaging to streaming and video chat – see Ambassador’s website for the breakdown of prices and internet speeds*.

For me, the prices are high, but not unreasonable or excessive compared to other cruise lines.

In terms of workstations, there are tables in the public spaces that you can work from, though it can get noisy and there are no plugs.

The cabins have pretty decent tables and chairs so that’s a good alternative.

Even in my inside cabin the lighting was good enough that I didn’t feel eye strain.

One thing to note: the safe is barely big enough for a DSLR camera so it definitely won’t fit your laptop.

Service and crew

Rating: 9/10

Service onboard was fantastic on my Ambassador Ambience cruise.

The crew were friendly and approachable but always professional and even the actor hosts were happy to stop for a chat.

The restaurant staff were particularly good – many remembered my preferences even though they were serving lots of different people.

The only slight niggle was the lunch service, which was a bit of a mixed bag and quite rushed, but really I’d be nit picking.

Technology and connectivity

Rating: 4/10

Ambassador Ambience feels particularly dated on the tech front.

As mentioned above, it has Starlink enabled.

And on the Ambassador app, you can check basic information such as the day’s schedule or your account balance.

But that’s where the tech side of things stops.

The in-room TVs were tiny flat screens that were barely bigger than my computer monitor at home.

And if you’re not paying for a data package, it’s hard to stay connected to your fellow travellers.

I ended up either pre-arranging a meet up time, using the in-room phones or sometimes wandering the ship looking for my travel companions.

If you’re used to cruising on the likes of Royal Caribbean, which offers wearable tech and has robot bartenders, travelling on Ambassador will feel like you’ve sailed back to the Stone Age.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing of course, but it isn’t for everyone.

Pricing and value for money

Rating: 10/10

My cruise on Ambassador Ambience was a last-minute booking so I got a very good deal indeed.

I paid £539.10 for a 12-night cruise (booked through Iglu Cruise), which works out to about £45 a night. Gratuities were extra at £7 a night.

The full list of fare inclusions is available on Ambassador’s website*.

It was an even better deal for me because there was no costly single’s supplement.

And as it was a no-fly cruise, there was no airfare to consider.

The only bit of extra spending in my case was data, and of course expenses ashore.

Even if I had paid full price for my cruise it would have offered decent value for money.

Ambassador’s pricing tends to fall on the lower end of the scale and the prices onboard are very reasonable – a pint is less than what I’d pay in a London pub.

The verdict

Ambassador Ambience is a fantastic option if you’re looking for a budget-friendly no-fly cruise from the UK – particularly if you’re travelling solo.

Its entertainment offering and onboard service are its strongest assets, while its food and its tech are its weakest.

I didn’t love everything on the ship but I’d definitely consider booking it again if there’s a great deal going.

And if you enjoy traditional cruising on a friendly ship, with interesting itineraries that offer great value for money, you’ll find the ship ticks a lot of boxes.

Where you’ll find Ambassador Ambience

Ambassador Ambience specialises in no-fly cruises from London Tilbury so most of its itineraries are within Europe.

It covers the gamut of destinations, from the Norwegian fjords and the Mediterranean to the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles.

There are also a handful of cruises down to the Canary Islands and northern Africa.

You can see the full list of upcoming cruises* on its website.

It’s worth shopping around though.

When I booked, Iglu Cruise offered the best deal but close to the sailing date you could actually get a better overall package directly from Ambassador Cruises.

Pin this for later