Announcements were not always in English so we didn't know what to do re disembarking etc. Toilets blocked at upper decks where we had to wait for 2hrs before disembarking. Food was very poor quality? Ferry full of adolescent school children so very irritating and loud. Not good value for money.

We were delivering a car from the UK to Malta. The route from Genoa/Livorno to Malta has been closed, so this was the only option other than driving all the way to Sicily then getting a ferry to Malta. The ticket price was the same as the old route from Livorno to Malta but of course with the added cost of 500 more road miles and a nights hotel. The MS Translubeca used on this route is basically a freight vesssel with a few spaces for cars/vans and their passengers. The cabins/suites are huge for such a crossing and are extremely well fitted out. Typical for a northern european built ship. The restaurant/lounge were very nice but the food, dinners/lunch and breakfast were very basic. The bar was closed throughout the crossing and only beer was available with the meals.
The accomodation block, 32 cabins, was situated on 3 floors and was served by a lift, but to get from the car deck to the lift involved heaving your suitcase up very narrow steep stairs through machine/plant rooms on 2 decks. Dirty and oily, hot and very noisy. Again the consequence of being a freight ship. The ship docked in Catania, Sicily, for 6 hours and during that time we were not allowed ashore, apparently for security reasons. So a very basic lunch had to be taken on board.
All in all an average experience. Luckily I will not be bringing another car to Malta from the UK so I wont have to experience this trip again. I would not recommend this route as one of choice but it is currently the only route to get a vehicle to Malta with minimum driving.

Dogs are kept in cages without anywhere to relieve themselves. They are expected to either pee in the cage or on the deck, neither of which is natural to them. Friends of ours, not apart of the ferry company or aferry.co.uk, had told us to expect a synthetic grass area for the dogs. This ferry does not carry such accommodations. Room was spacious and clean, food was very Italian, service was good. Everything onboard was overly expensive (as expected). Good luck!

Tanger Med port check in was good and surprisingly efficient. The loading staff on the Ikarus Palace were great and the cabin was fine, but that's about all. For a journey that takes 2 days and passes through 3 countries the level of facilities on the boat were rubbish. There was no money exchange, the only currency accepted was Euros and cards were only accepted in the restaurant. This caused us some problems as we had been in Morocco for 2 months and didn't have any Euros. The advertised free Wifi was broken for the entire trip. There was no cinema or any TV's showing any English language programmes. The products available in the shop were also lacking, there were no maps, no international language books or even any guide books or games. The quality of the food in the restaurant was awful and the food was overpriced. The restraunts were continually opening and closing leading to an incessant amount of tannoy messages. None of the staff on board were freindly or particularly helpful. There seemed to be no attempt to fix the Wifi and every question was met with indifference, also no one seemed particularly bothered about the passenegers who were sleeping on the floor in all the corridors and stairwells. I dread to think what would have happened in an emergency. For ?400 I would have expected better. In short the crossing was good, but avoid the Ikarus Palace (Minoan Lines, booked via Grimaldi lines) like the plague.

It was a nice trip. Good crew but breakfast can be a bit better. The meals were very good but it would be also good to cater for people who have less apitite in the evening - maybe just a sandwich and a coffe. The cabin was excellent and having a TV was great but it could have had channels in Italian or English instead of just German.