When we booked this cruise in July 2013, the itinerary included a visit to Sochi (Russia), three ports on the Crimean peninsula (still under Ukrainian administration) and Odessa (Ukraine). Constanta wasn't even on the original itinerary. Early in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and all visits by tourists ceased. Sporadic incidents of unrest were reported in Odessa, although this was short-lived. Although only Crimea was officially off-limits, our tour operator made the decision not to visit Sochi or Odessa for political and safety reasons respectively. We were given the option to cancel our trip altogether, but decided to go along with the amended itinerary, including a visit to Constanta. Although we were a bit disappointed with the changes, we had visited Ukraine before (in 2008) and were lucky enough to visit both Odessa and Crimea then. (We weren't too bothered about missing Sochi this time!)

The thing we were NOT looking forward to with the changed itinerary was the 45 hour voyage across the middle of the Black Sea from Batumi to Constanta, because we knew that the sea can be quite rough at times. Our fears were completely unfounded. We could not have asked for a calmer sea, more sunshine or a more relaxing experience, as these pictures show!