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ged1967

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  • Posts

    402
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About Me

  • Location
    NE Scotland
  • Interests
    Holidays, volunteering
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Thomsons
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Villefranche for Monté Carlos

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Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. I need to research this. Feel free to DM 😄
  2. I disagree that no one went to midnight buffets. I cruised with 3 very different cruise lines back in the 90s and the queues to get in was very long. Particularly for the chocolate buffet. The work that went into them must’ve been huge. Ice carvings, vegetable carvings & chocolate profiterole structures. The main buffet used to make use of left overs from dinner in the reastaurant thus reducing waste from the dinner menu (no open dining back then) Yes it must have cost a lot in time & money, and I fully understand that it had to be cut. Towel animals too. Thousands of extra towels to be laundered along with the crew time to make. Cabin stewards have many, many more cabins to look after now than they did 30 years ago. The same with the chocolate on pillow. Another way to cut costs. However all 3 were just that bit special. You didn’t get all that in any hotel, even 30 years ago. I just feel it’s a shame that things keep getting cut, but as long as cruise lines keep friendly helpful staff that remember your name and drinks preferences that’ll help set them apart from land based hospitality. I’ve just thought about all the wait staff. How many waiters were there plus a sommelier (who kept your wine glass topped up almost invisibly) I miss those days, but times change and the open dining is a good change. (Remember the days when you were at a table of 6 or 8 and there was always this odd couple. Or the couple who were always late & held up wait staff.) There are lots a facilities for kids & the big kid in us all (if we want) the evening entertainment is good. Day time entertainment is much the same. Its like Butlins at sea (a reference for us Brits of a certain age) I love cruising but if prices don’t come down in price then I doubt I’ll be cruising anytime soon. I really can’t justify over £3k for a 1 week med cruise on a basic outside cabin for 2 adults. 😞 for the OP take all the negatives with a large pinch of salt. Make the most of your cruise. You’ll love it.
  3. My understanding of people that complain of nickle & diming are long time cruisers who find that items/activities that were included in the fare are now an extra charge item. Plus all the free things that have been removed altogether. Such as chocolate on pillow at turndown, towel animals, midnight buffets/chocaholic midnight buffet etc im sure there are plenty other examples.
  4. It looks like we’ve sailed our last cruise until the pricing comes down dramatically in price (if it ever does) I was looking at a 7 day Med cruise for August 2025 and the cheapest balcony cabin on The Epic for two was OVER £5,000 and that was cruise only!! We were in the Caribbean on The Dawn in February 2022 and with flights it was about £3,800. I thought that was expensive however we had FCCs from a cancelled 2020 covid cruise and with the extra on the certificate and the fact that we had paid the cancelled cruise in full we only had about £200 to pay. I’ve looked at other cruise lines including Tui and at first glance Tui appears cheaper until you add in the extras for picking your cabin, adding drinks package, picking seats on the plane Tui are just about the same. So it looks like it’ll be land based holidays for the time being. Which I find hugely disappointing as I love my cruise holidays.
  5. I do have a funny story along this line. Hubby & I have been together 24 years in June & civil partnership 17 years in April. On our honeymoon on Thomson Destiny we were at the midnight chocoholic buffet (You young’uns don’t know what your missing these days) In the tradition of restaurant lunches the waiters just filled up tables so each lunchtime & at the nightly midnight buffet you were herded into tables of 6,8,10 with randoms! You had 30 minutes to walk round the fabulous displays to take photos (no touching or sneeky nibbles) You then queued up again to gain entrance to fill your boots! Back ti my story: hubby & I were sat at a table of 6; two other couples. One couple the woman had partaken of a few too many sweet sherries (drinks packages weren’t as prevalent in those days.) In a drunk hushed voice she “whispers” to her husband “Do you think they are what I think they are?” I was oblivious but hubby could hear. Her hubby trying to be discreet was trying to shut her up. Wifie was having nine of it and each time he tried to stop her she’d “whisper” louder. Eventually hubby leans over. Touches her hand and says “I’ll let you in on a secret….Yes we are!” The other couple just made their excuses & left. The hubby was left embarrassed & wifie just said “Oh I don’t think you could hear me” Well as you all know although cruise ships are big once you’ve seen someone you see them all the time. We saw this couple every day thereafter my hubby gave her the biggest campest “Hiya” ever 🤪 Apart from that we’ve had no problems. Everyone is great. Jump forward to 2017. Onboard NCL Epic. Spring break. We got chatting to some college boys and ended up meet all their brothers & sisters & becoming honourary Frat brothers!
  6. We’ve attended FoD meetings on all our cruises. As you some are busy (QM2 was very popular) others not so busy. You’ll see gays onboard but they don’t attend the social. It could be a) they don’t “do the scene” b) have the misconception that it’s full of camp old queens c) they think it’s a sex fest (if only! 😂) or d) more likely they don’t know the term friend of Dorothy. Nowadays there is no need for Polari the use of codes be it words, phrases or even a hanky. the same for Bill W meetings. We had no idea what they were at the beginning. Perhaps they should just advertise as FoD as LGBTQi+ For a group of people who don’t like labels we’re certainly building up a rather large collection of letters!
  7. We had a cruise from Tampa February 2022. Flying from Scotland and booked with NCL as a package. Originally it was direct flights (I believe) with AA. then it got changed to indirect from Glasgow with 1 change in London. One week before I just browsing though my BA app and noticed our domestic flight from Glasgow to London Heathrow had been cancelled and we’d been rebooked on a flight leaving Glasgow AFTER our flight to the US was due to depart. A quick but panicked call to our TA got things sorted but now with TWO changed. London Heathrow & Miami. a couple of days before we left the U.K. we had really bad storms and flights were all affected. Our domestic flight was the red eye to London but we were concerned aircraft of crew would be misplaced. We were prepared to drive anywhere to get in this cruise. (Originally this was meant to be in 2020!) The domestic flight departed on time no problems. However the first leg to Miami was delayed by 2.5 hours. We had a plane (it was sat at gate) we had crew, the flight deck even waved at us) however we had no gate staff to board us and there were two aircraft using the gate. Well we took off 2.5 hours late (not late enough to get a refund ☹️) arrive late into Miami & missed our connection. My partner needed a wheelchair & assistance at airport so we were lucky & missed all the queues at immigration & check in Miami. There was only 1 flight left that night with no seats available. The girl out is on standby for that flight and also put us in the first flight the next morning (in case we didn’t get the last flight) these were the last 2 seats available. With luck we got seats in last flight if day and made it to Tampa. We were meant to have transportation from airport to hotel but there was nobody there I think by this time we were 5 hours late so we got an Uber. In the morning again there should’ve been transportation to the ship. No! This was all part of the cruise/flight package booked with NCL. maybe because we were late but we’re both young 40s/50s and able to sort things out, but there are quite a few elderly that like to cruise and they could’ve been quite worried trying to get to hotel after midnight in a foreign country. luckily coming from the U.K. the flights are always 1 day early. Maybe next time I’d come 2 days early. the coach transfer on disembarkation was running.
  8. Sounds good to me. Some decent stay & cruise packages out there just now.
  9. Hopefully this question hasn’t been asked countless times before. I'm looking at a cruise for 2023 with late departing flights home. I’ve not cruise with Tui for a number of years but back in the day you could stay onboard until your transfer took you to the airport. Is this still the case? I know with NCL, Cunard etc they require the ship to be completely empty of pax before allowing now pax to board. thanks.
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