NaughtyNanna

I love that!! 🤣🤣

Yes, that is what I am planning to do this time! 😁

Yes, I try to do that too!

For me it's either late breakfast, or early lunch! Rarely both!! 😄

I don't eat in the buffet for dinner, but for breakfast or lunch, I find it is just quicker and more in line with my eating habits for those meals.

I came across this topic while searching for something regarding solo dining in the buffet! I have been travelling solo for nearly 20 years after losing my husband. That first time, I was a nervous wreck! However now I am fine, and I love it. When cruising, I always try to get fixed dining on a table of 6 - 8 in the MDR for dinner. I find it's nice to be able to see the same people each night and discuss your day with them. I prefer sitting with couples or families. I have found on Princess, they seem to seat all the singles together, which doesn't seem to be the case with HAL and Celebrity. My biggest concern (apart from the single supplement) is breakfast or lunch, and what to do in the buffet when you want to get up to get something else! It's fine if you had been sharing a table with others, as you can ask them not to let the waiter/tress clear your perhaps not finished food or drink. But so many times when I have been at a table by myself, I come back to find the table has been cleared, my half eaten meal gone, and perhaps others are seated there!! What do other singles do? I have tried tilting the chair forward to try to indicate it's "taken". Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and the chair just gets straightened and table cleared anyway . On my up-coming cruise, I am considering taking a book and an old pair of glasses and leaving them there. Things that it won't matter if they "go missing". I usually have my phone or tablet with me, but don't want to risk leaving anything valuable on the table. I would love to hear what others do, or is there some cruise etiquette that I have yet to learn!! 😂😂

Yes. On my expedition in 2008, the ship (MV Explorer II) had a capacity of 400, but for Antarctic sailings only 200 passengers allowed. Interestingly, the previous year, only 4 months before I sailed, another ship also named Explorer had actually sunk in Antarctica after hitting an iceberg. Thankfully, everyone was rescued and there weren't any fatalities. Made me a bit nervous about my upcoming trip though! 😟

Perhaps if you consider an expedition again, maybe consider a different ship or shipping line! Of course things may have changed since 2008, but at that time there wasn't an extra invoice for rental gear. We were given an extremely warm and waterproof jacket, which was ours to keep, and we were all fitted for gumboots, which we kept for the duration and then returned. And of course we all wore small lifejackets when boarding the zodiacs. The cost of these was probably built into the fare though. There weren't toothbrushes to scrub our boots and pants. Yes, there were however more sophisticated methods of scraping and dis-infecting our boots when leaving and returning to the ship! The first day, we were given a talk on how we needed to be very respectful and thoughtful during the landings. There was no work at all for the passengers. Unless you consider the ten seconds it takes to disinfect your boots, and being careful not to take anything other than your camera ashore, and leave nothing but your footprints behind, as being work. I can't recall ever being knee deep in icy water when landing either! Ankle deep at most! 😁

Thank you @Linaeve! I was beginning to think my communication skills had deserted me!! 🤣

🤣🤣🤣 I had been thinking I bet @POA1 wished he'd never asked!! I'm sorry!! 😉

Well maybe I misunderstood your post. I took it that you were telling and showing me all the things you did on your expedition to Antarctica, that made it different than a cruise to Alaska. All of which, and more, I had also experienced, and that was exactly what I had said in the first part of my post! It seemed to me you had just picked up on what I said in my last sentence - that I thought cruising Antarctica is the same as Alaska. Maybe I need to be more specific. I had thought that cruising around Antactica on a large cruise ship (without the opportunity to go ashore, see the wildlife up close and personal, have full access to the bridge, sail around the icebergs in the zodiacs, etc) would be the same as cruising through Glacier Bay, for example. If that was not the intent of your post, then I apologise for the misunderstanding!

I don't think you read my post properly. I was on an expedition ship and we too had full access to the bridge, which was fascinating in itself. And the brave amongst us did swim. That was the point I was making. That I felt to have the full Antarctica experience, it needed to be done on an expedition ship, not a cruise ship. However, that is just my opinion, and others who have done it on a cruise ship differ from that. The fact remains, no matter how we experience it, we are all very privileged to be there at all. That may not be the case in the future.

I stand corrected then! I have done both as well. An expedition to Antarctica and and Alaskan cruise. I had just imagined that without having the opportunity to leave the ship, and just sailing around, the experience would have been much the same as Alaska. 😀

I did a similar thing in 2008 on MV Explorer II. The most wonderful once-in-a-lifetime experience!

If you want to actually step foot on Antartica, then a large cruise ship is not the way to do it. I was lucky enough to go in 2008. It was on a small ship with a capacity of 400 passengers, but could only have 200 on Antarctica excursions. (Captain got very upset if anyone referred to our journey as a "cruise" instead of "excursion"!!) Each day we went ashore on zodiacs - a morning group and an afternoon group because only 100 allowed at any one time. It was the most wonderful experience, and one I will never forget. I can't really see how a Antarctic cruise on a normal cruise ship would be any different to cruising through Glacier Bay on an Alaskan cruise.