ak1004

According to our butler, there are currently 520 guests on board the Spirit. On our previous Spirit sailing in December 2022 there were only 390 guests, and the service now is actually much better.

I will ask tomorrow but most categories were waitlisted months before the cruise started.

we had dinner yesterday 7pm. Group of 6. The service was excellent. The place was not full. Menu more limited than previous sailings, but still plenty of choices.

We are on the Spirit now. I must say that the level of service improved significantly compared to our previous two cruises. But the menus in Atlantide shrank. And black caviar is not in the menu anymore, although it is still available on demand. But overall a better experience due to better service.

We sail based on itinerary and pricing. This is a great itinerary at unbelievable price (around $400 USD per night). We enjoyed cruising on SS very much (except for the crazy dress code which is now more relaxed), I just didn't feel that they are in a different league compared to O (the whole luxury vs. premium discussion). But at that price plus fantastic itinerary, with one overnight and 4 late stays, it was a no brainer.

We had exactly the same experience on the Dawn in December. They ran out of Perrier and Pellegrino mid cruise, also most diet drinks. Except for cabins which are much better, I didn't see anything that justifies their current prices. Service was very good overall, but not better than O.

We will be boarding SS on Monday, our third SS cruise and probably will be our last. Their current prices are almost double compared to O, just cannot justify it.

We will be boarding our third SS cruise on Monday. All three times we booked GTY Vista. The assignment happened around 12-14 days before the cruise. It was pretty consistent in terms of timing. We got upgraded to Veranda on the previous two times, but not this time. We are perfectly fine not to have veranda, otherwise we would not book Vista GTY.

We don't consider SS a real upgrade from O, definitely not worth 50%+ higher price.

I agree with you Hank. At least with SM you get just few hundred dollars credit for excursions (probably around $30-35 per day per person on average?) while on SS and Regent all excursions are included, which bumps the price significantly. But people who don't drink still would be paying for something they don't use on all premium/luxury lines. At the end of the day, it's all about the total price and how it compares to other lines. I enjoyed your reports very much, thank you very much, and glad that you enjoyed O!

I guess I'm one of those NoNos because I considered food on on our Riviera cruise last May excellent. And for the record, I like spices and absolutely love garlic, and I never found the food bland.

On our cruise in November on the Marina, the minibus full day tour in Casablanca is $1,000, up to 10 guests. This is very reasonable I think, even if you have only 6 people, it's around $166 per person for a full day private tour. For 10 people, it's only $100 pp, I would consider it cheap.

Riviera and Marina are 1250 guests. Never felt more crowded than Spirit or Dawn, and it took around the same time to get on/off the ship. Honestly, if we didn't know the numbers, we probably couldn't tell the difference. But that's fine, everyone has their preferences.

I agree that space ratio is a significant factor, but you are comparing older O ships. To me, they are less attractive (smaller cabins, tiny showers in standard cabins, so PH is almost a must, less dining options etc). We sail on the newer ships only (Riviera, Marina and Vista), and those ships have much better space ratio (closer to SS), good size cabins, more dining options etc. Riviera never felt more crowded than Spirit or Dawn - in fact, I would say that the buffet on SS felt a bit more crowded than on Riviera. If you looked at the older O ships, I can completely understand why you looked at PH (and the pricing is really not competitive in my opinion), but on the newer ships standard balcony is 240 sqft, which is more than sufficient, and if it's enough for you, I believe it's a better value than SS.

I understand about port fees, but the cruises I compared are very similar. Same period, same region, both have overnight in Bordeaux plus Saint Malo, Brest and Paris. So considering the fact the port fees have increased, you would expect even higher price increase than 3.7% increase.