tattydog

This is really useful, thank you

Yes it is but since we don’t sail till 10pm we should have plenty of time

Hi,

We’re on Disney Wonder in Kahului on March 2 8:30- 10:30pm. We’ re not overnight and looking to do a Molokini/ Turtletown snorkelling tour. Has anyone done this or know of any that aren’t just an early morning start? We will hire a car and drive down there 

23 minutes ago, ldubs said:

 

The standard Homeowners policy in America will not pay some losses such as glass breakage or vandalism if the insured premises if vacant beyond a certain period.  We don't have general exclusions for a 30 day unoccupancy, at least that I'm aware of.   I don't plan on any trips of that length, but if for nothing more than curiosity, I think I'll ask my insurer just to confirm nothing has changed.  

Good point, I’m in the UK and fortunately the house won’t be left empty. I think we are OK for 90 days but will check with insurance. My sister had a  holiday home in Spain and was able to spend winter there so I’m guessing it’s doable but will contact insurance. I’m not ready to retire yet but doing the planning

3 hours ago, Essiesmom said:

One of my favorite websites is cruisetimetables.com.  You can choose by departure port, ports of call (cruise to..), ship…and of course, time of year.  Choose a departure port and time of year, and see who is sailing and their itinerary.  Or choose places you would like to visit and see who is calling there.  Depending on your wallet, premium and luxury lines are more likely to have voyages that start and end in different ports, and often don’t repeat.  EM

Thank you, this will be very useful 

4 hours ago, John Bull said:

 

 Our experience with P&O is that dinner choices - even in the MDR - include pub-grub (yes, fish-n-chips, cottage pie, plus curries & hot-pots & such) but also more interesting international dishes. 

 

We've occasionally been offered a dish local to the destinations (I don't recall the dishes or even the cruise lines). but the only cruise line that I've sailed which did that regularly as a matter of course was Voyages of Discovery, whose demise we lamented a decade or more ago.

 

For the reasons I mentioned in my first post, I wouldn't countenance multiple back-to-backs - but consequently I've never done it.

And I'm not you.

If you do, I hope you'll come back to tell us all about it - whether crowing about how well it worked out or with your tail between your legs 😏

 

A small BTW, which you're probably aware of anyway - for a number of eventualities, if your home is unoccupied during your travels most home insurances are only good for 30 to 35 days. Can be overcome by having a friend, neighbour or relative check the place from time to time, and/or by advising your insurers and paying a relatively small premium to extend cover for the duration.

 

If you've not sailed Norwegian, check their add-on costs and restrictions like no drinks (incl. soft drinks and bottled water) to be brought on board - they have perhaps the worst reputation in the industry for nickel & diming.

That was my other half's experience, but she enjoyed sailing with them.

 

Whichever way you jump, have a good one.

 

JB 🙂

Good catch on the house insurance, I’ll look into it

World cruise is a great idea and would definitely need to be thoroughly researched for the right ship. We are still trying to find ‘the one’ for example Love the entertainment on Royal Caribbean, service & food on Princess and Cunard, convenience of P &O but find that they serve fish and chips and cottage pie whichever destination you are going to and wouldn’t  want to do that around the world. Norwegian is great value …

So I guess that the multiple lines depending on destination is for me

thanks everyone for their input , it has helped to clarify for me the way forward

On 8/4/2022 at 8:46 PM, rkacruiser said:

Much food for thought for the OP has been posted!

 

I suggest a world cruise and/or putting segments of a world cruise b2b or a Grand Voyage.  Entertainment will vary; menus ought to vary while popular items will re-appear frequently; segments of a long cruise may provide for some guest/crew changes that could prove interesting for a person.  

 

The idea of taking b2b cruises with a short break between them and another series of cruises, on the same line or ship, is what I have done.  A Christmas/New Year's cruise of about 20 days followed by a 7 day cruise on a different ship and line in a different type of accommodation, then, a 3 day break in a port and another 11 day cruise on a different ship in another different type of accommodation.  There was a bit of overlap of some of the ports (this was in the Caribbean), but, the overlap ports were ones that I enjoy visiting.  

That’s the sort of thing that I would like to do

On 8/4/2022 at 4:34 PM, Heidi13 said:

 

An excellent question that requires some research to determine what is the best option for you. We have completed numerous B2B cruises and a couple of World Cruises, so here are our thoughts.

 

I'll suggest the first decision is do you have a preference for a specific cruise line(s), or are you happy to book any Line, based on itinerary. Personally, we tend to have a preferred cruise line that meets our expectations, with regards to the cruise experience - small ships, great service, great food, no casino, no photogs, all-inclusive, etc.

 

If you're like us and have a preferred Line, your options are B2B2B...... or a World Cruise/Grand Voyage. On the mainstream mega ship Lines, I find the menus repeat every cruise. Example - when I worked for P&O and Princess on 7-day cruises, for a 4-month contract, we got exactly the same menu every day of the week. That gets really repetitive. I've also seen it where all ships within a Line that are completing the same length cruise have exactly the same menu on each respective day of the cruise. On visiting a number of cruise ships in port, as a local contractor, I often found the same menu across a cruise Line.

 

The entertainment also tends to be repeated each cruise, often on the same schedule.

 

Therefore, if your preference is staying with a preferred cruise line, I'll suggest a World Cruise or Grand Voyage is the better option, unless you are accepting of the repetition.

 

If your preference is jumping on various cruise lines, I would always leave a few days between cruises, even if using the same port. Although very few cruises are delayed at the turnaround port, it does happen. If you want to limit flying between ports it will be quite some planning exercise, especially if visiting some of the more remote areas of the world.

Thanks, we were thinking of travelling for the winter months and using cruises that start at one port and finish at another, spend a few days and then pick up a different ship to another destination- I not a fan of long flights and cruising allows us a more relaxed travel experience .

I was wondering if there is an online site/app that collates and filters which ships are in a particular port by date and by final destination port that you could feed into a planner?  Other cruisers have told me that they build their own spreadsheets but I feel that there must be something already out there- maybe someone should build it- not me I might add!

On 8/4/2022 at 1:08 PM, John Bull said:

 

Agreed .But it's not just the premium lines that offer long-haul.

Try Holland-America for long (28+days) itineraries and one-way cruises. Or for as many segments of a world cruise as you want,  P&O or Cunard and perhaps others.

 

Two back-to-back cruises on different ships have their problems & risks, such as the first cruise being delayed or cancelled. Back-to-back-to-back-to back multiple times multiplies those risks.

Finding multiple cruises with dates that slot together would be very difficult - and probably still involve repeat ports, a day or three between segments, and mebbe transfers between ports that are tolerably close together (or mebbe even not so close together, so relying on ferry or air travel between ships).

And doing back-to-backs on different ships screw-up cruising's big advantage of going to lots of places without unpacking & re-packing, getting used to the "resort"'s layout, routine, staff, folk that you meet,  etc. Fun for the first switch and mebbe the second, but ending up as a chore.

 

And cruising for months - whether on one ship or on multiple ships - has drawbacks.

A medical issue or the need to go home for some emergency or a dozen other reasons why folk have to cancel or foreshorten a cruise. Or to cancel a list of back-to-backs.

In your brain (well, in mine at least 😉) multiple ports tend to roll into each-other, confusion about what you saw where, not really getting the thrill of every port-after-port-after port.

Multiple ports in multiple countries involves multiple currencies (even if you pay by card you have to figure out value-for-money), multiple visas or other entry requirements - perhaps still Covid passes or tests., multiple clothing requirements for multiple climates, etc.

 

But mainly a big hole in your bank account but with the joys of anticipation just the once.

And mebbe stuck with figuring what to do next year - and whether you can afford next year.  

 

We've only done back-to-back once (three days in Rome between cruises, which was ideal), but we'd never cruise even a single ship for more than 6 weeks.

 

Tattydog - I don't know your cruising experience, and it's different horses for different courses, but that's MHO.

 

JB 🙂

  

Thanks, sorry for delay answering.excellent advice. We have done 21 cruises all with different lines, more chasing itinerary etc

I agree that the risks are lower with one longer cruises but we were wondering about investing in one trip and then finding that we didn’t like the ship ( as even in one cruise line the vibe can be vastly different between ships)

Thinking ahead to retirement and having spoken to many passengers onboard who are ‘snowbirds’ or just spend a few months jumping from ship to ship during winters. What are the best tips or tools that can be used, or are that past articles etc that have proven useful? 
 

1 hour ago, jipsy said:

Just noticed that you no longer have to do a ship excursion in Antigua. Last time there we just wandered to the bus station & got a bus to the beach.

We are on Ventura on 3rd Jan.

Hi, where did you see this? We are onboard this Thursday and the A-Z destinations hadn’t been updated. That would be so much better if we could go ashore  independently, we got married in Antigua 

1 minute ago, FamilyCruiserUK said:

 

We sailed on Anthem in Feb 2020. Ship was nice and the I Fly experience was amazing. My 6 year old thought it was fantastic. As for the drinks, we got a soda package for the little one and as wife is T-total just paid when i wanted a drink.

 

Hope you have a great cruise

Yes, the soda package is reasonable, and hopefully 😂 with some hot weather, it will be well used 

On 5/2/2021 at 7:45 PM, heatherb1958 said:

That is why we booked the MSC Virtuosa, premium drinks and tips included , we like MSC so no brainer for us. We don’t need double RCI points 😆. 

Yes, we’ve booked Sky Princess and used some goodwill bonus future cruise credits from a cancelled March 2020 sailing.  So it’s a free trip including drinks. We booked Anthem as we wanted to see the ship and got 20% discount. I guess we’ll just pay as we drink, I’m sure it won’t be as much as package 

Just booked Anthem 4 nighter, didn’t mention a test just fully vaccinated and insurance recommended not mandatory. However, the shocker was the drinks package price when I looked in cruise personalised.....£79.80 per person per day!!!

7 hours ago, Mark_UK said:

Any news yet anyone? Today is the day I think?

I didn’t win but the offer of 20% discount is tempting.........

It’s also for police, ambulance, armed forces, emergency responders. Royal Caribbean have set aside 999 cabins on the first 2 July sailings from Southampton as a thank you for the Covid effort. (Also ensuring high numbers of vaccinated & those with antibodies guests

After registering, names will be randomly selected. Like a lottery!!

I was wondering if anyone had been lucky enough to have heard if they had been picked yet. They did say on or before 30th April. I assume that if you don’t hear anything that you haven’t been successful . Haha I keep checking my inbox !!

Thank you for your advice, we’re just looking at our options. So excited!

Hi, does anyone know, or best guess as to which cruise terminal at Southampton that Princess will be using for the seacations?

I was wondering if they have a usual?

Hi all, really excited! We have booked 4 nighter on Sky. Told our friends and they made a quick decision and booked too

14 hours ago, ace2542 said:

You do know the 80 year who had coronavirus and died in the UK the second person to die died within an hour of being diagnosed. He had just come off some cruise ship days earlier though they won't say which one. Though not the grand princess apparently.

I believe he was from the diamond princess in the Far East. He had other health issues apparently-

20 hours ago, Northumberland said:

We are as a matter of fact, booked on a Princess cruise out of Los Angeles at the end of March. A few have been spooked by the negative social media, but most have not abandoned Princess. We will of course, use common sense when it comes to hand washing, hand sanitizer, Shaking hands, etc.   

Well said Al, we are also going on the same cruise as long as it isn’t cancelled and the Hawaiian ports remain open. Common sense such as avoiding hand rails and elevators, and washing hands regularly , and coughing into tissues ( or crook of elbow) will help lessen the spread/contamination, but for the average person the symptoms are minimal and no more than a usual cold. If you have chronic respiratory problems, diabetes or high blood pressure then you should be fine

My daughter is going on the Epic, and we were wondering if cash could be put onto account! Obviously,a card would be registered on embarkation

Does the cash have to be dollars? If she had pound notes could they be added?Her boyfriend rang NCL & was told only dollars notes accepted. I sailed on Jade 2 years ago and paid off in Pounds, & euros. Has it changed?

Does the cash have to be dollars? I want to pay off part of my account with pound notes and one if the travellers rang NCL & were told only dollars notes accepted. I sailed on Jade 2 years ago and paid off in Pounds, & euros. Has it changed ?i