Roofire

I took the same road as the tortoise and finally made Diamond with one cruise a year. Very anticlimatic once I was there and have no plans to try for anything higher. But I decided to use the status to try Celebrity (and other lines).

We're taking a similar approach, we'll stick with RCI until we hit Diamond, before giving Celebrity try, perhaps a short taster cruise. With the benefits transferred of course ;p

Thanks for the review.

Some great tips, and unfortunately you have echoed the general decline in food quality, which is coming across in most recent reviews.....

Three years ago my husband and I celebrated 20 years together on the Reflection in Murano. It was perfect from the champagne to the happy anniversary dessert. Staff and other sailers were very supportive. This year we sail for anniversary 23-2, 23rd year together, second as legal spouses.

Congratulations :)

Also good to hear that you had such a great experience.

So we are just back from a mini-cruise from Southampton, and decided to take the train from London Waterloo to/from Southampton Central. Our experience was:

Outbound travelling on a week day, no problems whatsoever, short taxi ride from the station to the ship and we were there.

Inbound (back to London) we travelled today (Sunday), and we had nothing but problems. Our train was cancelled with no explanation, so we had to take an alternative tran route, which terminated before London because of engineering works, so we had to take a crowded replacement bus service, before catching a local train for the final part of the journey into London, where we had to stand for the 40 minute journey. All these issues, doubled our return journey time. :(

Sorry, ranting a bit here, so in a nutshell if travelling at the weekend, check for train engineering works. We are going again from Southampton in June, so we are going to research some alternative options this time.

Big fans of Virgin Holidays and Virgin Atlantic. It'll be interesting to see the direction they have decided to take this in when more details start to emerge.

We had a great time at Xcaret, we stayed at the hotel next door so had the chance to explore the whole park. The rivers are a must do and the main reason for going. The animals you could see at most zoos and the ruins are not the best we have ever seen. The evening spectacular was not our cup of tea so we left during the interval.

I'd be tempted to follow the advice of the other posters and take the transit times into account.

Thank you for your review. We are thinking of doing the same itinerary, and are looking forward to your reviews of the ports of call. :)

Alaska is definitely on our to do list. Have a great time.

Enjoying this review immensely. Thank you.

Thank you. Empress doesn't seem to get much interest here. Your review is great as we're keeping an eye on her Cuba itinerary later in the year.

I decided on our last cruise that a UK cruiser didn't have much advantage on booking onboard, unfortunately. As we don't get price drops, options to change for better promos etc., without loosing the deposit - it not a great benefit other than the deposit is reduced, so you don't loose quite as much :eek:

 

The rep on our last cruise actually agreed with my comments, as above, when I was asking her about booking onboard.

If UK cruisers make any changes to their booking, then we loose the OBC too.

 

So as we are booked up for 2017, we decided not to book anything else onboard and see if there is a more favourable promo during our June Oasis cruise :D

This is a real shame. It would be good to understand why the UK cruisers don't get the same benefits :(

We were searching for a DIY guide to Bruges and found this post and link to your blog.

The information and detail you provide is excellent.

Thank you.

Good choice. We've plumped for our first JS for our upcoming cruise as well. Enjoy :)

Great shot of the port as you're coming into land :)

This is the one if the most thorough and enlightening reviews on this forum. Thank you for taking the time to but this together. :)

Thanks for posting :)

Cuba certainly seems popular......

I just wanted to see if anyone else has had the same experience as me...

 

Last night I looked at my Cruise Planner and saw some prices for excursions were cheaper than before... After going through it all, and canceling and re-booking almost all my items on the cruise planner. I ended up saving £185 in total.

 

Has anyone else found this?

Wasn't aware of this. Thanks for the heads up.

:(

Would prefer more variety. Indy/Nav are too similar.

At least Symphony will likely do a few sailings before Barcelona, but would have loved the opportunity to do a 14NT on her from So'ton.

Totally agree. A change would be welcome!

Bar service was fast, Main dining room service was a little slow but thats normal cause trying to serve hundreds of guest at the same time is hard. Total time in main dining room was 1.5 hours.

Thank you :)

Thanks for your initial thoughts. How has the food and service been?

Glad to hear that the food was good. How was the service?, there have been some mentions of cruisers waiting long times for food and drink service.........

We've sailed on the Navigator and had a great time. We have never tried a Freedom Class, so are looking forward to the Independence later in the year. On the whole we've only heard good things from friends and family who've sailed on these ships from Southampton.

We tracked the price of a cruise sailing from Southampton last year just after it was announced. All in all, the price increased over the 6 months we tracked it, with the biggest jumps a month before a sale.

Good to hear that you had a great time.:)