annierie

 

I did find a line, Compagnie du Ponant, which is French and appears to fit our needs. I'll keep an eye on that one. We both adore France, French culture, food and wine and speak French, so that line may be a good fit and it runs stunning, new small ships. Some of its cruises run with primarily US passengers but we like to meet Europeans, they are always thoughtful and interesting.

As you can see by my avatar, which is Le Ponant, my favorite ship, although an older one, I have been on Les Compagnie. A few high end US companies charter their vessels regularly. They are Zegrahm and Tauck.

We are probably going to Antarctica on Le Boreal with Tauck in Dec 2011. The emphasis on the culture, and the ambiance of the tiny ships is why we have chosen to use Tauck to do the Med, and are also interested in the Costa Rica immersion on Le Levant.

Most frequent cruisers are either retired, or own a business (and have employees to do the actual "work") or work for the government and get 6-8 weeks of vacation time (paid by our taxes!) per year!

I don't know where you get your information, but you aren't accurate.

The max vacation for a Fed is 26 days, earned after working 15 years. That's not 6-8 weeks where I live, but maybe the Virginia school system teaches a different week definition than we use in the rest of the US. :D

I'll also have to ask my friends who own their own businesses and are working 60-80 hours a week why they don't have employees do the actual work so they can cruise all year long. Particularly those right now struggling in this economy.

The answer as to why so many people here cruise so much is more likely to be "because people who post on CC quite often are addicted to cruising and do it every chance they get".

They cruise more because they like it best.

If you do look at the demographics of CC, you would see that many frequent posters are retired, or semi-retired, or have lots of free time. Look at the birthday lists at the bottom of the pages and you'll see lots of 50+ folks on here.

These older posters generally do have more accumulated vacation time, personal time and many of the posters live near ports. I could take RCI, X or Carnival right now out of B'more. A quick 5 day trip to Bermuda if I wanted. Doesn't take much leave to do lots of short trips. Don't have to fly either. Look at all the FL and west coast posters who can hop on ships to Alaska or the Caribbean.

We actually cruised more when I was still working. We mix long rental vacations with cruises and land tours now, since we tired of the crowds in the Caribbean and Alaska. We've moved into longer more exotic cruises and do them less often. Currently saving to do Antarctica in December 2011. That will set us back more than what 10 Caribbean cruises could cost us. ;)

Perhaps. But the difference in price is huge. The difference in food, not so much. Our oceanview room on Regent was over $500 pppd. On NCL our veranda was @$150 pppd. We choose to add @$15pppd to eat in the specialty restaurants every evening because we enjoy small dining rooms. We have had many successful meals in the MDR at lunch or breakfast.

 

Omelets made while I waited on NCL and I never had to wait long. Fruit, fruit, fruit - wonderful. Boursin and Emmenthal cheeses on the evening buffet made a great early evening snack. Can also get some fresh sushi.

 

I'm not sure why NCL gets such vitriolic responses. We have found them to be comparable to most of the standard lines and a great value. Like all lines, if a meal is not to your taste they will cheerfully replace it.

cruznut, I was curious about your response with respect to Regent, so did a quick search and saw, what I expected, that you sailed on Paul Gauguin.

Ever wonder why PG is no longer part of the Regent family? Among other reasons, I think it was because so many people who were used to the luxury of Regent's other ships found PG lacking. But, it really was a different experience in a part of the world where it is difficult to get the foods many of us are used to getting on luxury ships.

PG was all about the place and not the food.

As for NCL, I watched them go downhill over 8 years. The food on our last cruise on NCL was the worst food I have ever seen on a buffet. After a late arrival back from a snorkeling trip, we found gray hamburgers sitting under a heat lamp in the Grill, or hardened Italian garbage that was supposed to be pasta in the other buffet.

We ate 4 of 7 nights in Le Bistro because the food had declined significantly.

Our list of best to worst based on cruises on many different lines (we have no favorite, we book on itinerary) is ...

Le Ponant

Regent

HAL

Carnival

Princess

Regency (out of business)

RCCL

NCL

Carnival had really good buffets, albeit limited, but the food was good that they had.

Le Ponant was amazing. Fresh baguettes twice a day. Fish brought onboard from ports across the Med. They made turkey for a lunch buffet because we remembered it from a prior cruise.

Desserts and cheeses to die for. These cruises began or ended in Provence, and included Corsica, the Amalfi coast and Sicily.

Food and wine were the best ever had on a ship. But, there were only 48 of us on the ship, so the dining room was smaller than the specialty restaurants on the mega monsters.

Dinner under the stars two nights. Desserts under an active volcano.

Nothing else compares to small ship cruising. The closest thing to dining at starred restaurants.

Not being confrontational. I have a black suit that I wear with tuxedo accessories. I also can wear it with shirt and tie or just with shirt. It is not heavy so it doesn't weight much. I also have many other suits and sport coats but this is the one I usually take on cruises. For longer cruises, I also take my white diinner jacket and another sport coat. I don't worry about luggage fees when I am spending $10,000 for a cruise. I do not think anyone on these boards cares what your DH wears in Greece or Turkey or Chicago. Only concern here is what he wears on formal night on Celebrity cruises.

Sorry, I didn't expand the explanation. Greece and Turkey were part of a cruise vacation, so like many of the people who are posting about the versatility of a sports jacket, it was worn in restaurants before and after the cruise. I am sorry I forgot to state that.

For us, like you, luggage fees aren't an issue. Heck, I've paid luggage fees to bring cases of wine home in our check in bags from our Napa trip. Bought the styrofoam cases as well. Money is definitely not the driver.

I wasn't thinking about simple solid black suits. My husband bought one once. It quickly deteriorated and looked bad from the back as it just kept getting shinier. My advice, never buy Oscar de la Renta suits that are bought as separate pieces. They don't hold up.

Sincerely, what would you wear pin-stripes with, other than the suit pants? That's DH's situation now. He has three suits that are wool blends and are heavy, and a light weight sage colored summer suit, that wasn't acceptable on cruise ships until the word "dark" was taken out of the dress code descriptions. His office practices "casual summer" so unless you are testifying to Congress, you don't wear suits, jackets or ties between Memorial Day and Labor Day. He's retiring in four months. No need to buy new suits.

Bottom line, we don't care about luggage fees. We take what works best for long trips, not a clothing choice that isn't versatile.

If we book this Mercury trip with our friends who are asking us to join their group this winter, he could bring the suit, and the sports jacket also, and whatever else, (other than the case of fine wines to enjoy with our friends - Celebrity!, your wine policy is so screwed up!), since we're driving to Baltimore, and there won't be pre or post cruise touring.

We've pretty much changed how we vacation, and it's mostly longer trips that combine touring and cruising. If we do cruise on Mercury, it will be the first mass market cruise we've taken since 2001.

I'm reading the Celebrity boards to see how things have changed. The only other cruise we have scheduled is Antarctica in December 2011. But YEAH!! no formal nights there, just need the sports jacket for welcome and farewell dinners.

The last time we had a cruise that still included a formal night, in 2004, DH took the sage suit, and re-used the jacket in Greece and Turkey. That suit came with two pair of pants, one solid and the other a very tightly woven textured herringbone. With those slacks, he was good to go for hotel stays in Istanbul and Athens. That cruise had ONE, only one, night where he would have had to have a dark suit. We booked the Italian dinner party that night and he wore his sage suit. Problem solved, yes? :) Now, it's only resort casual/informal on Regent. Many people commented about taking suits and tuxes all over the world for just a few hours, so they have changed their dress codes.

We don't cruise as much as we did before. The Caribbean is overcrowded, as is Alaska. The food on the mass market ships has changed from what it was. Those who cruised before the glut of new-builds know that the experience is different. We saw a huge difference in HAL over a period from 1998 to 2001. I have all the menus and can see what was eliminated. Less choice. Lesser cuts of meat. Less expensive veggies, if there were any left on the descriptions.

We are still on the fence about the Mercury cruise. We are celebrating DH's retirement. We want to take vintage Port, dessert wines and some old Bordeaux's to share with our friends. Unless we take them out of the Styrofoam shipping box, hand them to all our friends as we board, and show one bottle per person, we can't bring the case on the ship.

I know, I'm complaining but, it would be nice to add Celebrity to our list as we have cruised on every mass market line other than them. We were actually booked to do the Med on Celebrity but they pulled the cruises from Europe after 9/11. We do have Celebrity to thank for us discovering small luxury ships, though, since that is what we ended up booking in 2002 ;)

Maybe you are getting too carried away. You still have to dress every night so you still need slacks, shirts, socks, belt and shoes on those nights. Suit coat is same as sport jacket as far as space is concerned. Please don't tell me your DH would just wear the same clothes on formal nights as he does every other night.

I think you just don't get it, or are you being deliberately confrontational.

My DH's pinstripe suit jacket doesn't go with anything other than his suit. He can't wear the jacket with other slacks during our vacations. That means he also would have to bring a sports jacket along, unless he wished to wear his suit all over Greece and Turkey in September, looking completely ridiculous and not dressing for the climate.

We recently completed a week's trip to Chicago. He took his blazer, and grey slacks for dress, khakis and cream colored slacks for those times he wasn't in cargo shorts.

He could wear the jacket with golf shirts, dress shirts, or silk tee shirts, with any of the pants. A suit is not versatile.

Like Julia, my DH's suit is heavy. With all the accessories including the dress shoes, it weighs 8 pounds.

We can mix and match with the blazer much better than carrying a suit to wear once or twice for three hours.