sailingskyward

I must not be looking in the correct places on the Azamara website. I'm looking at a sailing on the Pursuit in 2019, and even with the current Second Passenger Half Off sale, I'm only seeing a 200% supplement. Several people have told me Azamara has a 25% supplement or when there's a sale you'll pay 50% but I'm just not finding it. Should I try calling a travel agent?

Vancouver departures take the Inside Passage, which is more scenic and has calmer waters.

Seattle departures stop in Sitka. Nice Alaskan town.

Thank you for the fleet locations. It is always so interesting to imagine the ships in all these interesting places!

@voljeep - I don't know much about the Princess Saver rate, but it is widely available on various online travel/cruise websites. Apparently these fares have non-refundable deposits and do not receive the Promotional OBC.

Just called Princess to ask about the $1 deposit offer - after noticing on several OTA websites the cruise fare was $300 cheaper, I asked if I could have a fare like that - the Princess agent said the $1 deposit offer does not apply to Princess Saver fares, which have non-refundable deposits.

So the choice was either pay the $300 higher rate but get $300 OBC plus $1 deposit, or book Princess Saver fare for $300 but the deposit is higher and is non-refundable.

Eurodam is a wonderful ship for all the reasons mentioned, plus a lot less crowded than the Ruby Princess.

Last month our ship visited Puerto San Martin and Arica, but not the others you mentioned. I can say Puerto San Martin was a total waste and I should have just stayed on the ship. This opinion was shared by many passengers, as well as the passengers we met from the ms Prinsendam, which was also in Puerto San Martin that day.

Arica, however, has a large hill/mountain called Morro de Arica in the middle of the town, a pleasant but somewhat steep walk from the port gate. Some people booked excursions to the top, but it seemed a waste of money if you can manage an incline for 30 mins each direction up/down.

Arica was a good port stop, in my opinion. A long pedestrianized street up the center of the town with lots of shops and at the top of the street was a large underground supermarket called Santa Isabel. At the bottom of the street was a post office (~$1 stamp to mail a postcard anywhere in the world) and a McDonald's which had free fast wifi. Lots of crew from the ship were in the McDonald's calling loved ones back home over the internet.

On a recent cruise onboard the Nieuw Amsterdam, I was told by a member of staff that the vendor for Holland America shops has lost their contract, and two new vendors will take over HAL onboard shops. One of the vendors is the same company which operates the onboard shops on Princess, and the other vendor's company name I can't recall.

As a huge fan of the Lawrence Welk show, I object to the comment, two posts ago.

Is it relatively simple to visit a Silversea ship when it's at your local port? What all is involved?

Thank you for the information in this thread. I'm thinking of booking this cruise at some point, and it is nice to hear people were pleased.

I just emailed Frank and got a bounceback. Has he left Silversea?

Does anyone know if these R-class ships are getting the interactive TVs like the Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam got in their dry docks?

Agree with what many people are saying here, but last month I stepped off the Nieuw Amsterdam in San Diego at 830am for a 920am flight on Southwest, made it to the [super nearby] airport and was seated at the gate at 845am before boarding had even started. I believe FLL airport is very close to the cruise terminal as well.

I attended a wedding yesterday where several guests were chatting about their recent sailings on Seabourn, Oceania, Silversea, and Azamara Club. People seemed universally impressed by Seabourn, but I doubt I'll find myself on their ships with their 75%-100% single supplement.

Oceania and Azamara Club did seem intriguing options, but I just don't know if I'd want to sail on a Azamara Club rebranded ship when I can easily stay with Silversea on purpose-built ships. As for Oceania, their pricing matrix is maddening and even looking a year in advance, several categories were marked WAITLIST or CLOSED. So why advertise "Fares from $XXXX" only to have the customer click on the sailing and find out the cheapest room is actually twice that amount?

Good afternoon, coolers. Hope you're all doing well - hopefully all on cruises!

Received an email this morning from HAL, saying they apologize they are unable to offer Cruise Logs, but that my feedback would be sent to the relevant departments to see if reintroducing them would be possible. I hope lots of CC members send emails so the office of the President understands how important this small sheet of paper is to long-time Mariners.

What is the best mailing address to reach Mr. Ashford? I sent an email to HAL and got a canned response. Surely there's a way to provide feedback directly to his office.

I'm a Seattle native and fly to/from SeaTac every couple weeks. Personally, I would book the nonstop departing at 12:55. I'm sure lots of people will tell you it's too risky, etc. However, you can either take an uber directly from the cruise port to the airport in 15-20 mins most of the time, or take the light rail from downtown to the airport. The light rail will take longer, but isn't impacted by traffic. However, on the worst of days it has never taken me longer than 45 minutes to get from downtown to the airport, even at 530pm (rush hour).

What a great question and thread!!

I suppose my favorite ports visited would be either Kotor (Montenegro) or Split (Croatia).

Bucket list not yet visited (on a cruise ship): Hong Kong, Istanbul, Singapore, Sydney

I wonder what the passenger has to pay to the Coast Guard etc for the medivac

Good luck with your guarantee assignment! It's one of my favorite parts of cruising - the anticipation of receiving that email from HAL which notifies you of a stateroom assignment.

Just got off the Nieuw Amsterdam last Thursday. Asked guest services for a cruise log, and they said HAL is no longer providing cruise logs. Ran into the captain and asked him about it, and he deferred to the hotel director who said it was a company-wide measure on all ships. No more cruise logs. I asked that one be printed just for me, and never received anything.

I just purchased my first CruiseNext vouchers, 2 of them. My understanding from the salesman was that you can use 1 per cruise booking, or in some cases when there is a promo you can use 2 simultaneously - but only if booking Balcony staterooms AND only if the cruise is 6+ months in advance.

My takeaway was basically, if you want to use 2 at the same time, you can't do so on cruises departing in the next few months, because those cruises are already selling for cheaper than if you had booked them 6+ months in advance.

I've often wondered, if a booked passenger had no insurance and then found out they couldn't take the cruise with less than a week's notice, is there any benefit for them to cancel at all? Or would it be just the same if they no-showed?