Miss Vickie

On 6/27/2020 at 11:58 AM, cruisemom42 said:

After a Med cruise in 2005 I went back and spent a significant amount of time in Egypt and Turkey (two separate trips) once I realized, having been there, that it was safe enough to travel there as a woman alone.

 

I have also returned to Tunisia as the result of a cruise stop there for a much longer tour of Roman sites.

 

On the other hand, my Baltics cruise did not really inspire me with the desire to return anywhere for a longer visit..

 

I suppose one place I would consider visiting more in depth as a result of a stop in Sarande (and on the strength of the Roman ruins at Butrint), it would be Albania.

 

As for the US -- no real interest. I'll just stay home and bank money until international travel reopens....

 

 

I hope you can help. We’re booked on a cruise in 2021 with a stop in Sarande.  That was one of the reasons we chose that particular itinerary. However, I’m not getting responses from any tour operators I’ve contacted. Who did you use?  Thanks!

We did the Y2L, double Denali, and chose not to get the meal plan.  We enjoyed finding places to eat, only ate at the hotel three times - once in Denali, which was good, once in Fairbanks when we got caught in a torrential downpour when we went out for a walk and didn't feel like going back out once we got dried off (not great meal), and one breakfast, I forget where, which was downright awful.  We found great places to eat on our own everywhere else, though, including the strip mall across from the Denali resort.  We'd do it that way again.  

We’re friends of Levi’s, as well, and keep in touch with him. We were last supposed to see him in winter 2017, but due to the hurricane that was cancelled.  Recovery has taken time, and has had a lot of impact. We’ll be seeing him in about 6 weeks and are very excited.  We’ve been on a lot of his tours and there are certainly ones 50-70somes can do. We’re a group of late 50’s to mid 70’s, and are going to Kalinago territory with him this time. Cost is $70 per person, plus $10 to go into the replica village, if we want to.

6 hours ago, Host Clarea said:

If you want the best itinerary, look into Princess or Holland.

Agreed. Do not book Alaska for the ship - the destination is your experience. We sailed Holland Volendam and loved the experience.  Check the itineraries on all the lines - Holland, princess, celebrity and Royal - and pick the one that most appeals to you and is in your price range.  We did an itinerary that followed the path of the gold rush, was more land than ship, went into the Yukon for 3 nights, included 2 days at Denali, and paid less than if we had done Royal or Celebrity cruises that had itineraries that didn’t interest us as much.  HAL and Princess are the only lines that still have their own lodges at Denali and their own scenic railway cars.

4 hours ago, CruiseLifeIsTheBest said:

Catamaran with lobster lunch remains one of my top 2 favorite excursions. Calabaza Sailing in Barbados is #1. Great crew, great food, great snorkeling, so much fun. Small group and crew waited on us hand and foot. Can’t wait to get back to Barbados to do it again. Enjoy whatever you choose to do! 

We’re booked with Calabaza for the 7th time this coming February.  We love it!

The strategy I have used successfully several times:

If you have refundable OBC save some to be refunded to your credit card.  Use that credit card to deposit the cruise on board, and when refunded to your credit card, the OBC covers that charge.  I find that way more useful than spending it on board just to get rid of it.  

This strategy, of course, doesn't work with nonrefundable OBC...

On 11/4/2019 at 3:02 PM, italia103 said:

We are long-time Celebrity cruisers who recently took a seven-night Med cruise on Brilliance of the Seas. We had been looking to try another line and Royal's itinerary and timing seemed like the right time to get them a try. Based on our experience, I don't think we'll be giving it another go.

 

First, the daily pricing was higher. We did opt for a spacious veranda cabin but it wasn't any bigger than our previous Celebrity cabins and the interior was definitely dated. They probably lost us when we walked out on our veranda for the first time.  A dirty window and plenty of rust greeted us. We knew that Brilliance was an older ship but didn't expect to see such negligence since it was supposedly refurbished in 2018. While we thought the public spaces were generally beautiful, we hated the fact that smoking was still allowed in the casino. We also had a neighboring cabin who decided the non-smoking rule didn't apply to him but the ship responded quickly when we reported it. Shows were better than on Celebrity and we actually enjoyed the mini-golf course so we found other ways to be entertained.

 

The food was okay (especially in the MDR) and we liked the cafeteria space and the way it was set up but the scrambled eggs definitely tasted weird (do they use powdered eggs on Royal???), we couldn't get a poached egg and they closed the cafeteria every day from 4 to 6, actually locking the door to get to the back of the ship. Super inconvenient. Celebrity always keeps a station or two open offering afternoon tea or snacks of some kind. The only option for any kind of food during those hours on Brilliance was in the Solarium and that was definitely lacking.

 

We were also disappointed in the service on the ship, which I had heard others rave about on these boards. Often dishes laid on our table in the cafeteria until we eventually removed them ourselves. Our stateroom attendant, while pleasant, didn't do anything over and above and looked at me as if I had two heads when I asked her about cleaning the balcony window. (She did do it, tho.) The muster drill was chaotic and disorganized and took way longer than it should have.

 

Since we are definitely not candidates for Royal's massive new ships, I'm not sure we'd be willing to try Royal again. Anybody want to try and convince me otherwise?

 

 

We tried Celebrity first in 2009, on Summit.  And hated it.  It didn't look anywhere near as well maintained as what we were used to on Royal, there were rust spots on our balcony, many areas of the ship weren't well maintained, there was a slop bucket with dirty water and cigarette butts sitting on the promenade walkway all the time, our neighbors smoked on their balcony (and they were supposed to be nonsmoking), and we were under the Sunset Bar, and had to endure cigarette and cigar smoke and detritus on our spacious balcony, the concierge cabin was smaller than the D1 aft balcony cabins on the Radiance class ships we were used to, found the entertainment boring (and we aren't partiers), we didn't like the food in the MDR,  or the set up of the Ocean View cafe, we found the crew unfriendly, and felt like we were being chased off the ship on our last full day, when our steward took that sea day to remove things they were afraid we'd pack, took our flowers but left the dirty water, took the bowl holding fruit and left the fruit sitting on the table..., took any spare hangers out of the closet, including a padded hanger which belonged to my sister, which was for the dress she was wearing at the time.  There were soft squishy spots in the dining room floor, that could have broken an ankle.  We didn't think we'd ever be back to Celebrity.  And we got absolutely slammed on the Celebrity boards when we reported our experience. 

Flash forward to 2016.  We decided to give Summit another chance for the itinerary, and while we were on Jewel of the Seas booked Summit for January 2017.  The cruise got chartered out from under us and we ended up on Equinox instead.  And loved it.  Since then we've cruised on Silhouette, Eclipse and will be back on Summit in February, 2 refurbs after our initial experience on her.  We've been back on Jewel in that time, too, and found that at this point we're happier on Celebrity.  But for the right itinerary and price, we'd be happy to book a Voyager or smaller ship (we don't want to do the larger ships either).

I'm not doubting your experience.  We've been on all the Radiance class ships, with the exception of Brilliance, multiple times.  But things change, and I wouldn't say now you'd never give it another try.

That's the same  Florida-based TA we used.  That's all we get and there's never a problem.  When we book on board, as we frequently do, we get a copy of the booking at that time.  The cruise is automatically transferred to the TA and from there on out, we get their invoices.

Have you ever been into an Asian grocery store?  You probably wouldn't recognize anything in the candy aisle, or like it if you tried it (we do go buy things, just to try something we're not used to).  The point being, what is a yummy treat to you may not be to someone else.

If we're on a back to back and have the same cabin steward for both legs, we'll usually ask if there's anything we can get them or that they would like from port, as they are so busy on turn around day, and cannot get off the ship.  Once we had a steward to said he'd love some Snickers, so we went to a drug store in Puerto Rico and loaded up on them for him.  It was something he chose, and was in addition to monetary tips.  Other stewards have politely said thanks, but there was nothing.

14 minutes ago, Fogfog said:

We did this in the last 6 weeks. Celebrity. 

 

We had to have a biodegradeable container and the pouring/scattering is prohibited because of blowing onto decks/people.

We had to provide  a certificate from the mortuary for "transport of cremains", death cert etc

 

Are you saying that your friend is bringing some ashes on many cruises ?  

One of the no urn experiences was Celebrity, and that was the time we all ended up with some of him. Part of the issue was they took us forward on the ship, typically it’s aft.  The last time on Celebrity she did use an urn.  And yes, she’s scattered his ashes multiple times and will continue to do so. He loved to travel, too, so taking him and leaving a little on each of our trips is her, and our, way of memorializing him.  

On 6/20/2019 at 5:41 AM, chengkp75 said:

This most definitely needs to be cleared with the cruise line, prior to your cruise.  Haven't read the linked thread, but I've responded to a lot of these.  Ashes won't be allowed to be scattered, but dropped over in a biodegradable urn.  Don't go for the expensive salt urns, there are very inexpensive papier mache ones.  You will need a certificate from the mortuary for "transport of cremains", and you need to check with TSA for their requirements if traveling by air.  Cremains will not be allowed to be dropped unless the ship is outside of 12 miles from shore.  They will escort you to a secluded area, typically the aft mooring station, where you can have your memorial, and they usually provide a floral arrangement (don't bring your own, it has to be verified as bio-degradable (no plastic ties, etc)).

You don’t absolutely need the urn.  We travel with a friend who lost her husband a couple months after one of our cruises.  Ever since then we’ve been memorializing him on each trip, and have done cremains  scattering on each trip, on Royal, Celebrity and HAL, probably 6 times now, with two more cruises scheduled in the next 6 months.  She has always has a biodegradable urn, but a couple of times the environmental officer has had  her pour the cremains out of the urn into the sea.  She contacts the line before each cruise, and we go to Guest Relations on embarkation day, where we talk to someone, usually a guest relations supervisor or the environmental officer. They get back to her with a date and time. We meet near Guest Relations and they escort us to the location for the ceremony.  She brings an appropriate reading, and at times the guest relations officer has contributed a lovely reading. Once the line provided us with a tray of his favorite drink to toast him.  Another time they gave each of us a white rose to toss over the side (that didn’t work particularly well, due to wind).  HAL had a priest at the ceremony and he did a lovely nondenominational ceremony.  We have learned to check the wind - the first time she released the cremains without the urn we each ended up wearing a little bit. We laughed - he would have thought it was funny.  

We're from Cleveland, as well.  We did Alaska a couple of years ago (another line), embarking in Vancouver and flying home from Anchorage.  We flew Southwest (on points to Seattle), spent a day there, took Amtrak (cheap, beautiful, comfortable trip) to Vancouver, spent a day there and then got on the ship.  We're sailing Vancouver to Hawaii this year, taking Southwest to Seattle a day ahead, then taking Amtrak to Vancouver the day of embarkation - it's only a 4 hour train ride, leaves at 8:00 am, so there's plenty of time.  For Alaska we took Jet Blue out of Anchorage back to Seattle, then Southwest home from there.  Again, Southwest was on points, so the only actual air we paid for was that Jet Blue flight.  That still might be your most cost effective routing.

I'd recommend going late May or early June - we left Vancouver June 6th, I think, and for our fiord tour in Juneau, it was the first week they could go all the way to the glacier because of ice.  And when we got to Denali, it was the first week they were able to do the day long tour all the way back into the park, because it was the first week there was no snow.

I'm really curious as to what may have changed between the beginning of February, when we were aboard Silhouette, and your sailing.  I had smoked salmon every morning at the buffet, and  there was plenty of variety at lunch, including themes that changed on different days. I ate mostly salad at lunch and yes, the salad bar could have been better, but the other stuff was there if I had wanted it.

Bridgetown, Barbados

Casteries, St Lucia - Spencer Ambrose Land, Sea/Beach tour booked

St George’s, Grenada

St John’s, Antigua

Aruba (overnight)

Curaçao

Bonaire - Woodwind snorkel trip booked

We've done all the Southern Islands many, many times, nearly every winter since 1999.

Barbados - we've toured the island (booking on our own, gone to Folkstone for snorkeling on our own, arranged our own little "chocolate, rum and cutter day" with a taxi driver we found at terminal - there's a small chocolate factory near the harbor that offers tours, then we went to the rum distillery in Bridgetown, then had the taxi driver drop us off at a restaurant for cutters. Fun day. The past 5 visits we've booked Calabaza, and as soon as we have Summit booked for 2020, we'll be booking them again.

Antigua - we always do one of Eli's tours, adventureantigua.com. We love all of his excursions. The Xtreme Circumnav takes you to Stingray City, early enough so it is not crowded, the Eco-Tour takes you to the mangrove forest, Hell's Gate and gives you a good eco overview of the island, and the sailboat sails the waters between Antigua and Montserrat. You can occasionally see an ash plume or steam coming from Montserrat's volcano in the distance. It's on a handbuilt Carriacou sloop. All of his excursions are terrific - great crew, fun day, and you get a really good home made lunch on all 3 tours.

Grenada - we've done all of Mandoo's tours. It's worth touring the island if you've never been there - I don't think the "premier" beach on the island is all that special, but Mandoo's tours are.

Curacao - we really like snorkeling with Scubacao. You go out with one of their dive masters, and it is some of the best snorkeling we have ever done (including having snorkeled at all of the islands on your itinerary. We're booked with them again for next February.

Bonaire - we are booked with Compass for snorkeling - it's a traditional sail boat and takes fewer people than Woodwind.

Aruba - we've rented our own car a couple of times. It's an easy island to navigate, and you can drive around and see all the highlights in a short time - definitely doesn't take more than 4 hours or so. Last time we were there we booked with Sonny Binns, as there were 6 of us, and most of the rental cars don't accommodate 6 people. Sonny has a comfortable tour bus, took us to all the usual locations, and dropped us off in town for a really good, local lunch (something we had requested, not part of the tour.

We always try to eat lunch on the island, preferably at a local restaurant, rather than a tourist one. We find it adds a lot of value to our trips.

We've done it twice and would do it again in a heartbeat. Small group - max 6 people. When you get to the farm it's like heaven - flowers, plants, gorgeous. The hike has about 25 mi Utes that's strenuous, scrambling up hill, and over rocks and roots. Lunch is whatever is fresh and available. Levi's uncle grows it. It is vegetarian. We've had fresh grapefruit, fresh coconut, pumpkin dumpling soup, these delicious warm cabbage salad on wheat johnnycake sandwiches. That was my favorite meal of our trip last time we did it. It is served in calabash bowls, there is herbal tea. We got a tour of the farm, got to taste fresh stevia, relaxed over lunch, talked, got to know Levi's uncle. It will be food your kids are not familiar with, but it will be one of the best experiences of your trip. You won't be with a crowd of tourists. I highly recommend it.

I think crystal light may have a mango flavor mix

Thanks for the response - I was getting a different response from the webpages (cached versions loading). This will be our 11th or 12th year spending the day there - if we do end up doing it. E-mail has always worked before, but I may just have to call them.

We've been spending our day at Anse Cochon on a day package through Island Divers every year for many years. We've been trying to reach them for quite some time now to make reservations for our January trip, with no success. Has anyone been able to contact them recently or spend the day there? Does anyone know if they are open for business? Their webpages are currently down and there has been no response to e-mails. Their facebook page was updated at the beginning of August, but no response to messaging through facebook.

Thanks!

Tried to access Levi's site today, but it's not working. Anyone know if it changed?

 

debbie

Debbie,

Thanks for posting this. I e-mailed Levi, and he fixed the issue. The website is up and working now. We've toured with Levi numerous times and he's become a friend. We see him every time we're in Dominica.

Check out MyIslandtours by Javin. Excellent - fun and active. You climb (not difficult) on black rocks, do a rainforest hike, snorkel on a wreck and have beach time. Javin is personable and informative. There is a snack included of locally baked breads and sweets, and local juices. Definitely memorable!

I'm hoping someone out there can help me as I'm getting bogged down doing research. we've booked to go on the adventure of the seas doing a southern back to back itinerary for our 25th anniversary. I'm trying to book some independent tours for each island but not sure if it's worth doing a tour on every island as its a port intense itinerary and I don't want to be booking too much if some of the islands are not worth doing a tour. Maybe some of the islands it might be better to do a beach or all inclusive resort.

 

We're visiting San juan, Charlotte Amalie(St Thomas), St Kitts, aruba, Curacao, st croix, St Maarten, St johns (Antigua), St Lucia and Barbados.

 

Any help would be most appreciated.

Our favorites (have done these islands numerous times), and do only private excursions:

Antigua - AdventureAntigua.com - 3 different offerings, all terrific, our favorite is the classic yacht, but enjoy them all

St. Croix - Virgin Kayaks

St. Kitts - Thenford Grey or myislandtours by Javin, depending on how active you want to be

St. Lucia - we do a daypass at Ti Kay Village - nice beach, very good snorkeling, good lunch

Barbados - Calabaza catamaran

If you are sailing out of San Juan ship time is the same as Aruba.

Looking at booking either Jewel or the Summit, any thoughts? There's me my DW who are in their 30s, my parents in their 60s.

We've sailed both. We've done 14 radiance-class sailings, with 2 more on Jewel booked for next January, and we've sailed Summit once, with a second time booked for 2017. We were in our mid 50's when we last sailed Summit, and will be early-mid 60's when we're on her again. In 2009 we felt like we were the youngest folks on there. We don't get into rowdy deck parties or pool games, discos or the like, but found Summit very quiet, even for us. The ships are the same size, but laid out very differently. We didn't find the food on Summit to be appreciably better than on Serenade (the radiance-class ship in San Juan at the time, preferred the service and staff, as well as the entertainment on Royal. We had chosen Summit for the itinerary at the time - they were going to ports Royal was not yet going to. Although we actually think Royal is still a better fit for us, we're venturing back to Summit because we found an 11-night itinerary that attracted us, and the 123go promo they were offering couldn't be matched. Last time we were on was pre-refurb, so we're looking forward to seeing how she has changed.

The 7-day itineraries on both ships are now very similar. If I were in your situation I'd go with Jewel.

Amateur photographer here, use a Nikon D7K, which I love. I love your pics, looking forward to more. (And I work in IT in a hospital system.)

We cruise out of SJU every year, with cruises 5 and 6 on Jewel coming up next January. Love the Southern itineraries and Radiance-class ships. The new Hyatt Place is very nice looking, but for us, I would rather stay in OSJ or on the Condado, for the variety of places to walk to, and the variety of restaurants in close proximity.

Hotels in SJU don't offer shuttle service, transportation is all taxi - it's a taxi union thing.

Very good review - well organized and easy to read. I'm a little confused, though. Twice you compared your excursion experience to those on a Royal ship - once noting they got the nicer transportation, and at another point saying "we got the same experience as the Royal passengers." We do cruise mostly Royal. We sailed on Summit several years ago, and are booked on her again in 2017. So we should expect a lesser experience when we cruise Royal? Oh - that wouldn't happen, we only do private excursions.