MMDown Under

Hi, Marion and Barry! I'm glad to hear that you had a great couple of months in North Queensland. Did you have a recreational van to sleep in, or did you stay in hotels here and there?

 

I've heard nice things about Split, Croatia. No surprise to me that your daughter loves it there. :)

 

Donald.

Hi Donald,

We rent a couple of cottages for a fortnight each. The rest of the time we stay in apartments, villas in caravan parks and a unique farm stay in an orchard at Cape Tribulation (where the rainforest meets the sea).

We enjoy meeting lots of people travelling in recreational vehicles.

Greetings Everyone,

We've just returned from a couple of months road trip to North Queensland - heaven!

Have a mountain of emails to catch up on.

Have only read front page so far. Ships Cat - your cruise sounds wonderful.

Hope this finds everyone well and happy.

Our younger daughter is in Croatia at present and absolutely loving it. Spent first fortnight in Split.

Donald,

Have you read the interesting Hanseatic post under this thread? Seems he left from Vancouver in that heatwave you experienced.

A business story about RCI and Oceania - in 2006, RCI came within a cat's whisker of buying out Oceania and, due to that merger, RCI had every chapter of Oceania's business plan in their hands. When the merger suddenly fell apart, RCI used those confidential business plans to launch Azamara. The first Azamara ship set sail under full construction - the pool wasn't available, passengers had to ease by work crews in corridors and public areas, the food service was only faux, not real. It was a total, unpleasant hurly-burly that went on beyond the maiden voyage.

 

People rave about Azamara nowadays as the ships finally were finished and the service onboard was brought up to Oceania standards while undercutting Oceania's prices. RCI has their powerful sales department and deep pockets to push their Azamara brand into the public eye. Personally, I believe that, while it's easy to copy, it's a lot harder to be the original. Especially when corporate thieves stalk the hallways.

 

Ruby

That is an interesting business story, Ruby. I've always wondered about firms having access to full business records/plans of companies, when the takeover/buy-out falls through.

I too became concerrned about the alterations to be made to Prinsendam so when I got word of a sale price on a nearly identical North Cape cruise on Silver Sea I decided to jump ship. For almost the same price as the HAL trip we will be cruising next July on Silver Cloud and Silver Sea includes air, transfers, tips and most importantly Martini's!

July should be wonderful on your North Cape Cruise.

I'll be interested in hearing your comments on Silver Cloud.

What are your ports of call?

I'm in a snit about Prinsendam being renovated to add more profit, oh excuuuuse me! more cabins on the ship. What a dreadful thought that she'll be in drydock for only two weeks then construction continues after she sets out to sea. Good ole Carnival - always looking for a way to ruin a good ship.

 

Fran - I have a vague memory of you going on a 40-ish day cruise at the end of this year on a Discovery ship. Is that correct? And I smiled when you said you were born in NYC. Did you slip on a banana peel at an early age and wind up in Toronto?

 

I see that Saga Cruises has finalized their purchase of Astoria, quite a small ship. Does anyone have direct or indirect information on her?

 

Ruby

I'm amazed that anyone would go on a cruise on a ship when construction was scheduled to take place. What happened to delivering the dream?

I know a couple, who were given a return visit to an island resort, after their honeymoon was spoilt by construction taking place.

Re Astoria, I seem to recall someone on the Costa site being disappointed that another small ship was being sold.

My waitlisting on HAL's Maasdam Boston - Rotterdam return across the Northern Route came through too late for me to be able to join the ship.

Looks like Prisendam is off my wish list.

Still thinking of longer Antartica cruise, if a single bargain comes up too good to refuse. :) Otherwise New York or London are both looking tempting, with the lower airfares currently available. Thank goodness competition on the Pacific route finally.

Fran - Please tell us more about your pending Discovery Cruise.

David? LOL! I'm Donald. Clicking on the thumbnails didn't make the photos bigger? How odd! Here's the one which I took at Hubbard Glacier.

 

 

Donald.

WOW!!! You really don't need to get off the ship. :)

No, but it is working today - not as big photo as yours. Maybe computer problem ?

I also enjoyed the photos and your report thanks, David.

For some reason, I couldn't make the photos bigger.

I do hope the rain stops in England.

 

We're hopping over to Woking Surrey, next Wednesday, to see ex-pat daughter and grandkiddies.

 

My daughter, a true California girl, does complain about English weather!

Everyone complains about the English weather. It is a national pastime. :)

However, all that rain is what makes the countryside so beautifully green.

Enjoy your trip to the UK to see your daughter and grandchildren. Hope it is fine for you.

Could you send some of your weather over here PLEASE!! We have had non stop rain and high winds since I got home from QM2. And it's cold too! I spent tonight watching TV with a blanket round me. Summer, what summer :(

My younger daughter must have taken your full quota of summer sunshine, as she enjoyed beautiful warm summer weather during her visit. Maybe it was when you were on QM2.

I thought the glorious weather may have been because Wimbledon finally put a roof over its Centre Court, at huge expense. Got to use it only once! :)

It is winter here, as you know, and we're going to an outdoors concert at the Royal Botanical Gardens this evening. I may have to put a blanket around me tonight, as it can get cold outside at night.

Vancouver is in the grip of a sweltering heat wave. Yesterday the temperature reached 33.8C (92.8F), breaking the all-time record of 33.3C (91.9F) for the city, set in 1960. During my daily walk along the waterfront, the large fountain in the park looked cool and inviting; other people sat with their feet in the water, but I removed my sandals and T-shirt, stepped in and laid back in the 2-ft. deep water until just my head was above the surface. Ahh!!!

 

Donald.

You must be a wonderful free spirit, Donald, to be brave enough to do that on your own! I'd be like the other people, with my feet in the water though.

Hope the weather cools for you soon. I had seen on TV news reports of the record temperatures in Vancouver and Seattle. Memphis had their heatwave in Spring!

Delighted to hear that you had a fabulous cruise this time, Donald.

Have a great time Donald. I would love to "do" Alaksa one day!

We absolutely loved our trip to Alaska. We combined car hire, truck camper hire, Alaskan Marine Highway Ferry and an Elderhostel tour - perfect in every way. Even went to the Alaskan State Fair, where we could hardly believe the size of the giant vegetables (due to long days of summer sunshine). Have a CD by Hobo Jim, who entertained at the Fair, as a momento of a wonderful day.

You are sailing out on Mercury tomorrow and I hope this X cruise is much more positive for you.

 

We will look forward to hearing how your voyage evolves as opposed to the unfortunate experiences of your last Mercury cruise.

 

I have to make this a brief note because I have a brand-new computer keyboard (wireless) and the configuration of the Function keys is a bit different. I keep telling myself, "Patience, patience! You'll get used to it!" Argh!

 

Ruby

Donald - Hope this cruise on Mercury meets/exceeds your expectations - enjoy! Where to this time?

Ruby - I sympathise re your new configuration of functions keys on your new computer keyboard.

I'll always remember the horror of trying to type an important document in France on a keyboard where the alphabet keys were in different positions to our keyboard. No matter how slowly I tried to type, I kept making mistakes. Argh!!

Thanks for your interesting informative reviews, Sharon. Your descriptions brought back many happy memories of visits to NYC and Boston. On my first visit to NYC, by ship, I got up early, like you, so as not to miss a minute of the exciting experience.

After reading your reviews, and with my younger daughter just being in London, I'm overdue for a return visit to NYC, Boston and London. I'm tempted, as there have been some wonderful airfare bargains.

A friend, who recently travelled on the QM2 and had travelled previously on QE2's last TA, thought QM2 was too big. However, it sounds perfect for ocean crossings.

 

Fran - you are more generous than I would have been if a British ship captain had called my ship "a little blue canoe." I take umbrage at that remark. Evidently, for him, size matters.

 

Ruby

As an Australian, I would take his description as a compliment and smile.

I'm back. I got home today and had a wonderful time. The QM2, although big, feels like a small ship. She has a low space/passenger ratio and there are lots of small corners to sit and read and never see another person. There are also acres of open teak deck space - great since we enjoyed six full days of hot sun and glassy calm seas westbound. Eastbound started off OK, but became classic north Atlantic weather - fog, gales and rain. The ship handled it beautifully though, with barely any movement felt the whole voyage.

 

Here is a taster photo. I am still washing and unpacking, ready for work tomorrow!

Welcome Home.

Pleased you enjoyed your cruise on QM2 and had hot sun and calm seas westbound. If you had to have fog, gales and rain eastbound, QM2, being an ocean liner, would be a good ship to be on.

Don't you just love the open teak deck space? Could you walk right around the deck?

Just noticed, if your birthday falls during a January cruise, Corinthian II is offering $500 reduction, plus no single supplement. This is in addition to a price reduction of $1250 on January cruises.

Allegra's maximum is 900 passengers and her repositioning is in 2 sectors..

 

Singapore to Mumbai, 15 nights -03 April, 2010

Mumbai to Civitavecchia, 18 nights -18 April, 2010

 

I have added an extra cruise onto the end from Savona on May 6 thru 10 back to Civitavecchia.

 

The two main sectors are showing as sold out, however, there might be a small number of cabins available on waitlist incase of cancellation by anyone.

Thank you for your response, which is much appreciated.

I will research Allegra further.

I don't know why, but, until recently, I thought Costa ships were all big ships.

Is your birthday in January, Ruby?

Just noticed a special on Corinthian II - $1250 off Jan sailings, plus $500 and no single supplement if your birthday falls during the cruise.

I am deep into a delightful enjoyment of my Kindle2. If the house catches on fire, I'm grabbin' the cat and the Kindle.

 

My total embrace of the Kindle surprises me. The original plan was to use the Kindle for a personal, lightweight library on my travels then bring it home and go back to hard-cover books. After using it on the cruise and realizing its potential, it is now my third arm. In the terrible heat of this Texas summer, I am quite content to play on my computer and read an unending number of Kindle books. I've started Trollope's The Way We Live Now which is 800+ pages, so that should hold my attention for the month of July.

 

Evidently Doubleday and other publishers, which are bringing out their own e-readers, are not making new bestsellers available to Amazon Kindle readers which I think is wrongheaded. I have arthritis in my thumbs which flares painfully if I am trying to hold open a 500+ book so Pat Conroy's South of Broad which is coming out in August will go unpurchased for this reader.

 

The Kindle2 was quite the object of curiosity on my cruise. I demonstrated it often on the ship to people who walked up and asked about it. Everyone is surprised at how simple it is to use and understands the advantage of having 18 books stored in a total weight of 10 ozs. The price of the Kindle2 has recently dropped to $299 (it started out at $399 as the original Kindle) and most of the e-books are $9.99 or less. I'm glad I waited for the Kindle2 because I saw the original Kindle on my flight home from Italy and it isn't as streamlined as this second version. But Kindle2 - Big Fan here.

 

Ruby

Would you believe I'd never heard of a Kindle, let alone a Kindle2. Sounds like you don't miss the hard copy books at all, Ruby.

18 books with a total weight of 10 ozs - what joy for travellers, in particular! What potential for the School of the Air, which sends library books to outback children.

My cruise next year is, to me at least, excellent value for a solo cruiser.

 

Costa Allegra, 40 nights including 1 night B&B pre cruise in 5 star hotel in Singapore and flights for £3116/$5153/€3681 and that works out at £78/$128/€92 per day.

 

:)

Could you please advise how many passengers on Costa Allegra and dates for this repositioning cruise?

Invitations to dine with the ship’s officers while extended

by The Captain’s Club Hostess, are done so at the direction

of the ship’s officers, and not as a benefit of the Captain’s

Club program. We regret if this was not explained to you

at the time of the cruise. Again, we apologize for any

confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.

 

We look forward to seeing you, our valued Elite Captain’s

Club member, onboard soon.

 

Donald.

The response appears to be stating that your invitation to the Captain's Table was at the discretion of the ship's officers.

In that case, the question remains why didn't the ship's officers invite you to the Captain's Table, after your special award as Most Frequent Cruiser on board. The fact that they only invited the other group, who were also awarded, was insensitive at best. No wonder you were disappointed.

Of my 15 cruises so far to Alaska, 3 were in May, 1 in June, 3 in July, 3 in August and 5 in September. I like May for the snow on the mountains, and late August and September for the return of the salmon.

 

I don't remember what you said about Alaskans and Australians ... perhaps that they are hardy and independent people? Please refresh my memory.

 

Donald.

My, you've cruised every month of the season, Donald. It must be wonderful to just get on in Vancouver and away you go, with no flights.

Have you done any land trips as well, or are you just happy to cruise and soak up the atmosphere?

From memory, the lady, who owned the B&B in Sitka, liked May because it was Spring, everything was fresh, and those in the tourist industry weren't all burnt out.

The return of the salmon was fascinating, plus the eagles and bears waiting for their feast, but I wasn't prepared for the smell of the dying salmon! Sometimes we smelt them before we saw them.

Yes, hardy, independent people with a frontier mentality and a lack of respect for political authority. :)

 

At a ceremony the Captain presented me with a bottle of red wine and a certificate for being the most frequent cruiser on board. Another guy, from California, with three less cruise credits than me, also was honoured. I was shocked when the Captain's Club hostess invited that runner-up and his four companions to the Captain's Table, but not me. After the cruise, I e-mailed a nicely-worded complaint to Captain's Club stating that I felt disrespected. I don't care that I will be seeing the hostess again in four weeks - she needs to know that she simply cannot do that.

 

So, this is not really a cruise for me to remember too fondly.

 

Donald.

What a disappointment, Donald, especially after being presented with a bottle of wine and a certificate for being the most frequent cruiser on board. What were they thinking?

Hope you get a good response to your valid complaint and they make it up to you when you cruise again in four weeks.

Pleased you enjoyed a good cruise weatherwise. When we visited Alaska, the lady, who owned a B&B in Sitka, said May was her favourite time of year in Alaska. We were at Sitka at the opposite end of the season in September.

Have I mentioned that Alaskans remind me of Australians?