milepig

Everybody is treated the same on Windstar. There is no tiered reward system, no special lines for "suites and elites", or any other class distinctions.

 

Windstar does have a past passenger rewards system called the Yacht Club. It only takes one cruise to become a member. After that the rewards are exactly the same for everybody that has completed at least one cruise. Each cruise has a brief welcome aboard cocktail party for Yacht Club members. That cocktail party and a free tote bag are the only things you'll miss out while onboard your first Windstar cruise.

 

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There are a few other benefits that aren't as well known. You get a return guest discount, you do have the opportunity to upgrade onboard if cabins are available (and once we were upgraded before the cruise). Generally they'll move you to a better cabin in the same grade or offer a fee to upgrade to a higher level. Again, not always available. When you pass a certain point you get invited to the Captain's table at a dinner - this happened to us about around the 7th cruise point. The other benefit, is that you get hugged by the wonderful crew when they see you board. ;)

Beware of rising prices. In the past they seemed to not change. We're on the Legend in Iceland right now, and the prices in the onboard sheet sheet are 25% or more that the prebooked prices printed on out tickets. No more waiting to book or canceling and rebooking on board without paying a ton more. I don't recall this from many previous trips. Decide and book excursions early would seem a good idea.

There is some chat about this on the roll calls. Consensus seems to be that there isn't much available for a decent price beyond the WS excursions.

No question. No discussion. Just NO. You cannot. If nothing else, the few cabins that have access to the outside are fairly high on the ship and I'm pretty sure you'd hit the hull of the ship before hitting the water. Not a good idea, and I think you'd be escorted off the ship shortly after trying - assuming you survived.

This is no "formal night." Leave the tux and party dress at home.

On one of our Venice trips we purchased the Chorus Pass:

http://www.chorusvenezia.org/en

it gives access to a long list of churches and you can get a map. We had a fun day trying to find as many of them as we could - some were off the beaten path.A great time and many treasures we wouldn't have otherwise found.

My cruise will be on Venice for the first night and only leaves next day. I am planning to fly the first day to Venice but I am getting a little nervous that in case my flight does not leave as scheduled, I might have to take another late flight on the first day. Since the ship is overnight in Venice, this should not be a problem right? Do they let you embark anytime after 13.00? How about at night if the flight arrives late in the evening?

You should be OK, but I would call WS and have them put a note in your record that you may be arriving late. Since there isn't an actual departure that evening it shouldn't be a problem, but it is possible that there will be port restrictions. When we did something similar, in our case early disembarcation, WS contacted the port agent who gave permission.

We were on the Surf a few months before that and while we were far away from the affected cabins one of our routes took us to the stairway that ended at a crew space. The smell of smoke in the area was constant and overpowering, so I would think it would also enter the cabins.

Recent reports seem to indicate it is no long an issue so I suspect that either some exhaust system wasn't working properly and has been repaired or the issue of crew smoking in the area has been dealt with.

Thanks to both of you! Lots of great suggestions. I'm still going back and forth about trying to book on the one night when we are in port late...not sure if we'll want to stay out all evening, or if it will be better to just get back on board and enjoy dinner with a view of the city. I wonder what in the world people even DO in a city until the midnight departure! Lol.

We go back and forth between "but we paid for the meal on board" and "but I want something local". We had a late departure out of Rhodes, and I'd say 3/4 of the ship streamed off to have dinner on shore and we wish we had. Until midnight isn't really an issue - dine late at 8:00 and if dining at a nice place you'll be back at the ship by 11 at the earliest.

As an aside, sail away from Rhodes was the best ever. Both the Spirit and Star were in port at the same time - one going West and one going East. And the captains really showed off, raising their sales and circling each other a couple times before leaving port. Magical.

Thanks for this information. When boarding do they serve champagne or it is a sparkling wine? Do you know which one?

It varies. Often it is some sort of tropical mixed drink. I don't think the alcohol content is especially high.

Thanks again. We'll actually be boarding in Barcelona, so milepig, that description was very helpful! I was asking about the beverage package days because I thought the price was per day (around $110 or $115, I think). I understand that you have to buy the package for the whole cruise, but I was wondering if they charge $110 dollars for that last day when you're off the boat by 9 a.m. But looking at the itinerary again, it's labeled as a 7 day cruise, but that last day would actually be the 8th day....so I'm thinking that it's not actually included in the package price? Maybe the $110ish dollars x 7?

 

While I'm on a role with questions, here's another one. :D You mentioned getting best reservations at Candles....how do you know which are the "best" reservations? Is it based on if it's early/late in the cruise, the port for that day, the reservation time, specific seats, etc?

 

Thanks in advance for any tips!

In terms of the beverage package, yes the price is based on the cruise length, but as you say it is a set price, and good from the moment you get your card until you disembark.

Candles, there are no bad times, but we just sort of prefer midcruise. The first night just seems busy with other things, and the last night we're already focused on packing up etc. It will be closed on BBQ night, so no chance of booking that by mistake. I also keep track if we know we have a long tour day and might avoid that since we'll just want a quick meal. The only hint I have is that if you book for an early night you *might* be able to snag a second night later if they aren't booked. No quarantee, but it might work.

Another big hint is that while they ask that you put your luggage outside the cabin the night before this isn't actually required. If you travel light you can take it off with you when you leave in the morning. In the past we've left everything outside the cabin, but from now on we'll reserve that for big bags and keep our carryons behind to take with us.

Another reason to board early for Yacht Club members is to get on the list if you're trying for an "upgrade at boarding" benefit. It has worked for us once - same cabin a level higher. Other times they didn't have anything to offer.

Great! Thanks for the info and explanation of how that first afternoon will go...I was wondering. So if 1:00 is the start time for boarding, is there usually a huge line of people waiting to get on right at 1, or do people tend to trickle in throughout the morning? I guess I'm wondering if it's worth it to get there even earlier than 1:00 or not.

 

On another note...we are planning to purchase the beverage package. I'm assuming the first (boarding) partial day counts as a "day," but not the last day (disembarkation day). Is that correct?

We usually show up a little later, after the first line has cleared through. I'd rather spend a bit more time enjoying the city before boarding, and the only thing you possibly lose would be the best reservations and Candles/Stella or the chance to get the perfect spa booking, but we've never had a problem.

The 2 times we have been there right when booking began (or before) was in Oslo and Barcelona. In Olso we arrived maybe 15 minutes early and joined a line of maybe 30 people. Oslo is a small port and we were just queued up outside the ship. The line cleared almost immediately. In Barcelona we were early as we flew into BCN that morning and just caught a cab to the port with our luggage. We arrived maybe an hour before boarding commenced, and the luggage drop was open. We thought about catching a city tour as the hop on hop off buses leave right outside the cruise port, but it was hot and we'd been to Barcelona a bunch of times and we'd gotten up early (like 4:30am early), we thought it better to board early and have a nap. So we just hung around, there's a little shopping area there and we had a nice lunch outside enjoying the breeze close to the water. We saw a few crew members we knew from previous itins wander by and said hi, the time passed quickly and when we returned to the embarcation point about 15 minutes before boarding there were just a handful of others waiting and we boarded quickly when the time arrived.

The situation will vary at every port, some are city center and have stuff to do around them, others are not. I remember boarding at Le Havre, where we taxied a long way to the dock from the train station and then there was nothing there.

Once you board the line usually moves quickly and then you can grab some lunch and spend a few minutes exploring the ship (they aren't that big!) and then you have dead time until the lifeboat drill. I usually find it better to spend the time on shore.

The beverage package is for the cruise, not by day. We've certainly had a celebratory glass of wine with lunch immediately after boarding on the package, the last day I suppose you could have a bloody mary or Minosa with breakfast, but the focus is on getting everyone off the ship at that point.

I think what you're seeing is another fault of the new system.

We're booked in July, and the old copy of the invoice says:

Boarding begins 1:00pm

All on board 4:00pm

Departure 5:00pm

This is what it has always been.

The new invoice I just received shows:

All on board 1:00pm

Departure 5:00pm

It also has our arrive time on departure day as the time the old invoice shows disembarking beginning.

All on board 4 hours before departure makes ZERO sense. I'm 99.999% sure that's when boarding begins. Just another WS mess up.

As I note the "every" instead of "ever". But that is funny. You'll find little typos often on most sailings. Cute.

Sigh. Fat fingers! But, I do proofread things that I'm going to hand out to hundreds of people! Actually, they've gotten better, but on some WS itins I've seen daily newsletters that seemed to have more errors than things that were correct.

Is the Chef's tasting menu new? I don't recall every seeing it.

I also note the typo "You're" instead of "Your"

Because there will only be 300 other passengers, the likelihood of an active Roll Call is small. If you read through the other threads on this forum, you'll learn quite a bit about how Windstar does things.

I've found the roll calls to be of very limited value, because of the small number of passengers who then a) even know this forum exists and, b) find the roll calls. This other issue for many, including me, is that lacking a private messaging system there's no way to contact each other beyond posting your contact information on an open web page, something I will never do.

I have to admit, it was much ado about nothing regarding the My Windstar web page once it was finally up and running. Our first cruise with Windstar is coming up next month and I was expecting to be able to view our payment account details and cruise offerings besides the excursions, but the new web page is rather underwhelming. At least it's finally there.

The ability to see the payment details and also add ons beyond the excursions were both features of the old system. I'm still amazed that they could take something down for months and then put up something that offers less rather than more.

Im actually wondering how anyone managed to log in; we are new to Windstar (but have sailed a multitude of times with Oceania) and I find the Windstar website experience highly frustrating. When I've called Windstar for assistance, I get no help from them whatsoever. All they say is "try again later". I hope this lack of help is not a reflection of what we will experience onboard...I keep reading the Windstar board for encouragement that indeed it will be a good experience...!

You need your trip confirmation number. With that in hand click on MyWindstar on the top bar and then enter that number and your last name. The problem for us long-timers is that the login is now trip specific and not to a customer account that has all our trips in one place, very frustrating.

But, rest assured, the WS office in Seattle is a nightmare, but the onboard experience will be fine.

We had four days in a row, and that was a stretch, a single day just flies by.

Sleep in and order in coffee and something light for breakfast. - You're on the Legend so there's plenty of room in the cabin to drink coffee and look out the window.

Find a comfy spot on deck, read/relax, get a spa treatment, watch the world go by. Do the crossword.

Late lunch.

More deck time or watch a movie in the cabin, take a nap.

There may be a movie showing in the lounge along with popcorn. Or some sort of silly participatory game - pub quiz, stump the crew, etc.

Drinks up on deck.

Dinner.

Nightcap on deck.

Time for bed.

What is the new rewards system?

I don't think we know details. There was some reference to the rewards being based on number of previous itineraries or something similar - bands like you get with airlines or hotels, with more bennies the higher your status. Not even sure if this is still in the works.

Looks like MyWindstar is back up. A lot snappier than the previous version.

I'd love to know more about what you like. People of the other "MyWindstar is back up" thread (including me) are trashing it:

Visually identical, but:

You don't login with a userid as in the past - you need to know the ITIN number, and if you have several you need to logout and back in for each one.

there is no "past itineraries" option

there is no account/payment summary page

the passport and other immigration/contact information is lost and must be re-entrered

We waited months and months for something with fewer features than the old version.

This is HORRID. You have to enter by BookingID - so if you have multiple cruises you need to logout and back in with the other number (after rustling through your files to find it.) Not to mention that the numbers all changed in the website conversion, so you may need to call to get the current number, the original won't work. I don't see anyway to see the list of past itineraries, so I don't know what they have on file (the last time I COULD see it they were wrong) and this is important since apparently the new rewards system will take number of previous itins into account.

It also looks like the payment summary is gone, so I can't check the status of my account.

Way to go, WS.

Hey, I just checked again and the 2018 itineraries are on the website at last.

And they're now thanking us for our patience during the "unexpected delay." I looked twice to be sure it didn't say "inexcusable delay.":rolleyes:

A lot of partial information. Here's a consolidated list:

Surf - the Surf has an entire deck (3) that has what they call "suites" these are two cabins that have been combined by removing part of the wall between them. They retain both bathrooms. All the cabins, including those converted to suites, have portholes that do not open. There are also two "Bridge Suites" that I have not seen - I do know that the windows face out onto a public walkway, so privacy could be an issue. There is also one stray regular suite on the Bridge Deck. Those windows also face a public walkway. Nothing on the Surf has any kind of balcony.

Spirit and Star - All 188 sq ft staterooms on 2 decks. There is one slightly larger owners Suite (220 sq ft) on the lower deck. All have portholes, no operable windows or balconies.

Pride, Breeze, Legend - These have the widest variety of staterooms, all of which WS calls "Suites", with the smallest being 277 sq feet. With this extra size you get a nice sitting area, much larger bath and a walk in closet. Some of these have operable windows, and some have a French Balcony (doors that open, but no actual balcony.) There are also a handfull of Larger suites - two facing the forward hot tub area, and four on Deck 6 - two forward and two midship. We've looked into the midship suites on deck six and they look nice - a big sitting area complete with dining table and a separate bedroom. The drawings of these four suites show a small outdoor sitting area, but I don't actually recall seeing them.