Jump to content

Fletcher

Members
  • Posts

    2,080
  • Joined

About Me

  • Location
    UK
  • Interests
    travel to far-flung places
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Seabourn
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    South Pacific

Recent Profile Visitors

3,250 profile views

Fletcher's Achievements

  1. I have an upcoming 37-day cruise and have booked the Long Stay carpark at Heathrow Terminal 5 for £370. I live 120 miles from the airport. Before Silversea sent me the link to Blacklane I did a dry-run with Blacklane to see what they might charge me as a regular non-Silversea booking. For two people it was £350 each way. So £700 or thereabouts in total. Silversea have now sent me the link to Blacklane and I was first surprised to find we had to book as two separate people. Not per car. This was a bit laborious. They wanted to charge us £160 per person each way, so a total of £640, meaning that Silversea’s contribution to our fare was about £60 or £30 each way or £15 per person. Not a good deal. With Silversea’s £150 refund my car park bill has reduced to £220. That’s a good deal. And I don’t have to stress that the driver won’t show up.
  2. @drron29 if your shots of Fuji are cloudy there's a nice woman in the UK called Kate who is a dab hand at Photoshopping.
  3. On our cruise about ten years ago we somehow managed to land on Nightingale. Our expedition team were so thrilled they raced ahead up the slippery slope and spent the next hour taking photos of the rockhoppers on the top of a cliff. Meanwhile, us passengers were let to fend for ourselves and only one expedition team member was left behind in a zodiac in the heavy swell. It was, shall we say, rather hairy but worth risking life and limb.
  4. Superb photos and video @highplanesdrifters. A very special place to visit and what incredible weather you had . . .
  5. When we were in South Georgia in January a few years back we never saw a single iceberg. Funny how they have swept up from Antarctica, turned the corner, and are off the north coast of the island. I see the Wind (which we will board next month) left South Georgia on schedule and is now steaming headlong into high winds and even higher seas. Must be quite a ride. Good luck for landing on Tristan @highplanesdrifters . . . looking forward to your snaps there and also Gough Island. We saw Inaccessible Island from Nightingale. Hardly anyone goes there and I guess the best you can hope for is a zodiac cruise. It's part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site with Gough.
  6. What is Jamestown doing on that itinerary? It's at least two days sailing NORTH of Tristan da Cunha. People often muddle things up here because the administration for the British Overseas Territory is vague to people who don't have an atlas.
  7. How can you have a 'first reunion' with something/someone you have never met? I'd like to say this is shocking behaviour from Silversea but they've been behaving quite badly for some time now.
  8. Many thanks @JSR for the Manaus lowdown. Seems you got the very best out of the place. We are there next month on the Wind - no concert, alas, for us,
  9. Sounds familiar . . . @Charles2108. I had done about a dozen NC cruises and most of them went swimmingly and when one went badly wrong they gave us a massive discount on our next cruise and when that was cancelled they gave us a free cruise. Then we went on the Serenissima to the Caribbean - the ship was shockingly awful, the cruise director hadn't a clue and we missed several stops for no apparent reason. I wrote about that cruise on TripAdvisor's Cruise Forum, on a largely positive thread that I started several years before, and got a letter from NC's Managing Director banning me for life. I was told they absolutely hate being written about on the internet. This was about 12 years ago so nothing's changed and they still have virtually no footprint on the web. I still look at their website. They have some fabulous itineraries, I'm sure the passengers are just as nice as ever, but the ships are old and cramped and I don't miss them.
  10. @JSR Anything to say about Manaus?
  11. The guy we had running the photo studio on the Cloud was utterly useless, clueless. I thought he was mainly there to sell stuff. I think you have to be a really bad photographer or a total beginner to get anything of value.
  12. Sorry to hear about the medical emergency and hope things work out OK. @Lirio We are offered a full beach day with lunch at Cumbuco Beach, to the west of the city, and a half-day at Futuro Beach with dune-bashing and some sort of eco-walk in a mangrove park. We'd stay on the ship were it not for the fact that we will have had five days at sea (ie, the Amazon) and face another five days at sea crossing to Africa.
  13. Thanks for that @JSR. Fortaleza is now our only stop on the Brazilian coast since two other stops and most of the Amazon have been cancelled, apparently due to the Wind's inability to collect fresh water on the river. Fortaleza looks like a dump and because we are now there on a Sunday we can't even see that rather nice looking theatre. They are just offering a beach day which isn't what you expect from an expedition cruise. I'll be interested to learn how the brand new, hi-tech Nova gets on in the Amazon towards Manaus and back.
  14. @JSR I'm very keen to learn how you got on in Fortaleza and all the Amazon stops as we are on the Wind in April making a similar trip. Thanks!
  15. A perennial and interesting topic. I currently find myself on Silversea cruises (two last year, two this) because of the itineraries, though Silversea has already completely cocked up our so-called expedition cruise next April. This has nothing to do with Suez/Houthis etc. But on that subject, many people have complained about lack of information from Silversea about cancellations. If you want to do a 'classic' cruise on a biggish ship then Silversea has a broad choice, including some recent ones like the Dawn, the Nova and the Ray. Once they were market leaders in the expedition sector but now lag behind Seabourn with its new purpose-built Venture and Pursuit. Silversea's Cloud and Wind are old-school, old-tech conversions of classic cruisers. Silver Endeavour is the only one of their fleet I'd consider taking to Antarctica. I still think Seabourn's ships - Quest class or Ovation class - are the best-designed I have ever been on, mainly because of their vast deck space. Seabourn's decor is also superior as Silversea is a bit too beige for me. On a more general note, I always have preferred the vibe on Seabourn ships. Silversea is a bit more dressy, a bit more formal, which isn't to my taste. I also think the Silversea butler thing is pretty silly. I mean, seeing men waltzing around in tail coats when you come back on board covered in penguin poo is ridiculous. I think service levels are pretty much equal and ditto the food. You can pay extra on Silversea at La Dame for fancy glassware and cutlery which is a treat I am obstinately resistant to. All Seabourn feeding stations are included and I'm delighted to see they have finally dumped Thomas Keller. So you can tell I prefer Seabourn, though Silversea currently has - for me - the more attractive itineraries. And that's the only reason I go on ships.
×
×
  • Create New...