Mrs_Tiki

I am sorry if I am not communicating clearly. The 15% gratuity is based on the cost of the package, not the actual value of drinks consumed. In other words, it is a fixed charge based on the cost of the package and is paid at the time of purchase.

I think that it is similar to the daily fixed charge for gratuities for other staff. Since WS does not have assigned dining, it would be impossible for those tips to be allocated directly to the staff providing the service, so they must have some formula to split them equitably among the staff. I would think that the prepaid gratuity related to the beverage packages would be distributed similarly among the bar servers.

The only line items/charges for beverages that were shown on our final bill were for a couple of bottles of more expensive wine that were not included in the package and the gratuity associated with them. There were no $0 entries for drinks ordered under the package and/or entries for any associated per drink gratuity.

Hi there, I have been trying (unsuccessfully, but that's a post for a different thread) to buy a beverage package for my upcoming WS cruise.

The charge for a 7-day package (for 2 people) is $ $869.40.

That equates to $54/day x 2 people x 7 days + 15% gratuity.

I don't believe that any additional gratuity is charged, even if the number of beverages you order exceeds the daily rate for the package. On our recent WS cruise, the bar servers quickly learned our cabin number and remembered that we had the package after checking our cards the first time. I believe that they may have kept a tally, but we never signed a charge slip or received any additional charges for gratuities.

It has been a while since we sailed on the Silhouette (Jan 2013), but if the Porch is open for lunch, I would highly recommend it! It was a beautiful day in FLL, and a leisurely lunch enjoying the sunshine and scenery was the perfect way to start our cruise!

dandee,

Loved your photos from St. Lucia on the Windstar boards, thanks for sharing.

Your story gives me reason to think that I am not altogether foolish to be worried. The SJU airport is a zoo on weekend cruise turnaround days. Too late now to do much but to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.

And that it a good tip about the USDA station. We last flew out of SJU a couple of months ago and think the new setup is at least a little more visible than before, but still not clearly marked that it is step #1.

We will be on a cruise in March roundtrip from St. Maarten. For our return trip, we have booked a local flight from St. Maarten to SJU, then a Delta flight home. (Direct flights from SXM were pretty much sold out and very pricey.)

Does anyone have any experience clearing US Customs at Luis Munoz Marin Airport in San Juan? Is it as understaffed as the Customs desks coming into the port?

We have about 3 1/2 hours between scheduled arrival and departure times, which should be plenty of time to collect luggage, go through Customs and recheck bags for our other flight. But have heard horror stories lately about understaffing causing bit backups at the port for ships arriving.

It is wonderful to be able to search on CC and find the information you need.

DH and I have a WindSurf cruise booked in March and scheduled a flight our of St. Maarten at 11:00. I am a bit of a worrywart (he would say much more than a bit!), so was just starting to get a bit anxious about whether that is too early.

Thanks for the reassurance. I will find something else to worry about now. Perhaps how long it will take to clear US Customs in San Juan.

We were on the December 5 sailing of the Legend and had the same experience with lack of options in Virgin Gorda. There were lots of problems with the tenders during our trip, with only one of the ship's tenders and sometimes one local operator running back and forth. Do you think that they might restore tender circuits including Bitter End, the main land and Prickly Pear once the mechanical issues are resolved?

It would be a great excuse to book the itinerary again!

Ski Mom 2, Tiki_Man and I celebrated our 25th in Tahiti 2 years ago on the Paul Gauguin. Our first Windstar cruise was a couple of weeks ago (on one of the new motor ships), and we thought there were lots of similarities between the two lines.

We found French Polynesia to be spectacular, particularly the marine life, if you like to snorkel and/or scuba.

My only advice (which is worth as much as you paid for it!) is to consider a 10-day cruise or pre- or post-cruise stay with a 7-day. It is such a long and expensive trip to get there, we were glad to be staying longer than our typical 7-day vacation.

Enjoy your upcoming cruise and planning for your big anniversary!

US Dollar except Euro on St Barths and the other French islands but they too are pretty happy to accept US money or credit cards other than Amex.

 

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We were too busy swimming and snorkeling to do much shopping, but friends from the ship said that the small merchants/restaurants on Jost Van Dyke were reluctant to accept credit cards. They were very keen on US$ cash money, though!

Just one person's experience with one sail date, but when I booked our December sailing on the Legend in early September, there were only a few cabins from which to choose in each category we checked.

Thank you for taking time to post, SnowCat.

We are set to sail on our first WS cruise on the Legend on December 5. Like others, I have been concerned with the negative reviews, which caused me to question our decision to try WS.

It is very reassuring to hear about your positive experience!

Our experience with Windstar is that the ship is usually ready to board around 1:00pm I never asked but I suppose the 5:00pm check-in time is stated because they would like to have everyone aboard well before sailing time. We seldom see "runners" at embarkation.

 

Windstar is unlike most other cruise lines because their small passenger capacity permits a lot more flexibility such as when to start dinner that first day.

Thanks Host Walt. We are looking forward to the small ship experience on Windstar.

My next question is when is muster drill for a 10:00 sailing?

We are on the Dec 5 Legend sailing from San Juan. The itinerary shown in "My Windstar" online showed a check-in time of 5:00. But when our actual edocs arrived via email last week, they indicated check-in at 1:00 and all aboard at 8:00.

It was not until getting dressed for the second formal night of a 7-day cruise that DH realized he had only packed one shirt to go with his tuxedo. And the one that he wore the first formal night had gotten sweaty and was in a wrinkly ball in the dirty clothes, so re-wearing it was not an option.

The only collared shirt that was still clean was an orange Tommy Bahama. To this day, he gets mad when we remind him of the night he went to dinner dressed as The Great Pumpkin!

We very much prefer bed by bath! I think the cabin feels too closed in with the bed at the far end. I like having the 'living room' open to the balcony and the cabin seems more spacious that way. In any configuration, the balcony door is only a few feet from the bed. I thought it was very tight having to step around the bed to get to the balcony.

 

I shower first, then move to the dressing table for hair and makeup while DH showers and dresses. We don't have any space conflicts that way. Works for us!

I agree! DH and I have the same routine, and much prefer the bed by the bath configuration.

Hi Susanne,

Thanks for the information about the snorkeling equipment. When we were on Paul Gauguin a couple of years ago, we found it so convenient to have equipment in our room all week that we could grab it and go in the mornings. (Without having to drag our own from home!)

We are very excited to try Windstar. Have sailed a lot on Princess, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean on family vacations, but enjoyed our trips on Radisson (now Regent) and Paul Gauguin even more.

Are you on the Star Legend December 5? My DH (Tiki_Man) has started a Roll Call for our sailing, please join!

Mary

Does Windstar provide snorkel equipment for guests to take ashore on its Caribbean itineraries?

If so, are you issued a set of equipment for your use throughout the cruise, or do you need to turn it in at the end of each day ashore?

I have searched this topic, but can't find much recent info. FWIW, we are sailing on the Star Legend in December, so I know that there is no track record for that ship in the Caribbean yet.

Thanks!

We sailed on the Connie in February 2015 and somehow picked up 1140 three weeks before sail date. It was wonderful.

MrJulius posted the definitive guide to AQ M-class Aft Balconies in this thread:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1629443&highlight=aqua+class+aft+balconies

I hope the link works, as it contains all sorts of great info and photos!

I was so excited to share our wonderful experience at the Porch for embarkation day lunch on the Silhouette in January 2013, but it looks like it may no longer be open that day or that it varies from ship to ship. :(

If it is open, I would highly recommend. I think that January weather in FLL would be comparable to Miami in November, and I recall that it was delightful! Food was good, but the highlight was the wonderful view of the port area and skyline.

I have vivid memories of sipping my wine and anticipating all of the fun that was to come over the course of our cruise!

Hello,

I have read previous posts about difficulty in getting taxis upon disembarkation in San Francisco making it difficult to get to SFO for late morning flights. Has this improved with the new terminal?

Do any veteran San Francisco cruisers have advice on timing of flights home?

Thanks in advance,

Were you able to attend any comedy shows? Any late night / adult only shows offered and do you remember what day or time it was at? Thanks for the review!

Sorry, we usually turn in pretty early, so I don't even remember if late-night comedy shows were on the schedule. :(

Mrs. Tiki ~ so totally agree with you about Capt Tasos and the crew on Constellation! That was our experience last month as well. Sorry we keep missing you on cruises....we'll have to "plan" better in the future. ;)

 

Glad you enjoyed Constellation! Great ship!

Hi Anne, our schedule will become much less complicated once we are finished trying to follow DD's college swimming. She swims in her last conference championship this weekend. :(

Don't give up on us, hopefully we can join you soon!

I just booked this itinerary for March 2016. I'm guessing since you said this is your favorite new ship that you had a good time? Did you you enjoy the entertainment, and how would you characterize it? How was the solarium? Thanks for any answers. :-)

We had a great time, sorry if that did not come through in my comments! :)

We are usually not big on entertainment, but partook in more this trip than usual. We enjoyed the "special guest entertainers," although I can't remember their names. Both were musical ~ one was a man who could play all genres of music with impressive impressions of various artists, the other was a female vocalist. Our favorite was Rebecca Amaral, who played mellow guitar music (like Van Morrison, James Taylor), usually at the bar on Deck 10 Aft (Sunset/Oceanview?) and Café al Bacio.

We were never in the right place at the right time to hear Gran Volta (string trio, I think) perform. Pool music was provided by The Shenanigans, a female duo who played R&B/Rock. I loved their music, but the volume was too loud for us. In the late evenings a DJ provided a club vibe at the Martini Bar/Crush. Not to everyone's taste, but even though we are older (50-ish), we thought it was fun.

We don't enjoy the production shows, so didn't attend those.

We also enjoyed some of the "Celebrity Life" activities: Capt. Tasos gave a lecture on the construction of the Solstice (he was Chief Safety Officer for that ship at the time), the Executive Chef hosted a "Top Chef" cooking challenge, and Capt. Tasos, Cruise Director Alejandro and Activities Manager Sarah were very entertaining in the Liars Club Game.

Solarium was great, love the Thallassotherapy pools on M-class ships. For the most part, it was a very quiet, spa-like retreat from the crowded pool deck. (However, it was packed on the sea day that it rained all day.) That day, a large group commandeered the Aqua Spa Café tables and began playing some sort of dice game. With each roll, they whooped and hollered, until a staff member asked them respect the quiet atmosphere of the Solarium. I was very impressed that they obliged by substituting hand motions for verbal reactions. Not so impressed to see a family completely disregard the same staff member's request for them to remove their small child from the T-pool.

Hope this helps. Sorry that you have to wait a whole year until your cruise!

Did you have full loungers or footstools on the balcony?

 

How was the area of view when sitting out there? We have that cabin booked on the Summit and was wondering if you can see more than the wake when sitting as we will be cruising on the St Lawrence in the Fall

 

thanks.

 

happy crusing

Sorry for the delay in replying to your question, have been covered up with laundry and emails!

We had two of the reclining chairs, one footstool, two small low side tables and one larger table at dining height. No full loungers. We asked our cabin steward if she could bring another footstool and were told that it was "not possible."

As much as we enjoyed having the large balcony that gave us the choice of sun/view or shade/privacy, it did have a bit of a "tunnel vision" feel, unless you were standing at the rail. Better options for viewing scenery would be 1138 or 1141, IMHO, since their rails are at a slant.

Happy Sailing to you too!

Wallysdtr,

I do not remember seeing a waiter named JP, but he certainly might still be there. We usually had John Michael or Miller.

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