SteveH2508

Forgiven - just clarifying for other readers.😀

Interesting maths - it is about $20 per person per day for gratuities on the booze package in the US.

The sauce WAS Marie Rose...

I am in for this auspicious society. 22 years in the Territorial Army (British Army Reserve AKA the Beer Army): 3 drinks is just getting started. In our shooting team, the first three or four drinks were 'warmers into the bank' - the rest were 'shots down the range'.

You may think that, I couldn't possibly comment. DW ( a New Yorker) likes her cocktails, so I start the ball rolling with a cosmopolitan - then we hit the recipe books while dinner is being prepared.

At home, handover is 17:00 hours (leaving espresso martinis out of the reckoning, as they just confuse things) - on holiday - I shall plead the 5th!

Depends whether it is am or pm.

We made our best cruising buddies in the smoking area on Azamara (other smoking areas would work). You see the same people regularly; it is next to the pool bar and smokers are an endangered species so tend to bond in adversity. We still cruise with them, even though we have all quit smoking now.

Sounds very much like he was doing a 'dead bug' (do not ask how I know this...)

Sounds like a representation of a customer of Park West...🤔

I really do not get the paranoia about the ship holding your passport to expedite immigration procedures. Having said that, my previous passport had a problem where Australian immigration stamped my passport and then jammed it back in the drawer with all of the others before the ink was dry. Unfortunately, this left an inky impression over the machine readable part of my US visa. That was a PITA for the next 3 years when going to the US.

I definitely agree that the drinks package needs a re-think. If the restrictions on included drinks was less restrictive, they might get away with the usurious £39.95 pppd price. Currently it is not value and, all other things being equal, it is a deal breaker.

This a direct quote from the CEO's post from the unmentionable place. "Therefore, please allow me to outline what exactly happened and why we regretfully but rightly reached our decision to withdraw these itineraries. In the months of December and January, Ambience was due to undergo a planned independent survey in order to renew its PSSC (Passenger Ship Safety Certificate). The inspection covers hundreds of different safety, technical and operational checks onboard the vessel, which are conducted both at sea and in port across a two-month period. This annual cycle is linked to the anniversary of the ship being built, and is not in any way related to when Ambassador actually started trading. One of the required checks involves the safe and secure lowering of lifeboats. A full and thorough outside inspection, including required overload tests, was performed in March 2022 and the vessel was then furnished with a 5-year overload certificate. Since then, the operation of the lifeboats and tenders has been checked and performed at regular intervals, sometimes every day in case of tender ports, to ensure their readiness in the unlikely event they might have to be deployed during a sailing. However, during an inspection of the lifeboat stations on Sunday 18th December, the Surveyor observed a slight movement of one of the sheaves used for guiding the steel wire ropes that move and hold the lifeboats in position. When checking on this movement further, the inspection brought to light a hairline crack on the bracket holding these sheaves in position, and more of these were found in a similar position on other brackets. While none of these would have interfered in any way with the ship’s safe operation immediately, these cracks could have led to potential issues in the future and needed to be repaired. Therefore, we decided to immediately arrange repairs and not to operate the itineraries. While these cracks are relatively straightforward to repair it needs certain preparations to be able to access the steel structure, including the lowering of all lifeboats and the removal of the steel wires holding them - something best done in a ship repair dock with sufficient access by crane. As such, we had to take the difficult decision to relocate the vessel to the next available and accessible ship repair yard, which is the Lloyd Werft Shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany. Throughout her time in Bremerhaven, the lifeboat-related repairs, as well as additional works on key focus areas, will be carried out in order to ensure the vessel’s fully operational return to Tilbury in readiness for our Cuba and Treasures of the Caribbean itinerary on 5th January. We will continue to update you on our progress."

I am not a lawyer, however if your losses from their breach of contract are foreseeable, (which they almost certainly are) then you should be able to recover them. Your travel insurance may well cover most of this (not the premium however). Definitely ask - don't ask, don't get.

Full refund + 25% discount on a new booking or lift and shift with a 50% discount. The lift and shift would come close to covering an 11 day cruise we have our eye on in March. We think we might wait to see what repairs are made (including the temperature issues), before we decide.

It was quite the catalogue of problems. Firstly, the key cards did not work and all had to be redone. This made accessing the cabin difficult. It slowed down the already glacially slow drinks service as well. There were just not enough waiters and bar staff. The first seating for dinner (in our area at least) was disorganised to say the least. We waited half an hour for a food menu, meanwhile they were trying to take wine orders. The food (when it arrived) was good, though I shall now never know what the beef consommé was like. Once the captain announced the cancellation during our main course, the wait team, to be fair, began to be 'quite free' with the wine pours. After dinner the drinks service was again rather overwhelmed. Temperature control in the cabins is still a problem. The breakfast was prompt but not terribly good. Apparently they are sailing to Germany to get the problem(s?) fixed. They have also cancelled the Christmas cruise to the Canary Islands.

Just got home from it😒.

It is the frequency that is the problem, not the voltage.

There are port guides available through the app or website IIRC. They are basically a list of coffee/gift shops - about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Following your review with interest as my wife and her sister-in-law are on the cruise with you.

Well spotted - it took the assembled company 9 hours to comment😀

A pen allows us to mark our daily program with S for what I want to do and M for what DW wants. Anything marked SM is done together. These app thingies do not seem to allow this.

Be careful what you wish for - there are potentially 357 of the parasites with a snout sniffing around the trough (and that is without a General Election). You really couldn't make this up.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but this (my bold in red) is not always true. We took National Express to Southampton recently and nearly missed our cruise. The coach was 45 minutes late leaving Victoria and then got stuck on the A4 for about an hour (two lanes closed due to preparations for the Queen's funeral the next day). We were an hour and a half late into Southampton. Give yourself plenty of wiggle room with your timings.

Just sharing a great resource, that's all...