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tomculb

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Everything posted by tomculb

  1. Jazzbeau, thanks for your post. Our Scotland cruise had no air included since the entire trip was within the UK. I’m assuming with your previous NC cruises, and traveling from the US (Washington state in our case), you may have both opted in and opted out of the included air to and from London. I’m wondering what your experience may have been in doing that . . . Was included air a cattle car experience or better than that? If you declined air, was the reduction in fare reasonable? Thanks for any thoughts you might have. Also, thanks for pointing out the Travel Post section of the NC website. Somehow I missed that entirely. And finally, your experience with the wine and ice cream sounds so typical of the service we experienced aboard. Their mantra seems to be “Find a way to say ‘yes’ if you possibly can.”
  2. Thanks Jazzbeau. We did the Scottish Island Odyssey cruise and were delighted that's the one we chose. Very possible I'm wrong about the premium wines. We were at the same table with another couple twice, and each time they asked for and got something that wasn't otherwise being served. I assumed they paid for it, but maybe not. Have you done any expedition cruises with NC that you would recommend? Obviously that is the kind of cruise we prefer.
  3. My wife and I just returned from a fantastic 10 day cruise aboard Noble Caledonia’s Island Sky, exploring the northern and western islands of Scotland. Like Host Jazzbeau, we cruised on one of the Australis ships in southern Patagonia, about four years ago, and after that great experience we swore we would never cruise on a large ship again. This was our first cruise since Patagonia, and our first with NC. We can’t wait to cruise with them again. Jazzbeau has written so informatively and extensively about NC’s two ships, I hesitate to try to add anything new, but here are some random thoughts. The expedition leaders (10 of them) were outstanding. Mostly gray-hairs like ourselves, they were all very well educated, physically fit and informative world travelers. They ate and otherwise mingled with the passengers, enthusiastically sharing their experience and knowledge. They were a delight to discover new places with. The shore excursions were varied and well-chosen, with a good mix of history, culture and wildlife, many in places that would be hard to get to other than by ship. How many Scots have ever been to Fair Isle, Papa Westray (locally known as Papay), or St. Kilda? While we were not the only Americans aboard, we were among a small minority, with the vast majority of the passengers being British, most of those English. One Brit kindly informed me that she was Welch, not English, and that we should be sure to include Wales in our future travel plans. Another was from Guernsey, which I guess is neither England nor Wales. A complicated nation that UK is. There were also at least two couples from Australia. I think at least half had cruised with NC before. In any event, all were very friendly, well traveled, very interesting, and great fun to meet and get to know. The age demographic surprised me, as the average age appeared to be at least 70, and only a handful appeared to be under 60. Most were quite fit, making the sometimes tricky transfer between ship and Zodiac raft with ease and unphased by the longer and more hilly walks and hikes. A few needed and got some extra assistance and were told when a particular activity may not be a good idea for them. Both the dining room and the lido deck were open seating, which was very conducive to meeting new friends or reacquainting with almost new ones. There were tables for 2 (dining room only), 4, 6 or 8. Sometimes it was fun to sit at a large unoccupied table and see who chose to dine with us. All very friendly. The lido deck was surprisingly protected from the Scottish weather, and once we discovered how comfortable it was, we ended up eating a majority of our meals there. Thank you heat lamps. As far as I could tell the only extras we could pay for were cocktails, premium wines and laundry. Absolutely everything else was included, including all shore excursions and associated admission fees. Wine and beer flowed freely at lunch and dinner. I’m sure many passengers had nothing extra to pay for when they left the ship. At the end of the trip we were asked to fill out a survey . . . on mine, I refrained from answering any of the questions and simply wrote “Don’t change a thing.”
  4. We are very excited about a cruise we have booked around Scotland this summer on Island Sky, and I have an embarrassingly mundane question. A review of the ship I read said everything is included except laundry, and I'm wondering whether that meant laundry is available for a charge? We'll be spending a couple of weeks exploring shore-side Scotland after the cruise, and it would be nice to have clean clothes for the latter part of our trip. Thanks
  5. If I go to the cruise I'm interested in on the website, I get a long list of what appears to be every instance of that cruise from now to the end of the year. Once I have a date in mind, the only choices are "staterooms", which shows the additional charge for each class of stateroom, or "get a quote", which is the way of messaging AMA with my contact information described above. If that reflects what is available, then no cruise this year is sold out and no stateroom category on any cruise is sold out. That seems pretty unlikely. That's the information I'm looking for.
  6. Unless I'm missing something (it happens), with AMAWaterways the only way to get information about availability on certain cruises (in our case, Douro River this fall), you have to send them a message from the web site in which you consent to they're sending your contact info to certain travel agents, or call them and be told you must endure a wait time of 30 minutes or more. Doesn't seem like a productive way to treat prospective guests who are at the window shopping stage. Can someone tell me I'm missing something?
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