Stuart&John

Anyone else joining my husband and I in Bermuda on the Insignia in August? 
After more than 30 cruises, this is our first time on Oceania, and we are very excited.

Smooth sailing,
Stuart (and John)

I am sure that will be possible, at some point! There's always time for a cocktail, after all.

Am looking forward to this trip, though I am still feeling that they may change St. Martin and/or St. Thomas on us. Won't know until we know, I guess.

Happy holidays, and smooth travels to the ship. And on board.

Stuart

Any other LGBT family on this sailing? Depending on how you booked it, it's either an 11 Night (that's us), or a 21 Night (Many others). And as of today, our itinerary remains the same as when we booked it.

We are traveling with another gay couple, but they are not Cruise Critic members.

Say hello.

Stuart and John

I booked a retreat cabana through ships services for the duration of my upcoming 10 day cruise on ms Koningsdam. It was $499USD. I requested one of the non-side and non adjacent-to-family cabanas and they told me I am getting cabana 11. This was all arranged by phone about 10 days ago.

Yes, unfortunately for us, 10 nights is the price break. Lucky us, we're on an 11-nighter. :rolleyes:

Celebrity's SS Meridian, Summer 1992, Bermuda, Roundtrip out of NYC.

Hooked us for life....

Just an FYI, we recently booked a retreat on the Koningsdam (to offset our inside cabin), and prices have gone up. For our January 2018, 11-night sailing, a retreat is $599 (up from $499 for 2016 and 2017).

PS: We know that the retreat cabanas are smaller and that they don't have a table or chairs, but we also know that our inside cabin is *also* smaller and doesn't have a table or a chair. :)

Stuart & John - my DH and I will also be sailing on the Nieuw Amsterdam in two days! Maybe we will see you at the meet & greet.

Yup! we're planning on being there. Checked in for our flight tomorrow online already!

I have never done it, as we act as outside agents for our PCC. But we are leaving on the Nieuw Amsterdam this Friday, and recently came across a Veendam itinerary for next January that we are thinking about. So your question comes at a good time. We are thinking we might bite the bullet and visit the on board cruise consultant next week.

Yes, there is usually a reduced deposit. Occasionally, I think you can score better OBC. I am not sure that upgrades are usually part of it, at least not ones that are already out there (such as an upgrade from an oceanview to a verandah).

I will let you know what we find out!

Fewer than 60 days to go.... Figured a bump would not be out of order.

Still wondering if there are any LGBT cruisers on this sailing...

We've been booked on this for a while... Just wondering if there are any other LGBT cruisers on this sailing.

Stuart and John

Greetings, signori. We are Stuart and John and we are also on the Divina on January 11.

From what I can tell, you are relatively new to CruiseCritic. There are regular roll calls for each sailing for each ship at sea, but at the G&L Cruisers page, the roll call is within the umbrella of the page. Therefore you may have missed the G&L Roll Call I had started a while ago for this cruise:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2198638&highlight=divina

Be that as it may, you two and the two of us are the only LGBT people that seem to be on the ship... though I am sure we will find others once we are on board. Not everyone is a Cruise Critic member, after all.

Hard to think that the cruise is only ONE MONTH FROM TODAY!

Stuart and John

In January, I will be taking my first MSC cruise, on the Divina. We sail out of Miami, of course, but we are flying into Ft. Lauderdale the day before, and driving down the morning of the cruise. I have a couple of questions about our plans:

1) I have been led to believe that there is no direct drop off at the pier. Does that mean that we have to drop off the car at the MIA airport and grab some sort of shuttle to the pier?

2) My experience with other lines is that they often offer excursions on the day of disembarkation that are airport transfers in disguise. And that for ships docking in Ft. Lauderdale, there will be versions of said excursion that get you to FLL, and versions that will get you to MIA. Does anyone know if MSC offers the same sort of excursions, or do I have to book the plain old, standard transfers?

(I have already looked at the excursions being offered for our itinerary, but the stop at our last port, and don't include Miami.)

Any light that anyone can shed on these subjects would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

S&J

Are we really the only Friends of Dorothy on this sailing? Really?

Well, those look comfy! Thanks, Pete.

My partner and I are currently booked on the MSC Divina on January 11, '16. As you can see from our signature, this will be our first time on MSC, and -- given what we have read on Cruise Critic -- we are a little trepidatious, but also looking forward to trying a different cruise line. We are also a little nervous about the cabin we have booked (9085) which seems to have a huge balcony, but all the pictures we have seen of the balcony make it seem as if it is even shadier than we have imagined (we realize that the deeper part of the balcony would be shady, but would like to have *some* sun, closer to the railing.) We have also been told that this cabin does not have a couch in its seating area, but that it does still have a seating area... we are wondering what it might include instead of a couch.

Any insights?

Stuart and John

My partner and I are currently booked on the MSC Divina on January 11, '16. As you can see from our signature, this will be our first time on MSC, and -- given what we have read on Cruise Critic -- we are a little trepidatious, but also looking forward to trying a different cruise line. We are also a little nervous about the cabin we have booked (9085) which seems to have a bitching balcony, but all the pictures we have seen of the balcony make it seem as if it is even shadier than we have imagined (we realize that the deeper part of the balcony would be shady, but would like to have *some* sun, closer to the railing.) We have also been told that this cabin does not have a couch in its seating area, but that it does still have a seating area... we are wondering what it might include instead of a couch.

Any insights?

Stuart and John

Here is an image of what to expect from your balcony

It does of course only have a 90 degree field of view backwards along the ship

 

 

Pete

Thank you!

Pete,

You are a wealth of information on MSC Cabins, thank you so much for sharing your information with first time MSC cruisers like myself. We are booked on the Divina in January in Cabin 9085. From deck plans, it looks to be a huge balcony. Any other info or pictures from the expert.

Thanks in advance

My partner and I tentatively booked the Divina for January 11, 2016, but have been slightly apprehensive. We are (OK, I am) not fans of megaships, and we like the somewhat elegant laid back surroundings of HAL. But no one seems to have an itinerary that interested us for next January, except MSC.

We have have read the reviews, and some things intrigue us, and some things scare us. But the price seemed right, and we have a bitching balcony, to boot.

Your review, and one from Cruiseguys2009, has made us feel a bit better about the ship, the line, and sailing as a gay couple on a line with which we are

not familiar.

So, we will take a gamble, I think.

Thanks!

Bumping this roll call for the Maasdam, 02 Jan '15.

Hmmmm.... what makes you think that it was YOUR Maasdam sailling that was so magical? ;) (Okay, it was indeed that sailing...)

Methinks we won't be running into you boys again until we can start taking longer cruises... And am not sure what we are all going to do now that HAL (the line) has started selling off its smaller ships.

Glad to see you are still sailing the seven seas with so much frequency. Do let us know when you make it up to Macedon (was it Macedon? Palmyra? North Rose? Wolcott?) next.

Best,

S&J

So, the other night, we switched from the Equinox (also leaving on January 2) to the Maasdam. We always thought that the Maasdam had the better itinerary, but the price drop helped seal the deal.

It will be our third time on the Maasdam, which was the site of one of our favorite cruises ever, a few years back. It was a nice itin, but the people on that sailing made it pretty magical.

Looking forward to finding out if there are any other LGBT's/FOD's on this sailing.

Stuart and John

Sorry folks.... we cancelled the Equinox this evening and booked the Maasdam, which leaves on the same day. Better itinerary, in our opinion, and a price drop at HAL helped make the decision.

We booked this sailing a few weeks ago, after hemming and hawing between this and the Maasdam. Just getting around to posting here on the roll call. We have been HAL cruisers pretty exclusively for a while, and are looking forward to coming back to Celebrity after nearly 10 years away.

Stuart and John

We recently sailed on the Westerdam and agree with how others have stated cut backs are happening all over the cruise industry and HAL is, unfortunately, no exception. Being three star mariners and just completed our 26th cruise(with HAL as well as Princess, RCCL, Cunard and Celebrity), we are firm believers that there is no better vacation than a cruise.

We found the service on our January 11th cruise to be less than stellar and were frankly disappointed with the service in the dining room. We like HAL because -- although their ships do not offer any of the extras that other cruise lines offer in terms of amenities and activities -- their product is classic cruising with service that always seems a notch above the rest. Unfortunately, this was not the case on this past cruise and we let it be known on our survey that the service was not what we expect or anticipate when we set foot on any HAL ship.

Let me say that they do read the surveys and take customer feedback very seriously. This week we received a letter from the Office of the President letting us know they were sorry for the service problems we encountered and that they were sorry it did not meet our expectations. In all the years of cruising, and on every survey we have done, we have never heard back from any cruise line after our cruise. I cannot begin to tell you how impressed we were with this follow up and it did make us feel that HAL cares about their guests. HAL earned a big star for the follow up!