Just back from Wind Surf June 30 (Venice to Athens)

For anyone about to sail on Windstar, we wanted t report that the service on the Wind Surf was FANTASTIC. The refurbishments done to the ships by Windstar have definitely helped keep these beautiful ships worthy of having the highest repeater passenger percentage in the cruise industry.

We loved every minute of our 11 day cruise. The itinerary was terrific and the staff and crew couldn't have been more accommodating. We had Suite 329 and enjoyed the extra bathroom and space to spread out.

Bill and Larry

Thanks for the report. We are sailing on Windsurf Aug. 3, 11 days Venice to Rome & are so pleased to hear that you loved your cruise. There've been a few negative Windstar items lately & I was getting nervous. You've restored my sense of anticipation!

Glad to hear you enjoyed this suite! We will in the same suite cruising Rome to Malta in September. Cheers, Julie

Julie,

We are going on the Sept 27th Rome to Malta cruise. Is that the one you are going on? I haven't seen any other people going on that cruise so far. It is only our second cruise. We did a Crystal cruise to Scandinavia/Russia last year and while it was lovely, we like touring independently. We thought this was a great itinerary and thought we might like the "casual elegance" thing plus the smaller cruise ship.

Beverly

Yes Beverly-we will be sailing on Sept 25 Rome to Malta. This will be our second time on Windsurf-we sailed Nice to Rome several years ago. We also cruised Windstar in Tahiti. Last year we took the Diamond from Venice to Istanbul and had a wonderful time. We were booked on Diamond again but they sold the ship so we switched to this cruise. Feel free to email me directly if you would like:

jbschwarz@comcast.net.

Julie

Julie,

We are on the Aug. 21 Wind Surf from Nice to Rome. Any tips you can give us on the ports you particularly enjoyed--especially the smaller ports??

Judy

Judy,

We're on the same cruise as yourself out of Nice on the 21st. My wife and I (early 30's) are food addicts and love our wine as well. Looking forward to touching base with some people before we set sail. Drop me an email if you want to trade some info before departure. (ssgarman@mac.com)

Steve and Tiffini

Hope this info is not arriving too late for your cruise-i just checked and see that your cruise is a different itinerary than ours. You will not be going to Porto Venere(and thus the Cinque Terre), nor will you be going to Elba. In Monte Carlo we walked up to the old city, strolled around and went back to see the casino at night(pretty unexciting). St Tropez is lovely. You can walk from the port(just go right along the road)to the Bouillabase REstaurant which also sits on a nice beach-we paid to rent some chairs, relaxed on the beach and had a lovely lunch. Our cruise was later and after the busy summer season so you might prefer to take a ship's excursion instead. Corsica's Port (porto Vecchio) is pretty much in the middle of nowhere so here you may also want to sign up for which ever excursion appeals. We managed(with great difficulty) to find a taxi to take us out to the lovely beach and he promised to come back and pick us up later. We were very frustrated that windstar did not offer a shuttle service to the beach. My husband had signed up for a diving excursion that morning so we had not signed up for any tours.

Our cruise did not go to Livorno -

Portofino is so beautiful. if you choose not to sign up for an excursion there, just take the tender over at your leisure and wander around. we met a couple on our cruise that made a reservation in advance to have lunch at the hotel splendido(absolutely gorgeous setting)and had a wonderful time. the hotel provides transportation up the hill. I see that you are offered an excursion up there so you may want to select that option, the wine tasting in portofino or the walking tour(we did not have those options). on our portofino day we also chose to make use of the watersports platform and took a nice sail around before leaving port.

Have an awesome cruise!!!! Julie

We're taking our 30th anniversary cruise and hope to meet you on board. Sure do love that part of the world. Any excursions/self tours anybody is planning?