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Gaither Cruises

Old Thorny

By Old Thorny,
in First Time Cruisers

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Old Thorny

Old Thorny

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:)My DW and I are booked on a Gaither Alaskan Cruise this coming July/August. This is on the MS Amsterdam and is organised through Inspiration Cruises. It is a fully chartered cruise and it is booked out.

 

I have put our cruise on the Amsterdam Roll Call board here, but to date there have been no replies.

 

I notice an old thread of folk like us going on their firat Gaither Cruise and asking many questions that we also would love to know the answers to.

 

Even though the Gaither Cruises have been occurring annually for about the last ten years, no one seems to have survived to tell the tale!

 

I imagine that the cruise would be heavenly, but I don't believe that they have all been "raptured" yet!!!:D

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FoghornLeghorn

FoghornLeghorn

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I had the same problem last year when I wanted to find out more about the cruise you are on.....no responses.

 

I didn't book the Alaska one, but have booked the Caribbean one in Feb 2012. I started a roll call here on Cruise Critic and had a couple of responses. I started another one on the Gaither.com message boards and have gotten more response. There is one about your cruise on there also.

 

This will be my first Gaither Cruise, so I'm afraid I'm not much help.

But feel free to read what people have said about the cruises over on the Gaither site. It gives a little bit of information.

 

I will write a review here, after our cruise. I know a lot of people look here for information.

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Old Thorny

Old Thorny

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Thanks, Reba,

 

I took your advice and joined the gang at Gaither.com. Nothing there for our cruise, so I started a group for it. (yet to be approved). Also joined the Aussie/ Kiwi group and the Johnny Cash group.

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Krazy35

Krazy35

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I haven't gone on one of these cruises personally, but my mother and sister went on one a couple years ago (neither of them comes on here). If you have specific questions, I'd be happy to ask Mom and post the answer when I get it.

BTW Both LOVED the cruise and came back with some great pics.

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GORDONCHICK

GORDONCHICK

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I think the issue may be that Cruise Critic members are only about 2% of all cruisers, and there may be none other than yourselves that are booked on the cruise. I would think it would be very very common for charters - to not have many CC members.

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Old Thorny

Old Thorny

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I haven't gone on one of these cruises personally, but my mother and sister went on one a couple years ago (neither of them comes on here). If you have specific questions, I'd be happy to ask Mom and post the answer when I get it.

BTW Both LOVED the cruise and came back with some great pics.

 

Thanks Krazy,

 

I'm interested to know how many concerts there are and when are they held?

How easy is it to meet the artist?

Also I'm reluctant to book any shore excursion now in case of bad weather. I heard that with the last Gaither Alaskan Cruise they had to cancel two port calls.

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Krazy35

Krazy35

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Below is the answer I got from my sister when I forwarded your questions:

 

We always had two concerts a day while the ship was moving. There was one in the afternoon and was usually just a few of the people scheduled on the trip. The other concert is at night. We could schedule our supper at either 5 or 6pm (or maybe it was 6 or 7, I don't remember). Anyway, the nightly concert was for the time you weren't at supper. Since we ate at the early meal, we went to the concert afterward. If you ate at the late meal, you went before. The nightly concerts were all of the people scheduled on the trip (unless they were seasick LOL! and that did happen a couple of nights). Most of the artists mixed and mingled around the ship and they also held autograph sessions. When we went ashore, we got to talk to some of them in the ports. For example, the first stop we went to the salmon bake and the Easters and a few others were there. I think we talked to some of them every place we stopped. The longest I talked to any of them was actually at the Vancouver airport on the way home. Mark Lowry was sitting waiting for his plane and me and Mom talked to him for about 15-20 minutes. I also talked to Bill Gaither at a refreshment stand because I was in line in front of him. I think I got a chance to talk to everyone who was there, but I didn't talk for long because I figured other people wanted to talk to them also.

 

We had that happen with the excursions at one port (can't remember which one). They said we were going to an alternate port of call so they cancelled our excursion, but the ship ended up going there so me and Mom just saw the sites around town. Unless they've changed things, if you schedule an excursion and then they cancel that port of call, they refund the entire price for the excursion. They let us know far enough ahead and I went to one one of the desks (I guess the purser) and they refunded my money and I could schedule an excursion for the alternate port (which as I said wasn't necessary because we went to the other one anyway).

 

I hope that helps. Be sure to tell her to take raingear and wear shoes she doesn't care if they get wet when they go into port. Even though it rained everyday and was chilly, we had a blast. Oh yeah ... chilly means wear a sweater and middle weight jacket or if no sweater, maybe a winter weight coat. You don't need a parka and eskimo boots, but something like for late fall early winter.

 

Let me know if she has any other questions. Oh yeah ... one more thing. If she hasn't already, she might want to ask if she needs a passport now. We didn't, but I heard rumors you now need one to go into Canada.

Hope that helps.

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  • 2 months later...
FoghornLeghorn

FoghornLeghorn

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Thorny! so glad you're home and did a review.

It's the first review I've ever seen about the Gospel Charter on CC.

Thanks so much. Great review.

 

Here's the link to your review:

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=87818

 

Once we get back from the Feb/March Gaither Gospel Cruise I plan on writing a review also.

 

Thanks again!

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