Any cultural enrichment programming onboard for Mediterranean cruises?

[conquesodor]

When I did an Alaska cruise on the Millennium back in 2008, there was a naturalist onboard who gave presentations on the wildlife, geology, and other aspects of Alaska's natural history. It was a very nice touch. However, in the Caribbean, the only information that X offers passengers about ports of call is where to shop and what shore excursions they'd be happy to sell you.

 

Considering the rich cultural history of the Mediterranean, I'm hoping that X offers some sort of enrichment programming onboard for those sailings.

Can anyone here comment whether or not they have experienced this?

[JADS64]

We travelled on the Equinox (Barcelona to Athens) in July this past summer. I was really looking forward to some lectures (like those given by Milos, on an Alaskan cruise). Unfortunately there were none. I had asked our cruise director, Alejandro at our Cruise Critic Connections party and he said that they had tried it in the past but nobody had attended because these cruises were so port intensive. Not sure about other ships, and other itineraries.

[conquesodor]

Thank you for sharing your experience. It's a shame that poor attendance is the reason they no longer offer it. If my memory is correct, I can recall natural history talks during the sailing of the inside passage, visit to Hubbard Glacier, and one other time we were at sea, which I imagine is quite different from a Med cruise. However, I would happily elect to go to a cultural enrichment style talk in the evening, rather than attend any of the theater productions - but I'm probably the rare weirdo that feels that way. :D

[JADS64]

I would agree that I prefer an education session to one of the theatrical performances. But I must say on our Mediterranean cruise, we were pretty exhausted each day and didn't really do much in the evenings!

[Azulann]

I have been on four Med cruises of 10, 11, 12 and 14 days. Each cruise had enirchment speakers that were very good. they were held on sea days.

This past summer, on a 14 day Iberian Pennisula crusie,w e had a speaker who gave two talks about the Basque history to present. It was fansicnating. We had probably over 90 peole inthe theater for each presentation. I have attended ones on old world maps of Europe, Greek archeology, history of the Minoans, and the Med sea itself.

If you have some sea days I think you will have some enrichment speakers.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Azulann

[conquesodor]

I'll have two sea days on the Constellation, beginning May 2, 2017. Hopefully, we'll have some informative talks!

[sanger727]

There are definitely informational programs on the Mediterranean Cruises, or at least on the one we did a few years ago on the Reflection. However, I don't recall specifically what they were about, if they were cultural or historical in nature or every purely about the area. We spoke with one of the lecturers and he said that they rotate though different people on each sailing (basically offering them a free cruise in exchange for a certain number of lectures), so think the content is very dependent on who they can get on each sailing.

[north29]

I would agree that I prefer an education session to one of the theatrical performances. But I must say on our Mediterranean cruise, we were pretty exhausted each day and didn't really do much in the evenings!

 

Just off a RC eastern med cruise, I think it was 9 ports in 11 days, not much time for cultural education classes. But what a GREAT cruise.