Joanandjoe

Really? Can you afford ResidenSea, which does exactly that? I certainly can't. As for the question, it would depend on the city and the cost. A ship berthed in NYC, Paris, London, etc. might be fun. The joke about the new Genesis class of ships is that they'll dock one end in Long Island and the other end in Manhattan, and passengers can commute from one end of the ship to the other.

All of the above, plus the convenience. Both of our last two vacations took place and less than three weeks notice, and it was much easier to book just a plane and a ship than it would have been to make all of the arrangements for a "land trip". The one packing and unpacking aspect is great, and we love the pampering. One thing that no one is mentioned is that we tend to be "Type A" vacationers on a land trip. We can't seem to sit still for more than an hour or so, and beach bumming is out for redheaded Joe. On a cruise, we can relax, without all the frantic activity that we have in a land trip. We carefully avoid excursions that are as tiring as the "six museums, two Broadway shows in a 40 hours" that we did on our last mini-vacation in NYC.

Have fun, everyone. As you can see from our earlier posts, we hope some day to to go on a group cruise with Crazies; but not the Caribbean for us. Chacun a son gout (to each his own taste). Maybe some day there will be a group cruise elsewhere.

With one exception, we've always cruised just as a couple. Somehow we can't get friends or relatives interested in cruising. We did sail once with a membership group - World Ocean and Cruise Line Society - but we hadn't met any members before the cruise.

You really need to give more of an idea of what you like to do before one can recommend excursions. We haven't been to Progresso, but we've been close enough to have been to many of the places covered by ship's excursions. We spent eight days in the Yucatan, exploring the wonderful colonial city of Merida, and the fantastic Maya ruins at Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and several smaller Maya sites. If you're a beach bum, follow the advice of cruiser66. If, on the other hand, you want to do something in Progresso that you can't do on one of the islands, Carnival (I assume that's what you'll be on, based on your signature) offers some truly unique-to-the-area experiences: Dzibilchaltun ruins (with or without a Mexican buffet and horse show). A major Maya site, and quite close to Progresso. Actually, there are at least three excursions to this city: the third is called "Maya ruins and beach break combo". Sort of the best of Maya and beaches. Chichen Itza or Uxmal. Both wonderful, both long days. I would choose Uxmal over Chichen (even though I liked Chichen slightly more) because it is slightly closer to Progresso, and is less overrun with day trippers than Chichen. Uxmal is prettier than Chichen because of the Puuc period architecture; but Chichen is slightly more interesting. BTW, Joan and I are both "Maya freaks" who have been interested in the Maya since elementary school. Yucatan cultural experience. Sounds like a winner. Merida. A beautiful place. At least three excursions to this city: plain, with the horse show and a Mexican buffet, and on a Segway. Caves and caverns snorkeling. If you do want water activites, rather than sightseeing, this sounds more interesting than a beach. Izamal. I'm not familiar with this city, so I can't comment. So there's lots to do, whatever your tastes. From what I've heard, Progresso itself is no great shakes, so you probably want to take an excursion, either private or through the ship. This is one place where you should read a good guide book before you decide on your choice.

Any additional thoughts?

Let's get this feature running again. I'll post for March 3; hopefully someone else will do the next post. Has the falling U.S. dollar had an impact on your cruising, or on your other vacations? We're in a small minority on this board: we love Europe, don't much like the Caribbean. We also go to Canada almost every year. For us, the falling U.S. dollar makes it likely that our fall vacation this year will be a land vacation in the U.S., rather than an Eastern Med cruise or a trip to Canada.

Will we be the only people sailing to Alaska this summer? That seems hard to believe.

We, too, use insure my trip. Generally we end up with CSA insurance, brcause the policy will cover pre-existing medical conditions if the insurance is booked within one day after FINAL payment. Most trip inurance has the pre-exisitng condition waiver only if made within a short time (usually 10 days) after the INITIAL payment. In any event, compare the coverage of the Carnival policy with the coverage in the policies you find using Insure My Trip. Usually the coverage of private policies is more extensive. I might add, however, that $59 may be hard to beat.

It sounds great to me. Now if we can only find an itinerary that fits our vacation time frame, which so far we've been unable to do with Oceania.

At this point in time, we can't think as far ahead as Q4 of this year, and certainly can't think about Q4 2009 yet. Yes, Europe is frightfully expensive; but, for us, it's about 500 percent more interesting than the Caribbean.

If it's to be the Caribbean, count us out. It's just not an area of the world that we enjoy, for reasons stated in my prior post. I guess a heat hating, sun intolerant redhead will have to find a different group cruise.

We're curious as to the number of Crazies sailing to Alaska this year. Please sign in, and we can swap information on ships, shore excursions, cruise tours, etc. The Meeting Hall, of course, lists cruises by date, but it doesn't list the destination of the cruises. We'll be on the Regent Seven Seas Mariner, leaving Vancouver on Tuesday, May 27, the day after Memorial Day. We'll have one pre-cruise night in Vancouver, and four post-cruise nights in Alaska. Based on the cruising habits on this board (mostly RCCL and Carnival, with some X and HAL), we would be pleasantly surprised if any other Crazies will be on our particular cruise; but we expect that there will be lots of Alaska cruisers on other ships.

Another board had a post about how Frontier Airlines had changed the time for one of its flights out of Vancouver, from 1 p.m., which is perfect for cruises arriving that morning, to 11:30 a.m., which is probably not do-able for Frontier, which is not part of the USA Direct program. This can happen to anyone, so it's a good idea to recheck your flights to and from your cruise. That should be done about once a month, more often as you get close. Normally the changes are minor, such as our flight home from Alaska being changed to 16 minutes earlier than the original time. (I checked this morning.) Other changes, such as the Frontier change, may be from possible to impossible. If you know of the change, you can try to take appropriate action. Good luck, Crazies, and keep checking those flights.

I'm amazed that anyone is surprised by having to pay for shore excursions in advance. That's been true for us on every cruise since we began accessing cruise information on the internet: HAL, X, and Windstar. The only exception we've had is Regent, where you don't pay in advance,.

Here is the ultimate cruise review ________________________________________________________ ! Hi: - just got back from a wonderful transatlantic cruise on the Titanic. After seeing a lot of negative comments from those who really don’t belong on a cruise or these boards, and all the whining about 1,500 people who didn’t make it back alive, I felt I needed to set the record straight on what a great cruising experience for those of us who know how to “make lemonade when life gives you lemons†and “not let one or two negative experiences ruin a cruiseâ€. I mean – things happen at sea – if you can’t deal with that then don’t cruise. First off, the entertainment was fabulous!!!! The band continued to play even as the ship slid beneath the waves. A lot of folks on deck were so busy whining and complaining about the lack of lifeboats that they probably didn’t even get a chance to enjoy the music. If only some people would just relax and not expect so much. Besides anyone who came onboard could clearly see there weren’t enough lifeboats so why act surprised when it is obvious that only a third of the passengers can survive? My DH and I chose to be more positive about it and done had done our research prior to the cruise. Those folks in steerage class should have read their cruise contract more closely – they would have that there’s no guarantee about lifeboats. Of course, DH and I were cruising in CC. so we had priority lifeboat tickets. While some people chose not to have a good time on the cruise, we – being far superior to those who expect that their ship will NEVER sink – decided that any cruise is better than none at all, no matter what happens! It was the ultimate “at sea day!!†Thanks to our positive attitude and the ability to “roll with punches†we turned what could have been a negative experience into a positive one. I did notice that the original postings on this cruise were very negative, so let me give you some of the positives so it all balances out: · While sitting in the lifeboats we were treated to a free fireworks display as the Titanic sent up rockets to alert nearby ships that we were sinking! · The blankets on the life boats were soft and fluffy!! · We got an onboard ship credit as soon as the “Abandon Ship†alarm was sounded and were able to get a couple of drinks and play a round of Texas Hold’em before we had to get in our lifeboats! · We have a credit for a future cruise on the Lusitania!! · With the delays in the rescue effort we actually got an additional day at sea – with no additional cost!! Anyway, I hope I’ve set the record straight. A cruise is what you make it. If you go expecting to be fed, expecting to go to the stated ports and destination, expecting that the engines will work, or expecting anything at all you probably won’t have a good time, and probably aren’t good enough to cruise. But if you go with a no expectations and don’t expect any service, you’ll have a much better time. DH and I choose to be happy no matter what happens to us – or to anyone else for that matter. If any of you other survivors out there have any negative comments to make just remember that two people can go on the same cruise and have two different experiences, but the important thing is to ignore any problems and show contempt for your fellow cruisers who go around saying bad things about X. As I always say, “My Celebrity – Right or Wrong!†_____________________________________ This great parody was sent to me and the author is unknown. This is a parody seemed to fit, so well, the many folks who worship Celebrity on a popular cruise board and is not meant to demean, in any way, the Titanic tragedy. It will no doubt hit a little too close to home for some of the “regular†Celebrity posters. If you want a copy, better copy and paste it quick, to your word processor – it won’t be here long!

We had one upgrade, which we found out about when we got our cruise docs. On our first cruise, we booked more than a year in advance, and requested early dinner seating. HAL messed that up, gave us late dinner seating (even though some folks who booked way after us got the early dinner), then upgraded our cabin several categories (I believe from an H to a D). Incidentally, that experience convinced us that we should never get a very cheap cabin or late dinner seating. We walked past our original cabin, and the engine noise was so great that we would have had difficulty sleeping. As for dinner, we ended up filling ourselves with bar food or room service food when we got hungry around 6 p.m., then didn't do justice to our late sitting dinners. We definitely are not night people, and we've never again had a late dinner sitting. We've tried to upgrade at the dock, but the cost has always been too high.

With us, it's time frame first, in view of my limited vacation windows. Then we look at the itineraries that are available on acceptable cruise lines: Regent, Windstar, Oceania, HAL, X, etc. Itineraries may be slightly more important than cruise line, but only slightly. We tend to do a matrix of cruises, including date, length, price, ship, and itinerary, then make our choice. The matrix also includes non-cruise vacations such as car trips, Hawaii and the Grand Canyon. Our currently planned cruise, Alaska on the Regent Seven Seas Mariner, narrowly beat out a HAL cruise tour to Alaska, a "land" trip to Hawaii, a car trip to Williamsburg, and a guided tour that included two days at the Grand Canyon. Most likely our fall vacation will be one of the last three, rather than a cruise.

Today's question: Did something you first did or bought on a cruise become a hobby? (Please keep it clean!) We might have had a few Russian nesting dolls (Metroushkas) before our stop in Sitka on our 1998 Alaska cruise; but the ones Joan bought there became the start of a collection that is in excess of 100.

New question: Have you ever bought anything interesting and worth while from a ship's store? We haven't: just the usual booze, with an occasional other purchase (such as a cheap watch when the strap on Joe's watch broke. The closest to something worth while was a CD recorded and signed by one of the ship's guest performers.

I like to have at least one sea day every few days to chill out. Port days are more interesting, but there's a temptation to do too much. This is supposed to be vacation, after all. So I guess I prefer sea days, as long as there aren't too many of them. There was an unintentionally funny post on the subject of relaxation on the Alaska board of another cruise board. Someone listed several ports, then asked which was the right one to chill out in. The answer from an obviously Type A person: "no such port. In Alaska, there's so much to do that you've got to keep moving all the time." Is that a vacation or a marathon that the poster was describing?

Ours was a wildlife cruise in Valdez, where we saw sea otters, lots of eagles, and some other animals. We also had a closeup of the bay after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Second was the native dance show in Sitka. Does someone have a cruise question for today?

I miss the cruise question of the day feature, so I'm starting it again. This time, I've put a month on it, so the thread doesn't get too long. Today's question, 2/6/08, is: What was your favorite Alaskan cruise experience? I'll put in my two cents after a few replies.

We were on Celebrity, and were docked at Colon. The ship didn't enter the Canal at all, so there was no time for the bus to stop in the rain forest or at shops. If your ship goes to Gatun Lake, the bus ride will be shorter, and there may be time for other things. Our experience with timing was almost the opposite of Rose's. The buses were a bit late, so the ferry had to hustle to get within it's time slot. If we had missed the time slot, we probably would have had a long wait on the ferry, as Rose did.

We've had three Caribbean cruises, which for us is two or three too many. Too hot, too much sun, not enough interesting things for non-gambing non beach goers to do. No interest there. South American cruises only seem to run January through March, which is not a possibility for this CPA. We spent two weeks on a Med. cruise. Given the right price, date, and itinerary, we definitely would consider going again.