Joanandjoe

My guess is that they're leaving tomorrow. Have a great trip, K & R!

Have a great cruise. I guess we'll be cruising at the same time.

Thanks, all. Happy wipeout. Right now we're both so tired it will be hard going back upstairs from the computer room.

Wind Surf (300 PAX motorized sailboat), Barbados to Barbados, 12/2/07. We'll go down to Barbados in 9 days, on the first. Thanks.

Things get kind of frantic when, for the second time this year, you book a cruise less than three weeks before you leave for the trip. Particularly when both Thanksgiving and Joan's birthday fall in between booking and departure. What a hectic time! Even more so if you'll be away for Chanukah, so that you want to celebrate Chanukah before you leave. So: Granted vacation time on Friday, 11/9 Booked the cruise Monday, 11/12 Booked hotel, 2 ship's excursions, and two private excursions between 11/12 and 11/21. Picked up docs yesterday, 11/21. Became SDM's today, 11/22. (We leave for the cruise on Saturday, 12/1). Picked up our younger son at the group home, then met our older son to celebrate Thanksgiving at lunch. We'll pretend that tonight is the first night of Chanukah, tomorrow night the second night, and Saturday night the third night. We'll celebrate Joan's birthday on Saturday. On Sunday, we'll take our younger son back to the group home, then we'll start to pack. Or panic. Or both Today we're doing the SDM birthday Chanukah turkey doc dance. Whew!

We don't normally bring wine onto the ship at the beginning of the cruise, although we've done so a few times when we drove to the ship. Very often, though, we've bought wine at ports, and brought it onto the ship. Once or twice, we've bought stronger stuff in port, and never been stopped. We always bring high spirits when we begin a cruise. Since we've never been on a haunted ship, we haven't brought that type of spirits with us. Wooooooo.

I'm surprised that ship and cruise line aren't among the choices. Both of those trump anything there. Of the choices, I chose itinerary.

Bear in Bar A bear walks into a bar in Billings, Montana. He bangs on the bar with his paw and demands a beer. The bartender approaches and says, 'We don't serve beer to bears in bars in Billings.' The bear, becoming angry, demands again that he be served a beer. The bartender tells him again, more forcefully, 'We don't serve beer to belligerent bears in bars in Billings.' The bear, very angry now, says, 'If you don't serve me a beer, I'm going to eat that lady sitting at the end of the bar.' The bartender says, 'Sorry, we don't serve beer to belligerent, bully bears in bars in Billings.' The bear goes to the end of the bar and, as promised, eats the woman. He comes back to his seat and again demands a beer. The bartender states, 'Sorry, we don't serve beer to belligerent, bully bears in bars in Billings who are on drugs.' The bear says, 'I'm NOT on drugs.' ...........You're gonna love this........ The bartender says, 'You are now. That was a barbitchyouate.'

It depends on what you like. There's so much to see in Puerto Rico other than San Juan: El Yunque, golf courses, the telescope at Arecibo, the mountains, Viequez and Culebra, Ponce and the west coast, Luquillo Beach, etc. Why not research what you like, and stay in Puerto Rico?

Our first cruise, to Alaska on the old Noordam in 1998, was wonderful, and is cherished because it was our firt cruise; but we've had even better. As with Joey and Mercedes, a Med. cruise is one of two cruises tied for first. Two weeks on the Wind Surf, November 2004, Nice to Barcelona and Barcelona to Lisbon. The other: Canada-New England, jazz cruise, Regent Seven Seas Navigator, September, 2005. Absolutely impossible to compare two such different cruises. How much did we like them? We have two cruises currently booked, on the Wind Surf and on a different Regent ship.

Don't be concerned. Different people like different things; and, anyway, Joey still had a good time.

No, not too old. We've been on HAL 3 times, and on its former sister line, Windstar, twice. You should be aware, however, that this board has mostly Carnival ands Royal Caribbean fans, with a good mix of Princess and Celebrity. Only a few of us cruise on HAL, but we make up in enthusiasm what we lack in numbers. Welcome to this crazy board.

As indicated in our other thread, we signed up today for a cruise to Dominica, Bequia and Mayreau (Grenadines), Pigeon Island (St. Lucia), Grenada, and Tobago, leaving 19 days from now. Not much time for planning. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what do do? In Dominica, we'll probably be taking another tour with Fredos; but we're clueless as to the other islands.

The only one of those ports I've been to is Gibraltar, and that was in 1966. Too long ago to be helpful. Why not look into temperature and precipitation averages for December in weather.com? What ship will you be on? Regent does that itinerary, but there are probably others.

My office did it again: For the second time this year, I was granted vacation time with the proviso that I take it almost immediately. In April, we were on a plane to our cruise in Amsterdam 18 days after I was told I could go on vacation. This time, I have 22 days from granting of vacation time to getting on the plane. Talk about last minute planning! We've booked the Wind Surf for a Barbados to Barbados cruise that begins on Sunday, 12/2, and we'll fly in the previous day. We've had a lot of posts about how we'll never cruise again in the Caribbean; but we got a good deal, and--as you can see from our avatar--we love the Wind Surf. Even a non sun worshiper couldn't resist the idea of being under sail, with the ship's motor turned off, in tropical seas. Most of the ports are pretty obscure. We know what do do in Dominica and Barbados, where we were last year; but the other ports are unknown to us, and (other than Grenada) to people who have only been on big ships. Intinerary: Barbados, Bequia, Dominica, Pigeon Island (St. Lucia), Mayreau, Grenada, Tobago, Barbados. What a whirlwind of planning went into booking a cruise three days after being granted vacation time!

Done! Thanks for the crossed fingers. Joe

A week ago, I would have said the Regent Seven Seas Navigator, with the Wind Surf a close second. Maybe I should flip them, since today we're trying to book a 12/2/07 cruise on the Wind Surf. (We'll know later today whether we've been successful.) Both are lovely small ships with under 500 PAX, and very different from each other. How do you compare a luxury ship with a sailing yacht? I like The Skipper's response. We have tried Regent and loved it, and hope to sail on Silversea some day. I'm not sure eaither of our choices meet his "real world" definition.

British Isles and Norwegian Fjords. Each cruise line offers only one or two of these, at most, in any year.

I'm not a chicken parm fan; but I bet you could get it on request on any of the cruise lines on which I've sailed: HAL, X, Regent, or Windstar. It was definitely served on Italian Steakhouse night in the alternative restaurant on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator; but I didn't have any.

I go to this board and the critical board almost every day. Since Regent is my favorite cruise line, I go to Luxury Cruise Talk two or three times a week. If, as expected, I drop my schedulked trip on Regent, I'll cut bhack to two boards.

We travel whenever we can do so, which in most years means May or June, and November. This year my office has not allowed a vacation at either time: maybe next year will be better.

All of the above. The feeling of being pampered is hard to beat. There's one problem with the idea of "if we like a port on a cruise, we'll go back on a land trip". After 10 cruises, we haven't yet had a land vacation at a single port we've visited, and we've visited some beauties: Nice, Barcelona, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Mallorca, Bermuda, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Cozumel, various Caribbean islands and Alaska ports, Vancouver, etc. Nice theory about land trips, and maybe one day it will actually happen.

Look for the two for ones. Regent has four ships: the Seven Seas Navigator, Voyager, and Mariner; and the Paul Gauguin. The PG, which is leased, has smaller rooms (many without a balcony) than the three ships owned by the line; but, then, you're cruising in French Polynesia. The 490 PAX Navigator, which has 36 window suites without balcony and 209 suites with a balcony, is the only ship of the 3 owned ships that has non-balcony rooms. The Mariner and Voyager, each of which have about 700 PAX, are all balcony suite ships. The best values, other than the PG, are for Caribbean and Transatlantic cruises. Although it's shown poorly on the web site, the last cruise before a Transatlantic, paired with the Transatlantic, will give you very good value. See http://www.rssc.com/specials/detail.jsp?offerId=1542634 for 15 to 17 day B2B's for around $5,000 - even less if you sneak in a short cruise first, so that you qualify for past cruiser discounts. How about 3 nights, 12/14, Ft. Lauderdale roundtrip, for $998? Most of the Caribbean trips are two for one. Let's hope that the acquisition of Regent by Apollo Management, the owner of Oceania and 50% owner of NCL, will not change the quality of service.

Service is partly a matter of the standard set by the cruise line, partly luck of the draw. The worst service we ever had for our stateroom was from a clueless stewardess for our Concierge Class stateroom on (of all lines) X. No matter what we requested, you could be sure that the gal on the Zenith would mess it up. Between that, rough seas (including not being able to sail into St. George's), and a room where the ladder for the unused upper berth rattled all day and night for the entire seven days of our Bermuda cruise, our worst cruise ever was on X. However, as stated many times on these boards, a bad day on a cruise ship is better than a good day at the office. We haven't tried Princess yet. Except for the former Renaissance ships, all Princess ships are too big for us. Too bad: their Alaska itineraries and cruise tours sound better than HAL's or Regent's; but the ships are huge and we like small ships. The best service we ever had was on Regent, with Windstar a close second. Our three cruises on HAL had pretty good service, too; in fact, the one time we were in a suite, the Concierge ladies in the Neptune Lounge equalled or bettered service we had on Regent and Windstar.

Captain's party - yes Art auctions - either no, or just to cadge some champagne. Never to bid. Pictures - not if we can avoid it. They never get both of us looking good at the same time.