Joanandjoe

Asking for, and getting, crab benedict (eggs benedict with crab instead of meat) from room service breakfast on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator. Second place goes to the wonderful breakfasts in the Pinnacle Grill on the Noordam - almost worth booking a suite to get the breakfasts. Yes, our most memorable meals were breakfasts! As an aside, the Pinnacle Grill breakfast may be in second place overall, but the Pinnacle Grill dinner wouldn't make our top ten. We're simply not steak house fans. As noted below, our meal in the restaurant that the Pinnacle Grill replaced does make the list. Most memorable lunches: buffets on the Wind Surf, especially the seafood salads--a different one each day. Most memorable dinner: tie between the Italian dinner in the Odyssey room on the Rotterdam, before they converted the rooms into the Pinnacle Grill; and the Italian dinner in Portofino on the Seven Seas Mariner. The singing waiters made the Portofino meal more fun, but the food was better in the Odyssey. (Why, oh why, did they replace it was a boring steak house?) Third place: the seafood barbecue on the Wind Surf.

Assuming that there's nothing noisy above or underneath, we try to be near the middle of the ship: it's more stable. Also, we try to be on a deck that has passenger cabins, rather than public spaces, on the decks above and below that deck. Ideally, we would be low in the ship; but balcony cabins and suites tend to be high up. Noise, comfort, and ship stability are major factors in choosing a location. We study the deck plans very, very carefully. On the cruise for which we are signed up but unlikely to take (Regent, Alaska, 5/27/08), we selected a specific stateroom, rather than a guarantee, because we didn't want to get stuck in a bad area. That gave us a one categary upgrade; but we might have had a bigger upgrade, or none at all, if we had been willing to let the line assign a stateroom.

As usual, we have a minority view, and voted no. My vacation time is limited, and it's tough to get away at all. Our last trip was planned on 19 days' notice, and I doubt we'll have that much notice this fall, assuming we're able to take a vacation. I'm not going to waste a precious vacation on something (whether a cruise or a land trip) that I've disliked in the past, even on a freebie. However, the question is academic: we never win anything; and of the cruise lines that we've taken that are still in existence (in order of preference, Regent, Windstar, HAL, Avalon, and Celebrity), we can't say that we've really disliked any. Thus, we'd even take Celebrity, which comes in fifth of the five lines we've tried.

Agreed. The fact that all outside rooms on HAL have bathtubs, while only suites have bathtubs on Celebrity, is a major reason why we prefer HAL to X. Larger rooms are also important. Most of all, we'd like better soundproofing, especially if someone can find a way to soundproof doors so the night owls don't keep the earlybirds awake at night, and the earlybirds don't wake up the night owls in the morning. Joan would like to have hair driers that actually dry hair. I'd like DVD players, with free access to DVDs in all rooms. I would not like a huge TV: it would dominate the room too much. Most of all, I'd like to have the noisiest parts of the ship, especially the show lounge, isolated from the staterooms, so you wouldn't have to be super cautious in choosing a cabin. On the question of soap dispensers instead of soap, we've never cruised on a line that has soap dispensers, either by the sink or in the shower or bathtub. I'd rather have larger bars of soap than have dispensers.

As long as the ship isn't rocking and rolling (we've had that on two cruises), rainy days at sea are great. Sleep later than usual (that means 8 a.m. or so for us, instead of 7), have a dining room breakfast instead of a buffet, browse the internet, read, find activities such as trivia, use the spa pool (well worth the money on HAL), and just veg out. For two people who used to be type A even on vacation, a rainy day is a great opportunity to do very very little. That's the height of luxury for us! If the sea is very rough, no one will be doing much of anything.

Welcome back, Joey. I think that people responding to this thread need to separate their personal situation from what they think the general situation will be. Personal situation: Since we've decided that we don't like Caribbean cruises (not surprising for a heat hating redhead), the places we do like have gotten prohibitively expensive. We've booked an Alaska cruise for next year, but we haven't even done a post for it. The price is so high, and my vacation situation is so uncertain, that we won't post until we feel there's at least a 50 percent chance that we'll actually take the cruise (Regent Seven Seas Mariner, 8 day Alaska cruise, 5/27/08). Right now, I'd place our chances of going in the 10 to 20 percent range. Even if I can be certain that the date is OK, we're still more likely to take a land trip than go on the cruise. The cost of a decent cabin to some place other than winter hot spots has gotten to be more than we want to pay. General situation. I agree that, despite my comment on our personal situation, low end cruising is likely to be affected more than high end cruising. If money is tight, at least some people will cut back expenses. 30 percent cut? Unlikely. However, flat demand, in a time when capacity is being increased sharply, could cause a drop in prices. It would not surprise me if average revenue per passenger drops a bit (perhaps 5 to 10 percent), with some ships having difficulty selling out. In particular, since so many people (but not us) want the newest and biggest ships, the older, medium sized ships are the ones most likely to suffer. Joe

Thanks to all of you for your insights. We have had some terrible bus trips and I MUST ask: ARE THERE BATHROOMS ON THE BUSES? We went all through the Med. area on buses with NO BATHROOMS. Past 50, the bus with no bathroom is as bad as the PUB WITH NO BEER. Are the buses comfortable for short people? Many thanks again for your insights, especially the offer of a tour of Vancouver. Thanks again, Joan

We're trying to plan for an Alaska trip next year. From our perspective, the cruise line should be HAL, Princess, or something more upscale than either. We will not consider a ship with more than 2,000 PAX: ships such as the Coral Princess and Island Princess, with about 1,950 PAX, are much bigger than what we like, but maybe we can tolerate that size. That gives us four choices: 14 days Vancouver round trip on the 690 PAX Tahitian Princess; cruise only on the 700 PAX, all balcony Regent Seven Seas Mariner; and cruise tours on Holland America or Princess that include a seven day Alaska to Vancouver (south bound) or Vancouver to Alaska (north bound) itinerary. We don't need any help with Regent (our favorite line, but at the high end of our price scale) or the Tahitian Princess; but we could use your help on the HAL and Princess cruise tours. Any thoughts and experiences that you share would be appreciated. However, if you've taken other lines, you still may have thoughts on some of the items, such as the trip between the ship and Denali, or whether it's worth while to go to Kenai. In particular: 1) Which is better, starting with the tour, then taking a south bound cruise; or starting with the north bound cruise, then taking the tour? Our TA suggests the first alternative, saying that the cruise gives you a change to relax after an exhausting tour. 2) How bad is the trip between the Alaska pier and Denali? It looks like about a 7 or eight hour bus trip, which sounds pretty awful. 3) How are the hotels? For Denali-Fairbanks itineraries, I can't figure out what the HAL hotels are. For Princess, Trip Advisor contributors seem to love the McKinley Princess Hotel, hate the Denali Wilderness Princess, and are so-so about the Princess hotel in Fairbanks. You may have different views. 4) Should we consider something other than Fairbanks and Denali, such as Kenai? (If you're wondering why we don't have Celebrity on our list, we want to see Glacier National Park, which we didn't see on our 1998 Alaska cruise and to which X does not go. Regent is on our list, despite not going to Glacier, because the Regent experience is so fantastic.) We must have a few Crazies who have taken an Alaska cruise tour.

Where are you from, Longboysfan? With that handle, we assumed you were from Texas; but apparently you're from the NYC area. Although Port Liberty is convenient (although further from us than the Manhattan piers), and parking is much cheaper than in NYC, we still prefer Manhattan because you miss too much of the view when you start in Bayonne rather than the West Side. Joanandjoe from Teaneck, NJ.

I've just bumped up Sailing Rose's Panama canal thread, since there's no point in giving the same information twice.

Bumped, because there is a new question on the Panama Canal.

If we had unlimited vaction time, we'd take the longest cruise we could find. We've had a 14 (really, 2 B2B 7's), an 11, a 10, an 8, and several 7s. It takes us several days to get completely relaxed, so 7 days is really too short, and we wouldn't consider anything shorter. Given my limited vacation, 10-11 days works best; but that length is hard to find.

I think you need to divide favorite port into two parts: home port, and port other than home port. We've embarked at Port of New York (both Manahattan and Bayonne), Montreal, Tampa, Vancouver, Amsterdam, Nice, and Barcelona. Of the North American ports, New York is our favorite. There's nothing quite like rolling past Manhattan, past the Statue of Liberty, and then under the Verazzano Brideg. Breathtaking. Vancouver and Tampa have nice scenery as well. Montreal and Amsterdam (for a river cruise) had nothing spectacular to see. While Barcelona was nice, Nice was better. A beautiful small harbor in which our 300 PAX ship, the Wind Surf, just barely fit. Beautiful shoreline, wonderful feeling to know we were starting two weeks in the Med. Of the ports other than my home port of New York, Nice was the nicest (pun intended). Sorry, no pix. We had a digital camera only for our last two cruises, and didn't take embarcation photos.

I can't cut the list down to one, so I'll do the top three. When the Regent Seven Seas Navigator landed in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Joan was dressed as Anne of Green Gables. She stayed in character and costume all day, giving us several memorable moments: handing out pastries to another "Anne" on the dock, getting photographed by female Japanese tourists (for whom Anne is a cult object) at Green Gables; giving her Anne wig and bonnet to the tour guide at the end of the day, and other moments. Joan/Anne made that the most memorable cruise day I've ever had. That trip was a jazz cruise, and all of the jazz was memorable. When the musicians, incuding RandY Sandke, Bucky Pizzarelli, and other greats, weren't playing, they were mixing with other passengers. They were all warm and friendly, and they added to a great cruise. Or Med. cruise on the Wind Surf was filled with memorable moments. Was our most memorable moment the gorgeous evening sailaways, or was it the first time we realized that the engine was off and we were under sail? We think of the entire two weeks as one memorable moment after another.

The TP will be doing 2 week Alaska cruise, round trip from Vancouver, in the summer of 08, with unusual ports such as Kodiak Island. Why are they withdrawing from Tahiti? I haven't a clue. Of course, I don't have a clue as to why Windstar withdrew from the route a few years ago. The Paul Gauguin, which will still be in FP, is supposed to be nice, but it's very expensive. We're considering taking the two week itinerary, but are concerned about being on a small ship crossing the huge Gulf of Alaska to Kodiak. Do you have any thoughts on that? Your otherwise favorable review indicated that there was quite a bit of rocking and rolling.

On Holland America, it's tough to avoid having your picture taken with the captain: on formal night, you go through a recetion line that includes the captain before you go into the dining room. We've had our picture taken with the captain on several non-HAL ships as well. I'm not sure we ever bought the picture.

With my extremely limited vacation time (right now we can't plan a vacation at all, for this year or next, and will probably have to take vacation, as we did this April, on no more than two or three week's notice), the number #1 consideration is which small to medium ships fit within that small vacation window. We would love to try Oceania, but haven't yet found an Oceania cruise that fits within one of our vacation windows. Next on the list, in a three way tie, are cruise line, ship, and destination. We want to go to places we have not previously been to, and we want to do it on a ship with no more than 1,500 (and preferably well under 1,000) PAX. Then comes budget. If we could, we'd only sail on lines such as Silversea, Regent, Seabourn, Windstar, etc.; but budgetary considerations place HAL, Celebrity, and Princess (if we can find a ship that isn't a megaship) on our list. It's lovely sailing out of the Port of New York (we live in North Jersey); but after home port cruises (3 Canada-New England, 1 Bermuda, 1 Caribbean), we probably won't be able to find another home port cruise. We definitely do not want to do the Caribbean again from New York, and our next trip to Bermuda will be by plane. Vacation planning for us is a joint venture.There are plenty of places where we both want to go. Joe

I can't comment on the ship, since I've never been on that ship, or any ship with as many as 2,000 PAX. However, wind impacts ships of any size. We missed ports on the Celebrity Zenith (in Bermuda, where we had to stay in Hamilton), Windstar Wind Surf (missed Corsica on our first cruise of the B-2-B and Minorca on the second, and had to leave Porquerolles early), and Regent Seven Seas Navigator (had to dock at Sydney, Nova Scotia instead of Louisbourg). That's missed ports on four of nine "ocean" cruises. We've been late into port on other cruises, and have had some rough weather. Three of the four cruises with missed ports were on ships with fewer than 500 PAX, so size isn't the determining factor. Having said that, all four missed ports were ones that a ship as large as yours is too big to go into even in good weather. The Emerald P wouldn't have missed any of those ports, since none could have been scheduled in the first place.

You should do one of two things in any port: 1) Things you've done in the past, and have enjoyed. 2) Things you've never tried, but that sound interesting. Those things are, of course, different for every person. We toured Old San Juan with friends, and it was the best part of our shore experiences during last year's Caribbean cruise. On the other hand, it wasn't until we had left our last port that we realized neither of us had even thought about going to a beach, much less gone to one. I'm in my early 60's, and doubt if I've had 50 beach days (defined as a day on a beach that's warm enough for swimming) in my life--and none in the past 5 to 8 years. That's for a redhead who lives less than an hour from beaches in NJ, NYC, Long Island, and CT, and has lived within an hour of beaches all his life. In 39 years of marriage, our longest stay at a beach was 2 nights--and that was for visiting day at our son's camp. Enjoy doing what you like best!

I don't believe that the last comment is correct. I believe that Azamara, the upscale version of Celebrity that runs the two former Renaissance ships, has a much tougher no smoking rule than the parent, RCCL, including no smoking in your stateroom or on the balcony. Oceania, which runs three of the former R ships, has a similar policy. See http://www.azamaracruises.com/07/azamara/a...king-be-allowed : Q.Will smoking be allowed on these ships? A.Azamara Journey and Azamara Quest have two designated smoking areas. These areas are located in the aft section of the Looking Glass Lounge on the port side, and on the starboard forward section of the Pool Deck. Smoking areas have signs indicating that smoking is permitted there. All other areas of the ships are non-smoking. This includes Public Rooms, Restaurants, Pool Deck, Staterooms and Suites, Verandas and Halls. For the comfort of all of our guests, we request strict adherence to this policy, and thank all of our guests for their cooperation. We say hooray for Oceania and Azamara, and a step in the right direction for RCCL.

How horrible! Flightseeing tours are supposed to be Alaska highlights (and highlights of some cruises to Mexico and Central America), but we've always been afraid to take them.

The Skipper makes a good point. We had a room that was about 170 square feet, with openable windows (AKA French balconies) and real, fixed, beds. Avalon, therefore, was very comfortable. Try to avoid tiny rooms with fold down bed.

We took a tour from Glory Tours (Google Glory Tours Barbados if the URL, http://glorytours.org/ , gets deleted) called "Just BIM": "Just BIM is an experience like no other. Our tour begins at Sunburry plantation an old sugar plantation built in 1660. From there you will visit. The Andromeda Botanical Gardens where you will meander through pathways of lush tropical foliage. On leaving the gardens you will enjoy the rugged landscape as we drive through Bathsheba and Cattle wash on the way to our Lunch stop. After lunch our first stop will be Earthworks pottery and the adjoining Batik Studio. There are opportunities to see craftsmen at work at both studios and to purchase souvenirs. Our last stop on this Tour is the Mount Gay Visitors Center where you will be given a guided tour of the Mount Gay Rum Factory. As part of this tour you will also learn about the history of rum in Barbados. ...............From November this tour will include Harrisons Cave" It was great, although we could have done without the trip to the pottery and batik factories, and Harrison's cave was closed. As noted in the description, the cave will reopen in November, 2007. It was wonderful having a meal off the ship (fish at a casual restaurant), and the gardens were amazing! Most people will, of course, choose a tour that includes a beach and, possibly, snorkeling. Glory has plenty of those.

See our review of our Avalon Poetry cruise that we took three months ago. This was our only river cruise, so I can't give a comparison with other river cruise lines. All in all, a refreshing and different experience. Things weren't perfect, but they were mighty good, and the trip was interesting. It was nice to know that, if the ship got into trouble, we could walk to shore. Would we do it again? Yes. If you have specific questions after reading the review, we'd be glad to naswer them.

Here is a review from another board of a "red tent" tour similar to ours:<] Private tour - Red tent -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We just returned from Costa Rica and had a fabulous time. We shopped at the shops at the pier. The vendors were not pushy and there was some great buy on beautiful wood pieces. We then negotiated a tour under the red tent right at the end of the pier. The gentleman wanted $45 for a 3-31/2 hour tour but we paid $30 (each) and there was 7 of us. We were with our guide about 5 hours. We went on a boat on a river and saw beautiful foilage. We saw sloths, monkeys, crocidiles, bats, iguanias etc...We then went to a animal rescue and fed toucans, held a scarlet macuw, saw a norweigian fighting chicken etc....we stopped for pictures and learned all sorts of interesting facts. We went to a del monte banana plantation and walked in the fields. It was incredible to see how bananas are harvested and we talked to the actual workers. It was a real highlight. We were very happy with this tour and the service we recieved. When we were done the guide came back to find me and had bought me some film he knew I needed. Great trip and easy to negotiate at the pier. We did all private tours but 1 this cruise (booked thru the ship in Panama) and had a marvelous time. We no longer have our review of Limon: the other board crashed after we posted it. The review above was in 2004, a year after we went. Here was our brief comment in our ship review:<] Costa Rica. The “red tent†mentioned on the Ports of call board is now a green tent. Our 3 couples paid $35 per person for a Tortugueras Canal and banana plantation tour that would have cost $86 each from Celebrity, and we had lots of fun. We also enjoyed shopping near the pier; but the area away from the pier was a bit intimidating for two people who don’t speak Spanish. Finally, here is our capsule review of the excursion we took in Panama. Bear in mind that our ship, unlike yours, did not enter the canal:<] Panama. Our only ship’s tour. The bus rides were very long – 2 hours to the Pacific Ocean, about 75 minutes coming back to the ship – all without a bathroom on the bus. It was worth it for a once in a lifetime ferry ride through the two Pacific sets of locks – Miraflores and Pedro Miguel. Well worth the high price. Based on the good information given to us by the tour guide, a “partial transit†through the Gatun locks costs the cruise line about $110 per passenger in tolls, so $154 for two sets of locks isn’t bad.