Joanandjoe

I don't know the answer; but I would be surprised if it's done in one shot. Two one hour shifts, with at least one day in between, are easier on the body.

As you can see from our signature, our cruises have been spread out over several cruise lines and even more ships. We've only been on one ship, the Wind Surf, more than once; and that one was substantially refurbished and modified between our 2004 B2B in the Med and our 2007 Caribbean cruise. If, as expected, we book a second cruise on the Seven Seas Mariner, we expect it to have changed between 2005 and 2009. In short, we definitely are not experts.

Our two Alaska cruises were booked to celebrate our 30th and 40th anniversaries; but neither one included our actual anniversary. Since both of us have November birthdays (Joan 24th, Joe 3rd) and November is my prime vacation time most years (but, sadly, not this year), we've had several cruises that fell between our birthdays. We have never been at sea on either birthday. We hope to change that. Our next cruise, which may be booked as early as today, would begin on October 30, 2009, and would include my 65th birthday on the only sea day. Joe

We booked a cruise last December three weeks in advance, and nearly had to cancel (and probably should have cancelled) because I had an emergency appendectomy five days before the cruise. So even short term is no reason not to buy trip insurance. What would J Bond have done if he had booked the Barcelona cruise a few days in advance, and decided that trip insurance wasn't worth the cost?

We've had ports cancelled onroute due to weather, but never in advance of a cruise. If you're a member of the "critical board", you might look on the Princess and Princess roll call forums to see if the ship is having pod problems. That's the usual reason for "operational reasons" cancellations. In any event, the fine print in your cruise contract probably says that the cruise line has the right to change itineraries without reason or compensation. Sometimes they'll give a small shipboard credit, but not always. If cancelling the port is a big deal to you and makes you want to pass on taking the cruise, call your TA and see what he or she can do.

We always get travel insurance. Whatever it costs, the charge for the cruises we didn't have to cancel were less than the amount we got back in 2002 when I got a kidney stone three days before a cruise, and had to cancel the cruise. Trip insurance: don't plan to leave home without it.

We're debating taking another Regent cruise. This one would be 9 days from Istanbul to Rome (Civitavecchia) on 10/30/09. I know some of you have been thinking about trying Regent; maybe we can make it a luxury group cruise. Right now there's a 2 for one with free airfare promotion for this cruise. Our TA (which, of course, we can't name because this board has some TA sponsors) has an additional promotion: two escorts from the agency's parent company, and a free all day shore excursion in Malta. I'm not sure we can resist the temptation of signing up. If that weren't sufficient incentive, Regent has an introduce a friend promotion. If we introduce you to Regent and you book a cruise, both you and us get a $200 per stateroom shiboard credit. A nice incentive, eh! If you're interested in trying Regent, send us a message through the message function of CruiseCrazies.

Sorry. I put in a post last night, and accidentally closed my web browser while the post was posting. I assumed it was here; but obviously it isn't. I got it to work, but slowly. Instead of being able to enter my cruise dates and get all ships in all ports, including the times in port, in one step, as I was able to do before Cruisecal became a paid site, I have to page to the month of my cruise for each port, month by month. That's pretty clumsy when you're thinking about a cruise from 10/30/09 to 11/8/09. It was so difficult to use that I gave up while trying to find ships for the second port on the proposed cruise, on 11/1/09. Basically, for next November, I would have to go through about 18 web pages to get the ships in one port, and do that for eight different ports. That's nearly 150 steps to do what Cruisecal used to do in two steps. I wanted to try Porttime when cruisecal became a paid site, but lost the name of the site and never tried it. Still, the new site is better than nothing. If it allowed you to go directly to a month instead of paging month by month for more than a year, it would be much more useful. (If you can do that, I missed it.) Thanks, everyone, for the site.

How does it work? As a sample, I clicked on Valetta, Malta. I got a description of Malta, and a list of cruise lines that go there; but no calendar. Ditto when I clicked on New York City.

We take lots of books, and exchange them for more in the ship's library. Typically, Joan reads a book a day, while I read one every two days or so. We spend some time on the computer, do a lot of walking (especially me), and spend time in the shops laughing at the prices and rarely buying anything. We also do a lot of trivia: on our last cruise, we went to trivia five of the eight days, and were on the winning team three times. By the second day, we hooked up with two other trivia nuts, and that's when we started to win. If we're close to shore, we sepnd time in the observation lounge watching the scenery go by. In Alaska, that's a spectacular thing to do.

We've never been lucky enough to sail with one other couple, much less a group; so we don't understand cruise group dynamics. Also, by our standards, the Voyager is a monster, more than twice as big as we prefer. What is it about the Oasis that makes your friends want to try it.

We've almost never been escorted to our room, because we usually come onboard before the rooms are ready. Most of the lines we've been on will do it, but not if you're onboard at 11 a.m.

People seem to have strong views about the giant new ship, Oasis of the Seas. For me, the 1,900 PAX Noordam was too big, and I won't even consider a ship half the size of Oasis, much less Oasis itself. I probably wouldn't sail on Oasis on a freebie. For others, it's exciting, and I've seen roll calls for the ship on these boards. So today's question is: Do you want to sail on Oasis of the Seas? Why or why not? Obviously, I've already answered.

I've had very few cruises that didn't start with aq glass of champagne as I boarded; so, fo me, that doesn't distinguish one line from another. For me, the best thing about embarking on Regent is knowing that I'm about to have a Regent cruise. I suspect that's the best thing for everyone, on every cruise line: knowing that your cruise is about to begin.

Or pretty warm. LOL. As memebers of Regent's Seven Seas Society, we are bombarded with email and snail mail offers to sail in FP on the Paul Gauguin. So far, the thought of flying nearly 10,000 miles to begin a cruise has had no attraction. I must admit, many people dream of going to French Polynesia (FP) or other parts of the South Pacific: I've just never been one of them. (But, then, I don't like any place that's hot.) To each his own.

I've never considered South America because of the timing: winter here. Basically, I can't take vacation from mid-December to mid-April, late July to mid September, and during the Jewish holiday periods of Rosh Hashoanah through the end of Succot (which normally rules out the rest of September and most of October) and Passover. That basically leaves May, June, and November, ruling out both of my first choices, plus South America and Antarctica

From another cruise board. I'm not sure I'd trust Park West even with this guarantee. Park West Introduces New Refund Policy Park West, the auction house that runs onboard art auctions and sales on 85 cruise ships, has introduced an industry first: a new art refund policy. Under the new program, customers who become unhappy with their purchase can seek a refund or exchange. Previously, all sales were final. The policy, which went into effect on September 1, has two options for customers experiencing buyer's remorse: 40-Day Refund: Park West customers can return their art for a refund up to 40 days after the date of purchase. The refund amount will be the purchase price minus the buyer's premium (up to $1,000 per piece) and any shipping costs. 40-Month Exchange: Alternately, customers have 40 months in which to exchange their work of art for another in the Park West collection. You will receive a credit equal to the amount paid for the work (including buyer's premium) but minus any shipping and handling costs. When you choose a new piece of art, you will only be charged for shipping and handling and any price difference if the new piece of art is more expensive than the original work. The exchanges must be made directly with Park West Gallery -- the credits cannot be used at an auction. ... Travel Weekly reports that the new satisfaction guarantee was not implemented in response to a July 2008 New York Times article, which discussed several class action lawsuits brought against the company for misrepresenting the value of its artwork onboard cruise ships. Comment to the last paragraph: Travel weekly should know - the tooth fairy told them it was true. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell to you. Actually, I suspect that the policy was the result of the lawsuits themselves, not the anti-Park West article in the Times.

does that also include st petersburg russia or am I confusing runs ? Joey, Joey, look at a map. The Eastern Mediterranean is way south of the Baltic, with most of Europe in between. No, we don't mean St. Petersburg. Joan's family fled from Russian Pogroms about 100 years ago, and Joan grew up with the expresseion "Mother Russia - better to be an orphan." We have no interest in a Baltic cruise.

First we'd have to find one at a time and place that we could take. Our two dream cruises are British Isles and Norwegian fjords; but there are almost no cruises to these places on lines that cater to Americans. The few cruises that are given tend to be in August or early September, which are impossible times for me. Of cruises that are commonly offered, we'd pick Eastern Med. very early or late in the season. Not surprisingly for people who've given up on the Caribbean due to the heat, from mid-June to early October, the Med. (Eastern or Western) is too hot for us.

Joey, you obviously didn't notice that this has been the cruise question of the day for the past several days. There are lots of responses on that thread, including ours. (Joe never, Joan once in 12 cruises.)

Not counting our river cruise, I'd rank the lines on which we've sailed as shown below. There are two number ones because the food was freshest on Regent, and had the best variety on Windstar. # 1 (freshness and service) - Regent #1 (variety - almopst no repeats on a two week cruise) Windstar #3 - HAL #4 - Celebrity #5 - Regal Empress (but she's a grand old dame)

We've stopped by the movie theatre to get the popcorn, but never actually stayed to see the movie.

There's been no reason for us to do so. Regent includes alcoholic beverages. Windstar and HAL allow you to bring wine onboard in moderate quantities. I suppose it's cheating that we bought rum on our HAL Caribbean cruise and brought it onboard; but all that would have happened if we had gotten "caught" was that it would have been held until the end of the cruise. That would have been fine with us. We don't usually drink anything harder than fortified wine (port and sherry) anyway; so there would be no point in sneakinging anything on baord.

Nice review, Joey; but very short. Will you be giving us more details on the room, the entertainment, the ship (other than the food), the ports, etc.? Maybe I'm biased, since Joan writes lengthy travelogues. Joe

When we were in Raotan we went to the Sante Wellness Centre for massages and snorkeling in a little bit of heaven. Did you know the people who run the centre?