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Tarwood3

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About Me

  • Location
    Eagle, ID
  • Interests
    Aviation, cruises, gardening, cooking, dogs, history
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Seabourn,Silversea, Celebrity, Oceania
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    South Pacific/ Australia/NZ

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  1. According to cruise mapper, it was on the island of Reunion today…today was supposed to be Antsiranana Madagascar …they’re a couple days behind in the itinerary, so assuming a couple ports will be skipped (perhaps all of Madagascar will be skipped ) in order to get back on original itinerary?
  2. Just noticed that Splendida has no cruises offered after October of this year, even though MSC has itineraries on most all the other ships through end of 2025? I had heard she was going to Asia…maybe re working itineraries for that time frame?
  3. Yep, we have that and look at it daily…but it’s still nice to have all that and more on the tv at least…several people were talking about it at lunch in the galley. In fact, one of the crew was walking by and he was so excited to see where we were when we had cruisemapper pulled up on phone….got us talking about the Bermuda Triangle…we were just south of Bermuda at lunchtime
  4. Hey there…thanks for asking. Yes, we are half through the 14 day cruise across the Atlantic. Short answer to your question is that yes, we are enjoying ourselves more than we thought we might. Im 56 and there are a lot of people much older than us. It’s a very mixed bag of ages. All my concerns about cruising have been put to rest fortunately. Are there a few things we don’t care for or miss from other cruise lines…yes. But they don’t outweigh the positives we have experienced A couple of the negatives. The veranda furniture is terrible. 2 little hard metal chairs. We like to read or watch Netflix on sea days and those hard little chairs are good for about 10 mins on the bum, that’s it. We are used to chairs that at least recline a bit and have some padding. We have a nice size room… a Brilliant suite but I don’t like that there are no drawers or cabinets in the bathroom…..so all of our toiletries just sit out on the ledge..not a big deal…but always nice to have all that stuff put away when not using. I get that VV doesn’t like doing announcements ….but on a 14 day cruise, not to hear from the captain daily is weird. We are at sea, no idea what the weather will be for the day, tomorrow, When the seas may calm down…they have been rough for days now. We have no idea our position in the Atlantic. There is no channel on the tv to see ship’s speed, the temperature, progress on our route….I think that could be improved. Wish we could use Richards Rooftop…but it’s always so windy up there , that it’s completely empty all the time. So I guess it’s good for when you are in port, but anytime you’re sailing, it’s a no-go it seems. Yesterday they did the dumbest thing. Our first full sea day after leaving Funchal and they decide to re finish half the pool deck in the middle of the day when everyone wants to lay by the poool. So yes, they closed half the pool deck for ours , during prime hours on a sunny warm day. Why couldn’t this have been done when we were in port the day before in Funchal when no one was on board? Or early in the morning, or late afternoon? Food has been pretty good. We have been to all the specialty restaurants and found Gunbae our least favorite. It was fine, but kinda boring in my opinion. We have canceled our 2nd night there. Someone had said that breakfast in Razzle Dazzle is best on the ship. So we booked twice there…. Well after eating there the first time, we canceled our 2nd breakfast there. Menu is a bit odd. We like dinner there and are going again tonight. There are an enormous amount of events going on every day. Pretty impressed with the number of musicians, entertainers etc they have brought on. I don’t know what normal is like, but my guess is we have more than normal for the transatlantic. I had read on the facebook group one time, someone had complained how terrible the drinks were on Valiant lady this summer. Said they used watered down cheap tonic, drinks were blah, no beer available etc…. We have not found this to be true at all. All of our cocktails have been great …zero complaints. Anyway, I could go on and on about random things but overall we are quite happy. Will it be our go -to cruiseline , no. We prefer the small ships of Silversea and Oceania. And the itineraries are so much better on the smaller ships. We have traveled to over 100 countries, so VV doesn’t really offer anything we haven’t’ already done. We are taking another VV cruise next summer around Greece ( our 4th time there) because we are taking our nieces for their graduation present and thats what they wanted to do. But other than that, Im not sure when we will sail again. But if we find an itinerary we find interesting, we wouldn’t hesitate in booking it. In short, I definitely don’t feel too old for Virgin!
  5. Yep, I have done Greece many times and while I love it, I was hoping she would have chosen somewhere else…. We have been to 100 countries…so hard to find a place we haven’t been to yet.. ha!
  6. We quit Celebrity and went back to Silversea and Oceania because the sky suites had gotten so expensive that they weren’t much different Silversea…so it was a no brainer to switch back. I did like the energy on Celebrity…but always perfectly happy on SS or Oceania. We do have another VV already booked…Summer 2024. We take our nieces and nephews on a trip anywhere in the world they want to go for their HS graduation. The last one graduates next year…she wants to do Greece on Virgin…so it was booked. Hopefully we enjoy our TA so we arent dreading next years trip!
  7. Thanks so much for your detailed reply..,I do feel better now. Truth be told, no matter what ship we are on, we always have a good time…always find people we enjoy hanging out with. And you’re probably right…I should stay off the facebook page for our cruise….
  8. Thank you so much! Appreciate taking the time to reply! Feeling better already…
  9. Happy to see your post. We have had the 14 day Transatlantic booked from Barcelona to Miami for quite some time. Now that the cruise is only 3 weeks away, I have begun to get nervous that VV isn’t for us. We travel primarily on Silversea, Seabourn, Oceania and Celebrity. We have done one RCCL and hated it…too many drunks, belly flop contests, just seemed like a trashy booze cruise. Plus we don’t like big cruise ships…we like Celebrity even though the ship is larger, but we stay in the Retreat…so it’s a smaller more intimate luxury experience. Now that our cruise has gotten close, I worry that it’s just a glorified Carnival or Royal type of cruise. We aren’t into dressing up in costumes and silly theme nights..so not sure if we will feel odd by not participating in these events? We are a gay couple…56 and 50. We enjoy a good time but definitely prefer the finer things in life. And are looking forward to all the restaurants! We booked a Brilliant Suite, hoping that might mimic more what we are used to in cruising. We have done 30 cruises and book based on itinerary, not so much the ship itself as the destination which is what we are doing on this VV cruise as we have been to all the ports before…so we are hoping that we are pleasantly surprised! We are early risers, early to bed kind of folk….we like to drink…but only a cocktail or 2 a day due to medication reasons…. So my question is..what did you like on VV much better than Celebrity? And I would also be interested if anyone on here has experience on luxury lines…we have been on them all…and their thoughts as well! Thanks so much!
  10. We booked at the lower price as well…but now shows the higher price…
  11. Not all cabin categories were affected.
  12. We have had a bit of a different cruise history than most. We only did land tours until about 2014. We had traveled to around 70 countries by that time (over 100 now). My partner always wanted to do a cruise but the big ship cruising I saw advertised on tv didn’t appeal to me… too many people and kids. But one day, while reading a travel magazine, I saw an ad for Silversea…it seemed to tick all the boxes so I took a leap of faith and booked a 7 day. We were hooked! I really loved waking up somewhere new every morning, loved unpacking once and not having to schlep luggage all over Europe, Asia Africa etc. in multiple hotels, trains planes and automobiles ! Our first 3 cruises were all on Silversea when I decided I wanted to see what other lines might feel like. Our next one was RC…never again…family reunions, bachelor parties, tons of kids, awkward conversations at huge shared table dinner etc…it all felt trashy to us. Then we found Celebrity which we really loved…we are Elite Plus on them…but now that the Suites have gotten the same price as luxury lines…no way. After a couple cruises on X where it took over an hour to get off the ship at a port…the line literally wrapped around teh whole ship…I just couldn’t do it again. We have since been on Holland America, Seabourn, Regent , Azamara, Oceania, Paul Gauguin, Crystal. As others have said, we book based on who has the best itinerary for us, for the destination we are interested in and time of year. Then based on ship…we love all the new bells and whistles. We had Vista booked but were canceled when they pushed the inaugural back a month. We booked Oceania because we heard the food was amazing… and we liked the size of the ships and that it was a bit more casual than SS ..we got tired of packing so many dinner jackets. Our last O cruise was on Sirena and the average age was probably the oldest we have ever had on our 30 or so cruises…. We are in our 50s and while we don’t normally get hung up on the age thing…most seemed older than our parents …it was a very dull 14 day cruise and the entertainment was geared to stuff even my mom would find boring. While we do like the product O offers…we do need a bit more liveliness…but we will continue to book O ( have 2 more booked) Our next cruise is on HAL…very much looking forward to it…have another Neptune Suite booked (very large aft suite) and our last HAL cruise had amazing food and was a nice sized ship with more things to do. BTW…our most fav ship: Seabourn Venture. (Expedition ship we did to Antarctica) Gorgeous!
  13. I was on the April 9th 2024 circumnavigation of Japan…nowhere near your sail date…not talking about your transatlantic…
  14. You misunderstood my post..,not talking about L&S…talking about new bookings after October 2021…Don’t shoot the messenger….just what I was told when we called in about our cancellation and thought I should report what I was told….whether they lied to us or not is a different story…so …believe what you want…just reporting what I was told….
  15. Not talking about L&S…meaning those who booked for the first time after October 2021. It came straight from the lady in charge of the concierge team handling these cancelations …
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