Smooth Sailing

We are booked in the Haven Owner's Suite for Oct. 1st - Venice to the Greek Islands. What can we expect for any special treatment.

Interesting advice. As you can see by my signature we have done quite a few of the more traditional big ship cruises. As for the ports that no one wants to go to, I don't think Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes, and Kusadashi qualify in that category.

 

I am loving the fact that Windstar is the only ship in port at these places on our particular cruise. In Santorini there will be just the 148 of us instead of 6000. I can only think that is going to enhance our day in port to not have to fight the masses of tourists.

Lori, your right - we just did the Caribbean and I was referring to the ports of Soper's Hole, Jost Van Dyke and Virgin Gorda. The senery was fabulous but the ports had nothing - one bar, one restaurant, and 2 shops. Your ports may be much more interesting. I still really missed having a balcony and again the food was no better than average - Windstar just was not for us - I really do hope you enjoy your cruise. I really like that you have already booked a cruise for 2104.

We just booked our first Windstar cruise (August 2nd Istanbul to Athens on the Wind Star).

 

Any tips? We have opted for the laundry package already.

 

Thanks,

Lori

My advice Lori (anonymousegirl) is to cancel your Windstar cruise ASAP and rebook with Princess or Royal Caribbean or anyone else - get a balcony cabin and enjoy. Windstars tenders are frightening - the food is just average - breakfast and lunch are less than average. Windstar may go to the small ports where the big ships can't go - the truth is the big ships don't want to go to these ports and you probably will not want to.

We will be on the Flavors of the Caribbean in January. Just wondering which port has the beach BBQ so I can plan excursions accordingly. Thanks!

Pretty sure it is Pigeon Island, St. Lucia

Hi,

 

We are considering a Caribbean sailing on the Wind Surf in January 2015. The things that attract us to Windstar is that it is smaller and goes to ports that the large cruise ships cannot go. When we cruise, we rarely participate in the activities. We mainly cruise for relaxation.

 

With this said, I have a few questions that I hope someone can help me with:

 

1 - right now I see promos for 2-for-1 pricing that expire December 31. Is this a marketing trick or will prices truly rise after the 31st?

 

2 - considering the Wind Surf only has 310 passengers, do the sailings fill up fast?

 

3 - we typically book suites on the large ships mainly to have the ship within the ship feel. Considering the fewer number of people on the Wind Surf, I am wondering if we need to book a suite. Does anyone know the added amenities a suite has? So far it seems it is just size. With 310 passengers, I don't need to be concerned with priority boarding, etc.

 

Thanks!

 

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I don't believe the prices will go up after the 31st - the 2 for 1 sale will last all year and the prices are more likely to go down than up.

The sailings do not fill up fast - they still have openings for Jan.2014 in all categories and at the lowest prices I have seen all year.

We are also looking at Jan. 2015 - no extras with the suites - just twice the size - depends on what you want to pay for.

We love Canada and the people who live there! One darned civilized country that's got it all together. We try to sample the wines produced by each country, since brilliant winemakers and specific terroir create all kinds of surprises. Just had a fabulous Blauburgunder (Pinot Noir) from the Alto Adige of Italy, on recommendation of the sommelier. He was so happy we enjoyed it. Isn't life all about these experiences?

 

Sister Creek Winery - just down the road from us - wins international gold and silver every year at the top competitions in the world - this is South Texas.

We are on the Jan 4th sailing of Windsurf out of St. Maarten - we are in the Bridge Suite - cabin #503. Has anyone here ever stayed in one of the Bridge Suites - any comments would be appreciate.

Hi Dubrovniktravelady - We are Dave & Katie from South Texas - we will be in Dubrovnik on Tuesday 5/3/11 - maiden voyage of Carnival Magic - we have been to Dubrovnik twice and walked the Old City both times - do you have any suggestions for something different - land or sea - Thanks:D

Smooth Sailing, as LauraS's note on the first page of this forum indicates, no reviews (positive or negative) of tour guides/drivers/companies can be posted unless they are in response to a request for information. You started a new thread for your review. Instead of deleting it, I took the time to find a thread that had discussed that tour company and merged it so others would have access to your complaint.

 

In the future, for anyone reading this thread that wants to post a review of any tour they've experienced, unless it is part of a full review of your cruise, please find an appropriate thread on which to post it.

 

Karen

HostKaren@CruiseCritic.com

Hi Karen - Thanks for the information - looks like I should have read Laura's note - I was not aware of this policy. Thanks for finding a place for my post and not deleting it.

Hi Smooth Sailing:

 

Hope you all had a smooth trip back home! Yes, we used Sicily Life, put this original post talks about Sicily Life, if I am not mistaken.

 

Oh, well, I am sure that tours with the same company and even the same driver can work differently depending on lots of factors.

 

I miss our Aft sail aways!

 

Sue Z.

Sue - I started a new thread to address our problems with Sicily Tours - but, the moderators moved us to this thread . We also miss the Aft sail aways - we also miss our 11pm last drink on the balcony - it was great.

To Bob7:

 

We are just back from our 12 night mediterranean cruise on the Liberty.

 

I have posted a review on this Europe board entitled Western Mediterranean 6/12-24/06.

 

Also, there seems to be some confusion between Sicily life and Sicily tour,

I don't know if they are one in the same or not?

 

We had our tour with Sicily Life. It was wonderful and Alessandro was our great guide.

 

Since I don't know how to cut and paste. Please look up my review if you want all the details of the day.

 

Sue Z.

Hi Sue - Sicily Life and Sicily Tours are not the same - I remember y'all saying that you had a great tour with Sicily Life.

I was on Dave's tour ... actually, after careful research I was the one who booked the tour. Here's what I wrote on our roll call board about Sicily Tour. I'm also going to post my review of all the drivers (all the others were great) we used, here on the destination board so this portion will be repeated.

 

Sicily: We used Sicily Tour and this was our only sour spot ... really sour. We had two vans reserved. One group, lead by Annie with 7 passengers (her family) and our bus of 13 (6 Cruise Critic members and their families). I believe we were supposed to have Douglas as our "host" and a driver, Annie in the smaller van had Stephen as host and driver, he's also an owner. When they met us as the port a woman was holding the sign with our name. She was very nice, spoke perfect English with a British accent (she was raised in Oxford) and mentioned that this was her first day as a tour guide. This was disappointing but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and prepared for another wonderful tour.

 

The plan was to do Mt. Etna, Taromina and possibly some of the Godfather villages. Well we started off going to the Godfather filming site, Bar Vitelli, a charming little site but on the way the "host" said nothing, not pointing anything out, not telling us exactly where we're going, she tried to answer things she was asked, but didn't know some basic things like what body of water we were passing. She spent the time making up name tags for us. We met up with Stephen and Annie's group at Bar Vitelli and I asked Annie if he was talking during the drive and she said yes so I asked Stephen to ask our "host" to please talk more and point things out. He said he would. At this point I envisioned this woman just starting out in her new career as a tour guide and I gave here the benefit of the doubt.

 

On the way to Etna she talked a bit more pointing out maybe 3 things in the 45 minute drive to Mt. Etna. Nothing about the lava, nor the wildlife, nor about how high we were, etc. She did recall the last eruption, but not much else. And I could barely hear her even when she did speak (I was in the back, the fourth row). At Etna I spoke to Stephen again and he just said "What do you want to know?" What I wanted was our guide to talk during our drive!

 

In Taromina (again, no insight during the drive) we had some time before we needed to meet at the restaurant (not sure how much time, but not a lot) Unlike other tours, we had menus and ordered what we wanted. I thought I would prefer ordering myself to the family style food we had on previous tours ... although all the food and service was wonderful, perfect, on those tours, I had wondered why we did it that way ... but now I see the advantage of the pre-ordered family style ... time. The drivers had called and said when we'd be there and the delicious food was brought out as soon as we sat down. Here, we were seated next to Stephen and Annie's group and were handed menus and we ordered.

 

The restaurant was clearly not set up for such a large group all at once and most of us were all done before 3 people in my group even got their food! Stephen saw this, told us we had to hurry and practically ran out the door with Annie's group, leaving our group to continue to wait for food. It was around this point I found out the real story, our original guide had a family emergency and couldn't make our tour and this (very nice, but not a tour guide) woman was a friend of Stephens and was "doing him a favor" and had never done this before, nor was she trained to. I was fuming ... why didn't Stephen tell us this to start with? We finally HAD to leave, but still no food for 3 of us and as we got up the food arrived and the restaurant was going to make us pay for it! To avoid a scene our poor "host" took the manager aside and paid with her own credit card ... I'm assuming she will be repaid by Stephen, but (now knowing how he is) who knows! I will say, my food was wonderful I just felt bad for those that didn't eat.

 

Anyway, it wasn't clear which way to to or where we had to be so we ended up standing at the end of the street for 30 minutes while the other group finished up at Teatro Greco (which they only saw for 5 minutes).

 

Finally back at the port I spoke to Stephen and said I thought we deserved a reduction due to the lack of a guide (we had tipped the woman 65 Euro and paid for her lunch ... she kept trying to return the tip but we felt she tried to make the best of what she obviously was talked into doing ... she felt really bad and upset about the whole thing). Stephen was awful to me, saying we were promised a "host" not a guide, he didn't care if he got a bad review (or six I guess) on Cruise Critic, he doesn't need Cruise Critic, he has hundreds of wonderful reviews, blah, blah, blah. Very unprofessional, as business owner he should be ashamed. He said (as we stood in front of the ship) "ask me know anything you want to know about Mt. Etna", etc. He even told me he was paying her just 150 Euro for the day and she had to get up at 4:00 am and wouldn't get home until 8:00 pm to do this tour ... I said I don't know why it was our problem he used someone who lived 3 hours from the port and he said who what I supposed to use? Someone from here (as he swept his arms out towards the port)? He asked, was he supposed to tell his partner he couldn't be with his dying mother? No Stephen, you're supposed to greet me at the port, shake my hand, explain the situation and offer me a discount right off the bat ... in other words, act like a professional business owner who cares about his reputation and his clients.

 

I don't know how it will end up, he has my credit card from when I contracted him ... I'll keep you posted. My advice, stay away from them. My understanding he is a good tour guide or "host" ... Annie said he was informative during their drive but our dissatisfaction was distracting towards the end ... we were paying the same per person for a very different tour quality. He's a bad business man and wasn't upfront with us.

 

In the future, for Sicily I'd do a Taromina on your own tour ... or another city. As tempting as visiting a volcano might be if you've never been on one, it's a long drive there and back for not much while you're there.

Thanks Mary - You can say it alot better than I can - and your nicer than I am.

This is just a warning - If anyone is considering using or booked with "Sicily Tours" with Stephen - beware - We had the worst tour of our lives with this tour company - total confusion - no communication - no direction. Stephan can be very arrogant and nasty if problems occur. If you chose to still use Sicily Tours - just remember - I told you so - Stephan is very unprofessional.

Hi Karen

There is absolutly nothing in Puerto Chacabuco - you will not find private tours or cabs waiting for you - the cruise lines have to bring the buses in - take the Simpson Valley & Coyhaique tour offered by your ship - this is your best bet - beautiful scenery - very remote - your only other choice is to stay on the ship and you don't want to do that since you've paid lots of money to get here and probably will not have another opportunity. Also don't take the lake tour - you will get great scenery but a long bus ride and overpriced for what you get.