rmalbers

if they run a kids sail free campaign that can make a little difference. I ran into two honeymooning couples on my last X cruise, first time for that, I was shocked.

On this topic add Fidelity Investment's to the list, they basically pay, very close to the 1 mth zero coupon treasury rate, right now their savings account pays 5.3%.

Ya, I got a taste of that on the drive from SJ to the Wyndam at PALMAS BEACH. We took the 'scenic' route, there was a horse in the road in one spot. I like how the beach was left natural there. Those mountains are rugged as some areas of Hawaii. How did they get everything in OSJ painted up so well, did they give everyone free paint or something?

After my last X cruise a year ago, I went on Viking Ocean and I don't think I'll be back on X. I come back here to see how it's going. I think what it boils down to is X is now just like RC without the kids and the stuff for kids to do, and smaller ships. I've said before that people that were not on X before covid will not know what it used to be like so they don't have the old experience to compare. Also, it is going to be interesting to see what happens to ports with more and more mega ships coming online. I'm glad I got to most of the places I wanted to cruise to, because I think things are going to continue to change, big time.

I think one of the more important parts of the decision is if there's a lot of tendering vs docking at ports. Not that some port stops can't have issues also, like very steep ramps. Anyway, the only thing I saw on the last VO cruise was a woman with a walker who should not have tried to tender and a very old guy in a wheel chair that took over ten minutes to get up a ramp at a pier. VO says right on their website that their small ships are not really designed for certain people, that's why scooters are 'supposedly' not allowed.

As far as excursions go, I really don't think you can go wrong, it's such a beautiful place. All the paid excursions we went on were great. I think how you enjoy a given excursion is going to be more dependent on the weather at the time, more than anything, and there is really nothing you can do about that, other than make sure you have the right outerwear and shoes, etc.

There was a ceremony in Sept when I did the cruise. It was fairly well attended, people were having fun. And we also got the certificates that looked like the ones in the previous post.

I was in OSJ a month ago and was pleasantly surprised how much better it was looking and fixed up than when we were there in 2013. So many more small restaurants and bars were open. I really want to go back and drive around the whole island next winter for several weeks.

On my last VO cruise they announced numbers for the excursions and it seemed like around 2/3 of the people took the included excursions, not sure if that is typical or not. I was sort of surprised by the numbers. It seems like they add to the included excursions if they 'sell out'.

That is a good point that I'm not sure has been brought up lately. There are even more megaships coming online each year from different brands that require a lot of crew. Maybe that is part of the problem. I still say that people's perception is a lot different between people that cruised X a lot before and after the 'changes'. and people that have only cruised during/after the changes.

From talking to crew members on Viking. I'm not saying they came from X, their backgrounds were from all brands of big cruise lines.

Wow, what a mess. You can bet that if there was an easy fix this problem would have been solved a lot time ago.

The staffing levels described in that youtube link posted sounds like what I saw in Feb. It was very noticeable. The thing is, if you had not sailed X a lot before you would not know or notice the difference. The workers that do want to make the cruise industry their career, migrate to the smaller ships like Viking, etc., over time. It is a much better working environment on the small ships, even though it is still long days and work, of course.

There wasn't on our great lakes cruise, I guess they've added more. They are good quality.

2022/Aug - one pair

FWIW: It seems like there is a lot of excitement about the SNUBA at Pigeon Island (which isn't an island, anymore). If it takes place around/near the only dock at Pigeon (point) do more research and check reviews out because I'm not sure you are going to see much. Anyway, if you've snorkeled on reefs you will probably be disappointed. If you are doing it just to be in the water and experience SNUBA you will be fine.

They still had that up a month later.

If you want to see birds take one of the mid season great lakes VE cruises. I was on the late season cruise so I'm not sure about special birding excursions but I'm sure there are excursions where you will see birds, during the right times of the year.

It seems like late/early is a compromise. Early you will probably have some ice issues but there will be more birds, etc. Late you might not have ice issues but most of the birds will have migrated.

I was going to ask about TV, from what I've seen. I'm fairly sure TV is still using the regular geo sats, nothing to do with starlink.

I thought all VO ships had it. I saw the starlink antennas were on VO Sea last jan.

Yes, that's it, and part of the Carlsberg group, that makes since.

That would be great. They did have a porter (beer/bottle) on VO Saturn a month ago that I REALLY liked, a lot. I don't even remember what brand it was, I had never seen it before.

I've wondered about ES vs PV myself. I've been thinking the only benefit for me for a ES would be for in room dining, having the table would be nice. In certain climates, the larger balcony would be nice, I think, but for the price difference on cruises I've done and looked at I can't really justify it (for me).