Michelle1234

Daniel,

You won't be bummed if you get a great guide. It will be worth it. I think it is a definite do if you are in that part of the world. No regrets, even with our terrible guide.

I've finally gotten around to trying the two brands of Chocolate I bought.

I prefer the Chocolate Paulette (silver bag). It is smoother.

The Choc'elena (brown paper bag) is good but the sugar is grainier. 

Did anyone buy the other brands? I sort of wish I'd bought a few more brands to see the differences. It was hard to tell when tasting them at the different stands.

However if I'd got one of each flavor of the Chocolate Paulette I would be very happy! These are not the same as gourmet chocolate, more rustic but a good souvenir. 

Yep. Wonderful cruise! Still have some unwanted souvenirs (excess lbs and colds) but also still basking in after cruise glow that comes from a wonderful cruise. 

1 hour ago, recyclelady said:

I agree--best captain ever!

 

By the way.....I've booked the world cruise (Fort L to Fort L) aboard the Island!

 

I loved the Coral so much that I'm kind of jealous! We spent 19 days with only 5 ports and the last couple of days trying to do the dining venues we hadn't done and making sure we had fully explored the ship. We felt the ship was very nice to spend extended time on-board.

6 hours ago, imcpa said:

There is a lot of video on the Oceanos helicopter rescues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BFux2AAMso

 

The guitar player entertainer took control and organized the whole thing. Nova did a special on him. 

 

That guitar player is Moss Hills, now a CD on Silversea.  I have sailed with him twice on the Silver Spirit.  He is a great guy, puts on a great show and is fun to talk to.

Thanks for this info! Honestly, I would consider sailing on that ship just to meet him. Such an impressive person.

2 minutes ago, hillslife said:

Hi Michelle... nice to hear from you!    Our Capt Rivera and then Capt Justin Laws.

 

are you still cruising ???  Haven’t seen you on board lately !   Hope all is well !!

Thanks for the info on the captains! My husband and I were just on the Coral Princess for a 19 day cruise and the Captain's name seemed familiar so I thought maybe it was one from the World cruise but it isn't.

You are right, we weren't cruising for about 10 years. After the world cruise I wanted a break from cruising. The Coral Princess was an experiment to see if we still like cruising. We had a fabulous time!

Hope all is well with you!

On 3/12/2019 at 10:05 AM, hillslife said:

That is sad news... we loved the Pacific size ships and they could get into the smaller ports ... but knew this was inevitable when they got rid of the smaller Ocean, Royal and Tahitian Princess over the last several years 😩😳

 

our WC in 2009 on the TP was perfect 😢

Hi Hillslife,

I was also on the 2009 TP world cruise with you. Do you by any chance remember/know who our 2 captains were? I know we started off with one and then mid cruise another took over.

Thanks!

We did Uber at San Pedro a week ago. Very easy because we were in the later disembarkation group due to an afternoon flight and there were plenty of people arriving in Ubers to go on their cruise. $55 for a Toyota Sienna Uber XL to LAX. The quotes for the regular size vehicles were about $35 to LAX. We just had too many bags. 🙂 The guy was on the bridge with an incoming group when we booked it so we waited about 9 min. for him to get to us and deposit his passengers. Very easy and convenient.

We took this tour through Princess. I enjoyed the agenda which was a fairly long drive to the ruins, tour of the ruins, trip to a town with a walk through a local market, church visit, very enjoyable dance show and chocolate making demonstration. Our guide was personable and loved to talk about the meaning of the chocolate bean to us. Even during the ruins tour, which he didn't seem to know anything about. Others said their guide did a great job during the ruins tour so it is luck of the draw. I sampled alot of the chocolate from about 5 or 6 different vendors. Their was a bit of a taste difference so I bought a number of different products from my  two favorite vendors. This was my top gift buying stop for folks back home because they all like chocolate and the products were fairly unique. I got roasted chocolate beans covered in sugar, nut mixes with roasted chocolate beans (think gorp), bags of flavored chocolate, Mexican vanilla etc. I loved the itinerary and the only thing that would have made it a great tour would have been some historical info on the ruins. It was also hard to see the chocolate making demo unless you were standing in front because they had the whole 40 plus person bus stand in front of one person at a long table. Maybe in the future they will hold the demonstration in stations so as to allow more people to see.

I forgot to mention how good the tourist goods were at the Puerto Quetzal port. Unfortunately you need to steel yourself in advance for aggressive vendors. Also the bargaining process. Know that you can expect to pay half of what they initially ask. I wish I hadn't been so hot and tired as I would have dearly loved to get more of the carved puzzle boxes and the embroidered items. I also bought a great belt for $10. But the Tikal excursion is about 9 hrs long and when I got back it was a bit overwhelming to look at all the goods. The shopping area was huge compared to some other ports we went to.

The MTS Oceanos comes to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTS_Oceanos

"Captain Avranas and many crew members were criticized for leaving hundreds of passengers behind with no one other than the ship's onboard entertainers to help them evacuate. "

I remember the Concordia captain did the same thing, left the passengers behind.

There is alot of video on the Oceanos helicopter rescues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BFux2AAMso

The guitar player entertainer took control and organized the whole thing. Nova did a special on him. 

1 hour ago, jiminyC_fan said:

Michelle,  I'm not sure if you did but, perhaps, you should read the entire thread.   So much has been explained by a couple of true experts.  Luckily, we had them to explain a lot during and after the event.   I am in the camp of waiting to point fingers at the Captain until the result of the true investigation is revealed.  I think any one of us would want the same if we were in his shoes. 

You are correct in that I only spot read the thread. 

gretschwhtfalcon, I think were kind of in agreement that there wasn't a good reason to do this sort of storm with a luxury cruise ship. That is why I'm taking the position that this was a poor decision by the captain. If this failure is due to a reduced roll angle there is some engineer somewhere scratching their head saying, I warned them. It wasn't a good idea to reduce the rolling angle to save money or we should have sold the ship with a caveat it couldn't be sailed in the north sea during the winter despite selling them the ice protection hull package. Luckily it wasn't a titanic level disaster or you would have had someone in this situation:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/21/470870426/challenger-engineer-who-warned-of-shuttle-disaster-dies

But you are asking really good questions. Is the rolling angle of the Viking ships different than other cruise ships? I have no idea.

I guess people can praise the captain all they want for getting them out of the disaster he got them into. It was a bad  judgement call to sail in known bad conditions. No amount of people excusing him will ever make that go away and if the captain is a true captain he will take ownership of that judgement call. It was a completely avoidable situation and somewhere someone's life is permanently altered due to a broken neck.  I prefer to praise all the captains who never get themselves into this sort of situation in the first place by changing course, speeding up, slowing down, making the call to skip a port etc.

gatour, Thanks for answering my question. We were at sea during the episode and only just got back so I am catching up on the incident. I agree, I would prefer to be on the ship as long as it wasn't sinking. I was just curious if there was a technical reason they could not deploy them. There are some articles saying they really aren't deployable in rough sea conditions due to the design and are only useful in calm waters. If so that is something to be looked at by the industry. 

28 minutes ago, gretschwhtfalcon said:

I am not an engineer, but have a decent amount of mechanical experience - not that that counts for anything of course relative to this event; however, I still fail to understand - even after all the explanations that were given here - why there is not some sort of failsafe system that would prevent engine shutdown if the ship experiences in excess of 25 or whatever degree of roll and/or in the event that the sump pumps temporarily suck air. I realize there is imminent danger to the engine even if without lubricating oil for even less than a minute...but still....just doesn't seem like the best design. 

 

I'd like to know how does the engine setup (relative to the oil level  / sensors, etc.) that Viking uses compare to what other cruise lines use? Is the Viking design uniform across the industry? 

Someone else may be able to address your questions better but what I can say is in every design you make design trade offs for cost. For instance it wouldn't make any sense to design a cruise ship engine that could operate upside down. It it were in that position the ship would be sinking and there would be no point. It would also be considered cost prohibitive.

In the design specs. that Viking puts together they take into account the most extreme angle at which they expect the ships to operate at. The ship builder builds to those specs. Viking likely makes cost trade offs also. Designing everything for extreme angles costs more money. And given the nature of their business it doesn't make alot of sense. They know they are operating a luxury cruise ship with "soft" deadlines so no real need to go through extreme storms. They also know they have loose serious projectiles like chairs and pianos on board taking it through extreme storms threatens those assets as well as the windows, railings etc. on the ship. It isn't like a container ship where everything is tied down and there is an escape pod positioned at the back for the crew that is angled down so gravity can get it off the ship in an extreme storm. At certain angles those things go flying across the room and can kill people. They also know they have alot of expensive glassware and fragile people on board. So they make a call as to what angle the ship should operate at. The captains should be well aware they aren't sea cowboys and what the ship is capable of as well as where the edge of comfort (and the point at which dinnerware starts flying) is for the passengers.

Added note: I did read that lifeboats could not be used in this instance due to the power outage. Can anyone confirm that? To me that is a very serious design flaw. If it was due to the high seas that also brings into question their design.

6 minutes ago, gretschwhtfalcon said:

 

Not quite sure what you mean by...."turn an engine far enough over"....are you referring to literal turning as caused by the changing angle of the ship during roll? 

Sorry, I used poor wording. Yes, I meant to roll the engine on it's side. Unless it is designed to be operated in any position there are angles that it will not operate at. In this instance it had oil sensors that shut it down as a fail safe to protect the engines from destroying themselves. 

30 minutes ago, broberts said:

 

You were not there and did not have contemporary detailed weather data.

You are not familiar with those waters.

You do not know the vessel, its capabilities and vulnerabilities.

You did not consult experts on the local conditions.

You have no experience commanding a vessel of that size and type.

 

Who do you think commanded the crew during the emergency?

Who do you think oversaw the development and implementation of crew training for such emergencies?

Who do you think was making the decisions necessary to keep the ship from a worse fate?

 

Had a complete engine power failure not occurred, the vessel would undoubtedly have had an incident free sailing. Are you blaming the captain for the engine failure? Must captains be oracles?

 No but I am an engineer. And at some point if you tilt an engine over on it's side it is going to fail (I corrected the wording based on a subsequent question) unless it is designed to be operated in that position. It is the captain's job to know this and the other technical limits of his equipment.

It's the reason good captains so often announce "We're diverting because of a storm", "We're running ahead to stay ahead of a storm", "We're delaying because of a storm". You know, good judgment sort of announcements, the sort that don't put everyone's lives in jeopardy. 

The engines didn't just up and quit. They had oil to spec. They had sensors designed to turn them off if the oil wasn't in place to protect their operation. They just weren't designed to be operated at the extreme angles the Viking Sky was being pushed to. It is the captain's job to know what his ship can do and what it can't.

On 4/9/2019 at 7:00 AM, gretschwhtfalcon said:

 

Certainly interesting, but I'd say he certainly needs some time away after what we all went through that weekend. I suspect not much will be heard publicly about the outcome of the investigation as it pertains to him. My personal feeling is that it was a bad call to sail that day, but as has been mentioned, it's a complex situation involving many different factors. 

While not on this cruise, we were on a cruise when this was all happening so I gave it some thought, and I agree with you. It was a poor decision to sail into that area with the stormy weather. I can't remember the number of times I've been on a ship and the route has been changed, delayed, speeded up etc. to avoid bad weather. These captains are unsung heros because they didn't get their ship into a dramatic situation.

There is no reason in this day and age to get a luxury cruise ship into the position of sailing in weather that puts the equipment so out of spec. that it shuts down. He isn't a modern day cowboy riding a bucking bronco, he has a large number of people's lives and a significant company asset under his command. It could so easily have turned out like the Costa Concordia with a much greater number of lives lost. If anyone deserves the thanks of the cruising community it is the Viking Sky crew and the Norwegian rescuers. They are the real heros. Not the captain.

I couldn't find any reviews precruise and mine didn't post in the ship review so I thought I'd leave my review here.

Princess charged $599.95 for this excursion from Puerto Quetzal. Their logistics were excellent. They consisted of a short bus ride (about 15 min) to an army base where you board an 18ish passenger puddle jumper. You fly right by the belching volcano and it is fun to see the landscape of the coast and inland from above. Just over an hour later you land at a municipal style airport. Landing was a little rough because I think the co-captain was using it as a learning experience. It is actually an international airport so they ask you to bring your passports on the excursion for the flight back. Our tour had 12 people but could accommodate a maximum of 18. The plane and van were find for 12 but would have been very uncomfortable if fully loaded due to some seats having no leg room.

Tikal itself was spectacular. We got to climb 3 ruins to the top via wooden staircases with handles. The steps were some times oddly high or not evenly spaced so you should be able to handle that if you want to do the climbs. The ruins are also very tall. I think less than half the group climbed the third one. At other times we were able to walk among and over other ruins at our leisure. Our guide was lounging under a shade tree so if you want to hear any explanations you have to tag along with other groups and try to overhear their guide and/or see what they are pointing at. We saw monkeys and some very distant toucans. Water was provided by the tour operator. Lunch was excellent as was the driver. The trip back was very rough on the flight due to flying through clouds.

The only bummer was the guide was not interested in guiding and refused questions during the tour itself. He wanted to handle them afterwards but then fell asleep on the way back or chatted avidly in Spanish with the driver and other tour lady in the van. He also disappeared at lunch so no questions there. He didn't really have a prepared speech at the beginning and started with asking us if there were questions before stating he wouldn't take any until the end. It was a very odd vibe because when he asked he hadn't told us anything yet. Then he said he wouldn't take any on the tour until the ride back. Then he fell asleep. Just before getting back to the airport he asked if there were any but I was too discouraged at that point to ask any. When I asked on the tour itself he just ignored them (just as he said he would). There was a great model of the whole site at lunch but he didn't spend any time giving an overview of the parts we didn't see or the site as a whole. So for Princess logistics A+ but tour operator C-. With the right guide this could be a truly fantastic experience as the ruins themselves are spectacular. However our guide never made the place come alive.

3 hours ago, Ronnieslady said:

We never could get anything on our balcony. So glad we just used our free 250 minutes each , instead of getting the unlimited use plan (they were really pushing) since our connection was so bad.  

But I have to say, I see why the Coral is such a popular ship. It has been awhile since we were on the Coral.  We absolutely thought it was the best.  Those elevators were so nice and fast & way less people.  The size of the ship.  Having that back theatre Universal Lounge, with the great On The Bayou show.   It made us sick about what they did to the Island.  My husband is really sold on the Coral. He said just booked anything on the Coral. He doesn’t care where.

You have very nicely summarized the Coral. We agree with all the pluses you listed. We absolutely loved the cruise and so much about the ship. Coral lives up to it's reputation.

17 minutes ago, Ronnieslady said:

Our router was out in the hallway nearest our Suite on this same 19 day cruise on the Coral.  They tried to fix it several times, with no luck ,after several calls by us.  Just like the old system we had to leave our door completely open to get a signal.  It was very annoying, at 1st because we would lose the signal & we were unable to clock out.  We couldn’t understand why it was happening.  Not sure but the routers might still be the same or the bugs are not worked out yet 

It was  suite D703 .  But as stated above the system was nice and fast, when we could get a signal 

Sorry to hear about your problems. I wonder if others had issues also. We were the first cruise with it on the Coral so I guess there were bound to be problems. We had great connectivity in our room and on the balcony. A324.

Those with free platinum and elite minutes may want to try going that way if you are just an emailer and not much of a browser. We both just finished the 19 day cruise with MedallianNet on the Coral. We both had about 130 min. left (out of 250 each) at the end so about 260 total and did not feel deprived at all. In fact did some unnecessary browsing just for the heck of it. The trick is to get on, let your email download, browse the internet pages you want to see in tabs and then get off. Some apps like NextDoor downloaded everything so if you opened them they downloaded and then you could browse around, see replies and new posts off line.

The new internet is so fast that you can get all you want and then peruse it at your leisure. Texting without logging in was hit and miss. The trick is to text someone while you are logged in and then most of the time they could text you back with out your logging in. You could also respond with out logging in. When that stopped I just logged on, initiated a new text and then logged off and was able to continue to text multiple people. Probably a loop hole that won't last but while it is there.... I was also able to make a call once through wifi but they closed that hole pretty quick. My husband found a bunch of his trickle update services trickled through continuously without logging in, things like stock updates and baseball scores.

1 hour ago, LynnTTT said:

  We have actually done some extensive land travel in some of the ports: we've done a three week trip to India, three weeks in Southeast Asia (Cambodia/Thailand and Vietnam) and also three weeks in China!  Just did 11 days in Egypt. 

We did a trip to Peru and spent two days in Machu Pichu.  A definite "bucket list" destination.

We will enjoy Australia and New Zealand without the long flight. our son lives in Thailand so we'll see him, and we will like seeing just a bit of Polynesia.  And hopefully we'll get to Petra.  Otherwise I see a combined Israel/Jordan trip in the future.

WE just like the diverse itinerary.  And hopefully the days at sea won't be a problem.

 

I like the itinerary also. In fact I Iiked it enough that I read the reviews of the ship. I think the international clientele would be a plus for me. Make it seem more of an adventure. I'm curious if the passengers will be younger on the Costa world cruise than the US lines. The only negative was some of the reviews of the smoking policy. If you had an upwind balcony smoker it appeared you were very unhappy with your cruise. Complaints about the food can be found on all lines so I wasn't sure how to weigh that.

It sounds like you are very adventurous in your travel so picking the right itinerary is key to hold your interest for the whole time. I chose my world cruise based on itinerary. It seemed there were two groups of travelers on board. One group, like myself, loved the exotic ports. The other group ran them down and loved nothing more than an English speaking country with good shopping malls. Very different travel philosophies and styles.

I found that while there were ports to look forward to I didn't mind the sea days. But when we hit the Mediterranean, where I'd been to all the ports 3 or 4 times, I was ready to get off. I think I'm good for 60ish days on a cruise ship but 107 was too many for me. My husband wants to do a round the world trip so I've been looking at itineraries to see what looks good. 

Thanks for posting the movie list. We are on the Coral shortly and they only sent us the name of 2 of the movies. I bet they both have the same so I'm going to look up the ones you listed to see what I'm interested in.

13 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

Michelle1234 - didn't realise your onboard spend was pp, our onboard bill was for both of us, but adding the spend for tours ashore brought it up to $20K, then about another $15K for flights.

 

While our next WC on Viking has a base fare almost double the Princess fare in 2015 for a similar cabin, by the end of the cruise the costs will be almost identical.

Sounds like we spent about the same then. About an extra $10Kish per person for extra expenses like tours and on board spending. This is probably a very valuable data point for those in the planning stages. I think there was another cruiser, Aquadesiac who was in the same neighborhood for extra expenses over the cruise fare.

1 hour ago, Go-Bucks! said:

 

Our expenditures were different from yours (we have 81 ports, so shore excursions can be quite expensive, even private ones) but we have kept very good track of all our costs so my estimates are accurate.  We didn't have any airline miles so would have had to buy our own flights if our cruisefare didn't include them.  I still suggest that anyone who is considering a world cruise should check what is included in all base cruiseline fares then try to realistically decide what you will need to spend for EVERYTHING during the entire cruise.  This will obviously be different for everyone, but many things will be similar to others.  After adding the extra costs to the basic cruisefare, you'll be comparing apples-to-apples.  This way to compare worked well for us and helped us choose the cruise with the most "bang for the buck."  Best wishes on your adventure....ours is amazing!

Good point on the number of ports. Mine was 41 ports on 107 days whereas yours is quite a bit longer. I didn't even try to estimate my expenses in advance because I didn't really care. I just wanted the experience. I was very pleased when it came in at just under $25K.

My main point is to not overestimate the cost of things like mandatory gratuities because they are generally comped by the cruise line or your TA so assign $0 to them. Also on-board laundry is very cheap if there are machines. As you go you will likely get status for getting it done on the ship so assign only minimal cost. Maybe $5 per week. Internet is also one that is being over valued if you have status because it is free. As you go you earn status by segment so at some point that cost will fall away also unless you have never sailed that cruise line before.

There are lots of ways to do a fantastic world cruise without spending $50K per person. If one wants to then that is one thing but alot of people don't want to and are trying to figure out if they can go for less so I wanted to let them know that they could. There is another poster who did hers for about the same cost I did mine so there is more than one data point for around $25K per person.

1 minute ago, Heidi13 said:

Wow, you certainly managed to keep expenses down on your World Cruise. We also used Princess, but out of Australia. Tips were included in the base fare and being at the Elite level we had no internet or laundry expenses, but still our on-board bill was over $15K and that was without overland tours.

My $25K all in was for one person so the extra spending is for one. Is your $15K for 2?

My on board bill was a couple of bags of laundry because I mostly did my own until I got to Elite and some shore excursions. I didn't have to buy Internet minutes because they gave out new minutes each segment for Platinum and then Elite so plenty for the whole trip.  Mostly I did independent shore excursions which were alot cheaper and really fabulous. The independent over lands were less expensive than the Princess ones and truly fabulous!

I wanted to post my experience because I saw alot of posts valuing things at much higher values than they needed to so wasn't reflecting what a person would really spend. I also used miles for first class flights so no expense there. I didn't really go into the experience with a budget in mind so thought I'd share for those trying to budget.