MamaFej

I'm glad others are finally saying out loud what I've been thinking. I have been alternating between this forum and the #1 major news story in the US today. I'm not sure which one is a metaphor for the other. There is a huge feel-good aspect to the #2 news story in the US: Damar Hamlin's toy drive charity has received over $5 million in donations. I add this to give folks something to smile about.

I just got an email from a fly who was on the wall of the Celebrity Conference Room when these latest changes were being discussed*. Excerpts from the transcript: Exec. 1-- We are getting a lot of complaints about how understaffed the MDR is. Crew is trying very hard, but service is slow, meals are not at the correct temperature, the sommelier only comes by once per meal... Exec. 2-- What the heck? We have already cut food quality, especially meats and veg. What more do these people want? Is there no pleasing them? Exec. 3-- I know! Let's start charging $12 for room service and decimate the evening buffet! That will put more people in the dining room at once. Intern-- Masterful plan! I'll get it out to the ships right away! *In case it's not clear, this fly is a figment of my imagination - - - - - - - - - I have three (maybe four) names in mind for those who will attack me for this post. Let's see if I'm right. 🍿

Thanks. I have read quite a bit on the Oceania forum, and seen the same advice as here: take the excursions, or forgo O-Life altogether. I think we will likely look at the available excursions before making a booking decision if we do book with O.

While closing the buffet could allow for moving buffet crew to the MDR, alleviating the understaffing issues there, it would still be a terrible idea, for reasons mentioned above.

Yup. Escargot is merely a rubbery delivery mechanism for garlic butter, in my eyes.

On our latest cruise, the TP brand was "Heavenly Soft." If that's Heaven's idea of soft, I'll take a pass.

Tossing in my 2 cents worth and saying that a boots on the ground cruise to Antarctica is absolutely worth considering. I'm incredibly grateful that we just did it.

The older I get, the more often the "eff it and move on" philosophy makes sense for my mental health and overall life satisfaction.

Once again, I'd like to express my gratitude that the IT folks in charge of ship engineering and navigation are not the same ones who are in charge of the website, booking, and billing software.

I wouldn't miss the chocolates, but my son would. I always collect them and bring them home for my son. They go into a dish in the corner of the kitchen. When the supply gets low, he says, "You need to go on another cruise soon, Mom and Dad!"

Thank you for this. I think it might be easy for those of us who can afford to cruise, and who are conversing on a message board catered to those who can afford to cruise, to forget how fortunate we are and that an enormous portion of the US population will never be able to afford to travel more than a few hundred miles. I remember when I was student teaching, my master teacher had previously taught in South Central Los Angeles. About 60% of his students there had never seen the ocean in person. Your second paragraph is spot-on as well.

We did our first small ship cruise in December 2021, and have done four more on three other lines since. We are now hooked on smaller ship cruising. We really enjoy more space per passenger, more personalized service for everyone, not just those in the most expensive cabins, being able to dock "in town" or "closer to the action," etc., etc., etc. We have lots of Celebrity cruises booked in 2023 and early 2024, mostly due to Lift and Shift and Shift and Shift for Aus/NZ/SP and Asia stuff that had been orginally booked in 2018 and 2019. So far, it looks like those will finally go. Nonethless, we are now looking primarily at the smaller ships for future cruises. X has been making it clear that, if passengers want the quality they are used to, they need to book Retreat Class. The value of the experience on smaller ships is greater, for our preferences, on smaller ships than on X, and often for less or significantly less money. We had an Oceania cruise booked for 2020, and still want to try them. They have some very intriguing Africa itineraries. I appreciate the advice regarding O-Life. It is, indeed, confusing. Different strokes for different folks.

And be aware of when it expires. Renew it before then. Booking an $8500 cruise (or an $85 one) druing which the passport will expire does not strike me as excellent planning. Yes, we all make mistakes, myself included. Nonetheless, this whole story is not making a ton of sense.

Thank you so much to the people in this thread who post the PUP opportunities. I was traveling with limited internet access when the latest webinar came up. I was able to watch yesterday. Y'all are awesome!

I hear you. We don't vacation, we travel. We enjoy learning about places, cultures, cuisines, geology, flora, fauna, etc. We have traveled, including cruising, quite a lot in the last 8 years, though we've never been to the Caribbean. We live within 90 minutes of the LA ports, but have only taken a few cruises to and/or from there. We've both flown andcruised to Hawaii and RV'd to 49 US states, and a few Canadian provinces (having cruised to others). We love new experiences and revisiting special places. I think that for those who enjoy traditional vacationing, the idea of weeks at a time on board would not be attractive. That is neither right nor wrong. My way is neither right nor wrong. It is a wonderful thing that humans have different interests and preferences. It is also wonderful that there are so many options for different types of vacationing and traveling. Cruising is a delightful fit for a variety of ways to get away from home. It is also a wonderful way to meet a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds.

Our B2Bs included 23 nights on the Connie, 17 on the Azamara Pursuit, and 33 days on the Summit this year. PapaFej and I genuinely enjoy each other's company, and don't feel the need to be entertained every night. We do enjoy sitting in Cellar Masters when it isn't crowded and playing Scrabble, Qwirkle, or cribbage. I work on my cross stitching between turns. I crafted a fabric Scrabble board that uses regular letters, so we have our own set that doesn't require brute force to clean up, like the commercial Travel Scrabble does. The whole thing fits into an airline ammenities bag. We enjoy the live music in the various venues. The rooftop movie venue at the aft of M class ships is a nice place to relax. We were in Blu on the first and last cruises of our Summit B3B, and MDR in between, where service was dreadful (it was not the fault of the overworked staff) so we ate most dinners in the OVC. We really got to know the sommelier in Blu, who also worked for a couple of hours in Cellar Masters in the afternoon. It's quite easy to develop a rapport with crew, especially when you are on for an extended period. We don't drink a lot, but because we were playing/hanging out in Cellar Masters quite a bit, we also got to know the head bartender at CM, the Cellar Master herself, and one of the Assistant Beverage managers. We find that special treats from onshore small businesses (micro breweries, chocolatiers, a hot sauce specialty shop) make lovely gifts of appreciation for the hard working crew. These are in addition to, not in place of cash tips. All told, we spent 94 nights on 5 ships on 4 lines on 5 continents this year. We have 142 nights booked on 6 ships on 4 lines on 3 continents and lots of islands next year, with wo TPs and a TA. Plus, lots of land time overseas and RV time in the US and Canada. Retirement is fun!

Sigh. What wonderful plans we had for those overnights! It broke my heart to have to cancel them. We have an even longer trip to eastern Asia planned for early 2024, but it won't be the same without you and Greg.

And now that song is in my head. Gee, thanks.

If you haven't already sailed Azamara, you might look into it, and consider jumping on a January cruise. This will grandfather you into the loyalty program at you current level. Once the programs completely separate on February 1, only those who have previously sailed Azamara will maintain their status. If you don't like it, you still had time on a ship. We tried Azamara last June, on a great deal, largely to get grandfathered in. We enjoyed it, and have just booked two more. I'm glad we will get to maintain our loyalty level, mostly earned on X.

The bigger the prices, the bigger the sale?

We met lots of wonderful people, from a variety of places and backgrounds, including a lovely couple in a 1500 square foor suite, decked out to the nines, and full of friendly conversation. I imagine that if I met you on a cruise, I'd say that you are a lovely person, too. If have seen you offer lots of helpful advice here over the years. I was just surprised at how many bargain-hunting middle class folks we also met. I think they were as surprised as we were. I hope I did not offend. It was absolutely not my intention. I definitely hear you about the working hard and getting lucky bit. Most people at our income level do not travel as we do. It is a combination of hard work, tough choices, wise investments, opportunities to make all of those pay off, and sheer, dumb luck that have led us to where we are now. There are billions of people on this planet, and tens of millions in our own country who have to work harder than we for far longer, who will never have the opportunities we have had. We recognize how lucky we are. We don't kid ourselves for half a second that everything we have is due solely to our work ethic and choices.

@Jim_Iain, on another note, you might want to consider jumping on a January Azamara cruise. This would grandfather you into the Azamara Circle loyalty program at the Zenith reciprocal level before the programs officially sever. https://www.azamara.com/loyalty/azamara-circle/member-benefits Azamara may or may not be for you.. It's certainly not as high-end as other lines, definitely not like Ponant, but we enjoyed it quite a bit when we sailed with them last June. We have discovered that we really enjoy small ship cruising, having done several in the last 13 months. If you end up hating Azamara, you could always bonk me on the head with a paper towel roll the next time you see me. If you end up liking it, you could flash me one of your awesome smiles.

Re: river cruises, we did our first on on the Duoro in April. We loved it. We have another booked, also with Ama, on the Mekong for early 2024. As TrulyBlonde mentioned, you don't have the flexibility on excursions, which I thought would be a probelm for us, but it wasn't at all. The curated experiences were fabulous, and we did end up with free time options ashore. As long as you were back to the coach in time, you could skip anything you wanted.

My understanding is that the regular cruises are very fancy schmancy. Jackets required in the evenings in all public areas and such. On the Expedition cruise, some folks wore leggings, jeans, sneakers, etc. at any time of day. I think that Jobs would have gotten away with whatever he wanted to wear in any situation. Me, not so much. This adventure sort of fell into our laps. My very dear friend got a crazy cheap Agent Rate. I think it was largely because of the timing. Going home from the ship to nealry anywhere in the world required traveling on Christmas Eve, and during Hanukkah. There were several agents aboard, on Agent Rates. My TA friend couldnt get the Agent Rate for us, but the cruise was heavily discounted without it. He also worked some magic for us, and we just couldn't say no. I'm glad we didn't. It was not my first choice of itinerary, but it was utterly amazing, nonetheless. We had far more landings than average, we got to kayak, we actually saw Cape Horn, etc., etc., etc. When members of the Expedition Team repeatedly say, "Whoa! That almost never happens" multiple times, literally stop the Zodiac to get out their own phones for pictures, and gush over how well things are going, especially compared to the previous two trips, it's definitely a great experience! We even got to enter the caldera and go ashore on Deception Island. We were seconds away from having to abort, but a sudden wind shift allowed us in. We had far more good luck than anyone deserves. I think the current cruise is doing the Falklands, and other stuff east of where we went. Silversea has 3 or 4 ships down there this season. The ship holds 300, but we had only 174 passengers. As such, we got to to places only ships with under 200 are allowed to go. I would definitely love to visit Stanley, South Georgia, etc., but this was a once in a lifetime deal, and a less than perfect itinerary (on paper) was 8 million times better than never doing it at all. Because of the (relatively) low price, there were quite a few middle class folks like us, who would normally not cruise Silversea. There were also lots of people who probably had more cash in their $5,000 designer handbags than we have in our investment accounts. Nearly everyone was friendly. The staff and crew were phenomenal. For folks who can definitely afford this type of cruising at regular prices, holding out for other options may be a better choice. Keep in mind that 10-12% of this kind of expediton cruise ends up with no one ever getting ashore, or even onto Zodiacs. I was prepared for this, but we had just the opposite. @Jim_Iain, you have my email address, and my real name. Feel free to reach out, if you want.

I absolutely would not feel comfortable on one of their regular cruises. I am neither fancy nor schmancy.For those who are, it wouuld be a fabulous way to cruise. I would do another Expedition with them in a heartbeat, if I could actually afford it (highly unlikely).