new_cruiser

Not correct. We had OBC from our TA on our last cruise. The statement of OBC that was in our room stated that it was refundable. We also had $600 in non-refundable OBC from Windstar that we made sure to use up during the cruise. The refundable OBC was used to pay our gratuities and the remainder was refunded to our credit card.

It depends what kind of OBC you habe. The OBC Windstar gives you can't be used for gratuities. If you have OBC from your TA, that can be used for gratuities.

In most cases on Windstar ships, connected cabins aren't connected by a door in the wall between cabins. Each pair of cabins is accesed from a short hall off the central hallway. For connected cabins, that short hall has a door that can close it from the main hall so that the cabins connect through their regular doors.

My condolences on your loss. I've been solo on some Windstar cruises because my husband wasn't interested in the itineraries. Two were ocean crossings. There usually aren't many solos, but the passengers were friendly and I had plenty of socializing. On Windsurf this fall, I noticed that the daily program had a gathering for solos listed most evenings. That's the first time I've seen that. My husband was with me on that cruise so I don't know how those went. When solo, I've usually either done Windstar excursions or explored the port on my own. A few times, a couple had similar interests and we explored a port together - had the best time in Madera doing that.

There are two kinds of OBC. One is the OBC from Windstar - the OBC you get from Windstar including that based on your Yacht Club status, promotional OBC (from specials and such). That can't be used for gratuities and it's use it or lose it. The other is pre-paid credit. That's what you get from your TA. It's real money so it can pay gratuities and anything left at the end of the cruise is refunded to your card. Somehow, we ended up with $600 of the first kind on our last cruise and had a hard time spending it all. We are 4-star so get laundry and internet included. We aren't big drinkers - 0 to 2 drinks a day and they had winery on board hosting complimentary wine tastings (apparently about a half-dozen cruises this year will have a winery doing this). And for the particular itinerary, we preferred doing our oelwn thing rather than excursions.

The Panama Canal itineraries are also great.

That's another case of Royal Caribbean only showing the guarantee fares for double occupancy bookings as I mentioned above. If you go a step further by clicking "Select", it takes you directly to inputting your booking info saying you have selected a guarantee fare. There aren't currently any specific interior cabins left, but some might become available (e.g. cabin changes with Royal Up). Therefore, they are willing to sell a guarantee. If no one moves cabins, that might end up in a currently available higher category cabin.

Munich (and Europe in general, at least Schengen countries) doesn't require collecting checked luggage to go through customs. The US is the only place I've had to do that. 50 minutes is still very tight. Munich is a lot better than Frankfurt but still. IIRC, MUC has some "remote gates." You deboard the plane down stairs to a bus that takes you to the terminal. That really slows things down. It's very common for the big ocean crossing planes to use these gates. On our recent flights from the US to Italy through Frankfurt, both flights at Frankfurt used remote gates.

It may have been a sale rate that wasn't programmed into the solo fare (either intentionally or by mistake) or something like the guarantee fare coming and going. On the cruise I mentioned, the guarantee rate would come and go every few days and at varying prices.

When taking a cruise with family on Royal Caribbean, I saw pricing like that. When I selected 1 passenger, the guaranteed room rate didn't appear - only the higher price for selecting your room. My guess is that with the very low fare, they are hoping for additional revenue from add ons like excursions, drinks and specialty dining for two people. For that trip, it turned out not to matter because someone else decided to come along so I ended up with two in my cabin. The extra cost for a solo that I was seeing was significant but not as large as what you are seeing. $750 pp double occupancy going to $3k single occupancy is a 300% solo supplement. For the cruise I was looking at, it was more like 150% (and not quite equivalent because the lower rate was for a guarantee but as it was past final payment, there wasn't much room choice available anyway). I usually sail on Windstar and their normal solo supplement is 75%.

An officer on our recent Wind Surf cruise mentioned that the passenger capacity of Wind Surf is about the same as the capacity of a tender on the 6000-passenger ship he previously worked in.

You can also look for cruises with a reduced solo supplement or no solo supplement (i.e. a solo passenger in a room pays the same fare as per person double occupancy). A lot of cruise lines offer that for some cruises.

I used this earlier this year. If you live close to a US Passport Agency office or are willing to travel to one, it works fine. Note that "within 14 days" includes the day you call for the appointment. I called one day too early and had to call again the next day. The only extra cost is the $65 expedite fee (+ whatever personal cost there is in getting to the passport office). My appointment was in the morning and they said I could come back in the afternoon to pick-up the passport because I live more than 100 miles from the office. If you live closer, you may have to come back the next day to pick-up.

Our experience this morning. Sunday morning for a flight to the US at 10:30 AM. 7:15 Left our Rome hotel 7:45 get to the airport zipping along with no traffic. 8:15 arrive at duty free (after dropping off bags, security and passport control). 8:30 in lounge (my husband isn't a fast walker) Only line was at the United counter to drop bags. Using the kiosk and bag drop might have been slightly faster. Other than that, we were practically continually moving. It almost couldn't have been any faster for us. Walked past a large empty rat race before security so it isn't always that easy. Glad I didn't spend money on Fast Pass. It wouldn't have been any faster this morning Caveat: US passports use the electronic passport control gates along with EU and some others. There was a significant line for the non-electronc passport control desks - no guess on the speed of that line.

I still see the Winter Med cruises. They are all the same itinerary or it's reverse: Citivecchia (Rome), Livorno, Nice, Marseilles, Barcelona with overnights in Rome, Nice and Barcelona. Some prices are pretty low: starting at $1400 pp, but with 17 sailings of the same itinerary, it is hard to see how they will get enough customers who want to do that cruise in winter.

Rome Cabs didn't have availability on our arrival date so they recommended Rome Chauffeur which has more cars. http://www.rome-chauffeur.com/ We were very pleased with the service. Our driver was prompt and courteous.

FRA gets my vote for airport I'd most like to avoid. Sometimes your gates are so far apart. And then they use remote gates so often - you get through the gate. Go down stairs with your carry-ons, board a bus that drives forever to get you to your plane and then up the boarding stairs. This trip, we had the joy of remote gates for both arrival and departure. It's well run and facilities inside the airport are good but it is a pain to get through.

Is there any point to fast pass if you are flying business class? Will that get you into a faster line anyway? We will be on United.

There has been lots of variety in the plant-based items offered, but I haven't seen any of the junk food items you mentioned so far. There is a vegetarian burger, but not a vegan one.

I sometimes have to make things that are dairy free. I can make a reasonable cream cheese substitute from cashews and I've used dairy substitute products from companies such as Mykonos and Kite that have simple normal ingredients so it doesn't have to be over processed to be vegan. I fear that Windstar may be trying to cover too many dietary limitations at once with it's plant based items. The description of the indicator on the Amphora menu says they are also free of gluten, sugar and oils. The additional exclusions probably don't affect items such as chili and tofu scramble much. They normally wouldn't have gluten or sugar. (Sorry, I can't taste those to check the quality - They contain an ingedient that I have an allergy to.) It's desserts where the extra limitations are likely to change the nature of the product too much. I tried one of the plant based chocolate cookies. I wasn't a fan of the texture. It wasn't terrible but oddly gummy.

We were nearly full on Star Breeze for New Zealand and Australia. Weather was cool to cold for much of our trip. Yacht Club could have used expansion - it gets crowded on cold weather scenic cruising days. Sometimes I would go to Compass Rose instead which has lots of window too, but not as easy to pop outside for pictures. The rest of the ship felt fine.

I'm on board Wind Surf now - cruise started yesterday. I noticed that Amphora menu last night had both a "plant-based" item and a vegetarian item. There was also a plant-based dessert. There were plant-based items on the lunch buffet yesterday (I remember there being a chili and cookies) and on the breakfast buffet this morning (including a tofu scramble and plant-based muffin). Sorry, I don't know what classic vegan comfort foods would be so can't speak to that.

The restaurant entry is aft of Amphora while the cabins are forward of Amphora so people won't be gathering near the cabins for that. There isn't a closed door, but enough space that restaurant noise shouldn't affect the cabins. Possibly guests waiting to tender might occasionally be by the cabins. The excursion groups meet in the lounge (aft) and go from there to the tender so don't go by the cabins. There is some space by the tender doors so a guests spilling into the hall by the cabins usually only happens when there are a lot waiting for the first tenders at a port.

We were there in October 2021. I guess we got lucky as only Star Legend and one other ship - not a large one - were in port so it wasn't crowded at all.

I'm so jealous! We were supposed to go through last year but the canal closed for many months, so our itinerary had to change. We still had a lovely cruise.