exiledowl

The Phoenix fleet are relatively small ships, for instance the Amera has only 850+ pax, the Artania I believe slightly more. This may well be the reason that they can reach smaller ports that the floating cities can't. Another nice touch, having been on the Amera twice before, was that having fewer passengers has led to casual acquaintances made on board becoming long lasting friendships at the end of the cruise.

Well done! If I could only cruise one part of the world, it would be South America. We'll be visiting Peru ( with an excursion to Machu Picchu) and Ecuador on our world cruise, but obviously that's only a small part. We start in Genoa on Thursday next week but have to travel to Frankfurt Airport a day earlier to take a bus to Freiburg, where we stay overnight and then travel next morning to Genoa. It's annoying, because the bus passes Karlsruhe, where we live, but doesn't stop. However, all these changes are at Phoenix Reisen's own expense so we get dinner, bed and breakfast paid for.

Unfortunately not whogo, due to (A) Expensive and sketchy Wi-Fi on board and in many of the ports. (B) Technological incompetence on my part. However, I'm more than willing to offer advice and experiences on CC after we return on May 12th. If you want to follow the route it's in the Phoenix Seereisen catalogue 2023, entitled " Einmal um die ganze welt mit MS Amera in 143 tagen ". Obviously it's in German but it's easy enough to follow if you hit the translation button.

Thanks very much. We booked ours in May last year, shortly after our return from Norway, and it was well on the way to being a sell out even then.

We hope so too! Actually, we feel we've dropped quite lucky. Celestyal Journey usually cruises the eastern Med and the reason it has become available is due to cancellations of passengers (many American) and therefore whole cruises by the company, because of the Israeli/Hamas conflict. We could have ended up having to start the whole cruise in Cape Town, or even worse.

My remarks about the fish were not meant as a criticism; we have been with Phoenix twice before, to Norway and Greenland and on both occasions the food was good, and superb in the speciality restaurant, with reservation only but for no extra cost . I take your statistical analysis entirely regarding the preparation of the dishes. On many days we will be on excursions with lunch included, giving us the opportunity to sample local cuisine anyway. Less than 2 weeks now , really looking forward to it!

Thanks for the tip Heidi13, I always seem to be able to rely on you for advice! We are sailing with Phoenix Reisen on the MS Amera, originally out of Hamburg but as the ship won't be ready on time we're now starting the first leg to Cape Town from Genoa on the Celestyal Journey which has been borrowed by Phoenix for this purpose.

We're setting off on our first world cruise in just under 2 weeks time, and as our ship is in dry dock atm undergoing renovations I've been consulting, somewhat nerdishly, the daily menus and dishes of her sister ships as they ply round their itineraries. Yes , most dishes are repeated in some shape or form and on the pescatarian side, different descriptions are often used for what is essentially the same fish. However, they do make an effort, especially on port days,to include a dinner dish which reflects the place where they're docked, or the region through which they are travelling. But as other contributors have said, there is always the opportunity to eat ashore if you want to sample the local stuff.

The Indonesian embassy informed me that visa on arrival is the norm there. But that is for each entry ; we are taking a world cruise later this month and enter Indonesia on 2 separate occasions and therefore need to pay twice.

The NZeTA finally arrived this morning so we have the full set now.(Australia, USA, NZ and Sri Lanka). All of them with different requirements regarding cost, documents and photos, and family info!

Has anyone else experienced the same problems as we have in obtaining the above? My obligatory home produced photo was accepted immediately and the eta was granted overnight, whereas DW tried 6 attempts before one was deemed good enough and her application is still pending 4 days later.

We've just got our visa and extra charges through for December. It appears that we'll have to pay €55 pp just to walk off the ship in Dakar! Can't see many tours or excursions being made if that's the case.

We've been told by our cruise company that there is a "75% chance " of a shuttle bus being put on in Brisbane. Reading between the lines I don't think we have been the only passengers phoning them over this. Nothing wrong with a bit of arm twisting now and again.....

We picked up a sprinkling of different SE Asian currencies today, along with a wad of small USD denominations to use as tips or to change into local cash for 1 day in 1 country visits. It really added to the build up and excitement to see all these exotic bank notes for the first time!

Thanks that's very kind of you.

That's brilliant @Heidi13 just the informed and reassuring response I was hoping for. Thanks v much! Jon

Good Afternoon Shipmates, We are embarking on our first world cruise in December and would like the advice of seasoned cruisers regarding currency. I'll be taking the usual suspects, GBP/EUR/USD/AUD/ZAR/NZD/CAD on a multi currency card, as well as cash in the 1st 3. Whilst I've seen through researching the ports that in a lot of the one-off ports where we will dock accept EURO or USD, some don't. So my question is, should be try and obtain some of each currency for the places we visit before leaving, or are we generally able to find money changers at the port who give a better rate , especially where we dock at the weekend when the banks are closed? I'm referring particularly to West Africa, the Indian Ocean and SE Asian countries here. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Thank you @triplem67 for all the homework you have done for us. I've just looked at Google maps and the nautical map on What's in port and Fisherman Island looks even more isolated than BICT. I'm not too disheartened about it though, as I feel under the circumstances the cruise ship is now more or less "obliged" to provide a shuttle bus to CBD. Thanks again. Jon

Hallo Nicole, Thanks for the reply we are in the process of joining FB now. My German is still not great but hopefully by the end of the cruise it will be much better! Ingrid speaks fluent English and French as well as of course German.

Thanks that's my fault for not reading your post properly.

Hi Nicole, We are on the same cruise as you on MS Amera Hamburg to Bremerhaven world cruise. While I hope we do dock in Hamilton I suspect we'll arrive at BICT , a long way from the city centre and , annoyingly, no public transport into the city. There might be a shuttle, otherwise it looks like an expensive taxi ride. By the way, I've posted 2 roll calls, one on the "other cruise lines" section here on CC in English and the other on the Phoenix section section of Kreuzfahrten-Treff.de in German. I haven't had any replies yet though. Jon and Ingrid

Its basically a quirky , typical German town enclosed by the desert. You'll see what I mean by the architecture, most notably the Hohenzollern building and the Woermann house. Luderitz is similar but on a smaller scale.

If you've only got a day a trip to Swakopmund would be a good idea ; it's more attractive and interesting than Walvis Bay.

We're arriving in Georgetown/Penang in March next year but looking at the map in my guidebook the pier is more or less within walking distance of many of the sights so walk is what we'll do. Apparently it's also a great gastronomic centre for hawker food so we'll use our noses as well as our eyes.

Hi Borna We've been before and went to Ile Goree, a must see imo on any visit to Dakar but when exactly are you going? We're docking there on the 30th of December but are keeping an eye on the political situation that is developing there. There have been some violent incidents recently in the lead up to the presidential elections in February and if that's still going on (it will be a Saturday when we arrive) I'm certain that the captain won't let us ashore. However, if everything is ok we plan on visiting the museum of black civilizations which is just past the railway station. A fellow passenger on our cruise has enquired about a private tour and has been quoted a ridiculously high price, much higher than the equivalent ship tours so I'm sorry I can't help on that score.