babykay

Yes - the one we were looking at is considerably higher in price.

This year I when I was on The Pursuit i ran into a woman in the Laundry ( the ship's version of a water cooler) was telling me she had a Norway cruise in several weeks and they had cancelled 2 ports of call - and they only found out about it reading the website. No one told them. I just read about a change of port for an upcoming South Africa cruise (THIS may well have been political unrest) and yesterday I was reading about the New Years voyage in Australia where one port had been eliminated.

There are really good reasons for port changes - weather and political unrest. That isn't what I meant. It is port changes 2 months out for no apparent reason.

I said a few so I owe you two more. The turnover in staff is a good indicator of the health of a company. And the lack of an interest in "making things right" - either by way of OBC or an extra bottle of wine. On my last voyage, there were so many things that went wrong but no one even was willing to apologize. AND the home office - nothing like I have even seen before.

I hesitate, but I will name a few. Last minute "operational changes" to itineraries often are forced because there are outstanding port fees due. I have heard about so many of these changes as of late. That is the major one.

Having previously worked for several cruise lines, I see all kinds of red flags. So much so that I decided not to book my next voyage onboard but to wait to see how everything shakes out.

This is dead on!

Uktog - you were so patient for so long. I know you talked me off the ledge a couple of times. It's bad if they have lost you!

It would seem as though one department has no idea what the other one is doing. When I worked for past cruise lines, there was a daily meeting that updated everything that is going on from all departments. Wouldn't that make sense in this case?

That was the wrong term. My SIL had her excursions booked before everything went dark. When I was finally able to book them, they had increased every excursion by double and sometimes triple. When we got onboard, the spa treatments were so expensive, compared to our last October cruise.

Well, if they are writing a new one, you can be sure they are going to cut corners and nickel and dime where they can.

I have used Global Marine Travel and they have always been excellent.

The shuttle drops you off across from the mall where the bus station and the train station are. Cabs are there too. The lower part of Aberdeen is where you are dropped off so you need to get transportation to the upper old town. Make sure you arrange for a cab to pick you up. Getting a cab there was unbelievably hard. I don't know anything about Footdee.

Really good points. I actually didn't even know there was a guest magician on until 2 nights later. It was lots and lots of ads and things tended to get lost. But I am not super tech savvy - just ask my kids or better yet - ask my grand kids.

Great point - I had no idea. I would have utilized it had I known.