donaldsc

We did a Thanksgiving cruise with the kids and grandkids a few years back. What you will get is way too many kids including mine and a fairly lousy Thanksgiving dinner. DON

Does that mean that you would be happy yo accept only $10 instead of $16 worth of service from the crew. That is what should happen if you tip only $10. What $6 worth of service are you willing to give up? DON

+1 on that. I can get enough into a bag that if I hit you w the bag it would probably kill you. If I remember correctly on a longer cruise you get a free bag every 7 days. Don't forget that all Azamara ships have free laundry rooms. DON

The Love Boat was cancelled in 1986. That was 36 years ago. You would think that Princess would have buried the whole Love Boat shtick year ago. DON

Some of us are luddites. Using a complicated faulty system to open your cabin door seems to me like a solution looking for a problem. How did we ever unlock our cabin doors before they introduced the medallion? We all know that the medallion was introduced as a marketing ploy so the cruise line can track you on the ship and more important track what you spend money on so that they can send you more targeting ads. DON

Most of us figured it out w/o group help. Just tell her that if she has any questions or worries she should ask you. After all she us a seasoned traveler. Also it is only a 5 day cruise. DON

It isn't going to be THAT cold. Here is the climate data for McMurdo Station - https://weatherspark.com/y/144751/Average-Weather-in-McMurdo-Station-Antarctica-Year-Round. The average high temperature at McMurdo for December and January is ~ 30 degrees. That isn't warm but I will bet that it higher than you expected. Granted that McMurdo is not where you are going to be but the data is relevant. DON

You could go on cruises that don't accept or cater to kids. As others have suggested you could do cruises that are >7 days. You could go on more expensive cruises that young people can't afford. You could go to places that kids or at least the drinking crowd of kids will not be interested in. There are lots of options to avoid going on a booze cruise or a kid laden cruise that are not date related. DON

I guess that the sailboat owner figured that because she was under sail and the Orion was under power the right of way rules meant that boats under sail had the right of way. Surprised that the sailboat owner did not try to cut in front of the Orion. DON

I seriously doubt that they even read them or care what is on them. They are just something to make the survey respondents think that the cruise line cares. DON

I would guess although I do not know that the people who have done their landing time would be offered the opportunity of doing zodiac cruising when they are not on land. Zodiac cruising can be as much fun and as interesting as the actual landings. DON

"The size of the ship has very little to do with potential comfort in a seaway. The seakeeping ability of a ship is determined by the design and scantlings. Many of the liners I worked aboard in the 70's & 80's are tiny in comparison to some of the modern ships afloat today. They were comparable in size to the current Viking ocean ships and were way more comfortable in a seaway than any current ship, with the exception of QM2. The old liners could also maintain a much higher speed through heavy seas. Those liners handled the seas way better than any of today large ships and were also better than the current Viking ocean ships. I haven't yet sailed on the Expedition ships, nor have I seen the ship out of the water, or the plans, so can't comment on their sea-keeping ability. However, since they were designed for these waters, I expect they have superior scantlings than the ocean ships, especially since they are ice strengthened." --------------------- Sorry, I think you lost my context, which was to comment about the comfort issue brought up on on posts #5 and #6. 1. *Of the ships that cruise Antarctica and offer landings*, (i.e., this context of discussing "comfort" getting to and cruising that continent) I think of the Octantis as a *big* ship, not a small ship! I think of the "adventurer" ships that go to Antarctica, e.g., along the lines of what donaldsc described (and indirectly recommended), as the *small* ships. I'm not discussing ships the size of the old liners, or the giant Norwegian Epic, or even Viking Ocean. 2. I also said, "all else being equal", and "may" (at least as one factor in determining , e.g., longitudinal stability) What is relevant in the "comfort" context is if the little and cheaper adventurer ships donaldsc was on are less stable (and cause more motion sickness) than the Octantis, or the same. Both were designed for polar waters. Is it possible for those tiny ships to be just as stable as the larger new Octantis? If so, many of us would be happy to save a lot of money and consider the cheap lines instead! 3. BTW (more context) I was very young, due to our need to repeatedly cross the Atlantic from Europe and my mother's flying phobia after a traumatic experience, I experienced the 'joy' of multiple transatlantic crossings on old fast passenger transport ships, i.e., old ocean liners. Some of these crossings were in winter, and the amount of ship rocking and rolling was quite frightening (my mother was in a low middle cabin most of the time with severe sea sickness and I was close to sick but instead preferred running around the ship -- including places where I could easily have been washed overboard). I felt almost equally concerned and quite sick when on the Silver Cloud off southern South America as few years ago, (pre-modification) but not on the Seabourn Quest (which used to go to Antarctica, pre-Venture), though those two are comparable in size, but smaller than the old liners I sailed on (like the Bremen). The modern stabilizers and construction style have definitely helped make being on a ship in stormy weather in the 21st century more comfortable for me, I just don't yet know how small (and how cheap) I could go without compromising safety and enjoyment (i.e., avoiding sea sickness). Since my post has been referenced several times in this reply I feel that a response is in order. The ships I went on were not the Russian icebreaker types. I don't even know if any of them are still in use. The ships I was on could carry 120 - 180 passengers max. My most recent ship had a maximum capacity of 120 but we had less than 100 people on board so we were not impacted by the 100 passenger landing limit. This 100 passenger limit is important because if you have more than that all off the passengers on land at the same time so people have to come back before the rest of the passengers can come off. I do not know how the larger luxury Antarctica ships handle this problem or maybe they just ignore it because they are luxury ships so the rules don't apply to them. With regard to sea keeping ability - we encountered 75 mph winds on my most recent trip. We also encountered force 10 or 11 (55 - 63 mph) gales on my other trip. In both cases the ships handled those high winds w/o any problems although my wife chose not to have dinner on the windy days. Also I did not feel that I had to hide out in my smallish cabin when it was windy. In fact on my most recent trip where we could spend as much time as we wanted on the bridge (do the luxury ships even allow you to spend time on the bridge) the bridge always had a lot of guests on it and even during the periods of high winds and heavy seas we were allowed there so we could see the same instrumentation that the crew saw. We were up on the bridge when the winds hit 75 mph and I even have a picture of the wind speed meter to prove it. Our most recent ship was the Quark Ocean Adventurer. This is a link to the description of the ship - https://www.quarkexpeditions.com/expedition-ships/ocean-adventurer?creative=&keyword=&matchtype=&network=x&device=c&infinity=ict2~net~gaw~cmp~18605727346~ag~~ar~~kw~~mt~~acr~2450480439&&&campaignid=18605727346&adgroupid=&adid=&gclid=Cj0KCQiAveebBhD_ARIsAFaAvrGIL91C2iRWOE2nYxjvCWxBAetA4h4-FX4Hve-JYmFnDnMJtHwuL1IaAroPEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds. A perfectly acceptable ship to me. Our other trip was on the Hurtigrutin Nordkapp which was a bit more upscale than the Adventurer but certainly not luxury. We did that trip maybe 10 or 12 years ago when nobody would have ever imagined a luxury Antarctica cruise and the Nordkapp was luxury compared to the Russion icebreakers that people were doing Antarctica on. The Nordkapp can hold almost 600 passengers when she does her Norwegian coast runs but they kept it to about 250 for her Antarctica trips. Also someone on another post suggested that they would not want to have the cruise line pick their cabin or make their airplane reservations for them. That suggestion was absurd. I can assure you that I picked the cabin I wanted and made my own reservations. I come back to my original statement. I go on adventure type cruise for what is outside of the ship, for the quality of the expedition staff and of course to be on a safe ship. I don't much care about what is inside of the ship as long as it is comfortable. I feel that I am better off doing two $7000 cruises on my type of ship instead of spending $14,000 on a single luxury cruise. As I said in my 1st post - "different strokes" etc. DON

We always buy an annual policy from Allianz. When I had to cancel a trip because of a medical issue they handled my claim very will and w/o problems. DON

I have not seen this elsewhere on CC - https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/expedition-cruising/two-die-quark-expeditions-zodiac-incident-antarctica?fbclid=IwAR2ISymuxWfbHFwc8XgcuYCmmZj7DJ2_RY1Fj9YaBbpar65FLzDelosBfuI. DON

This is going to sound like a dumb question but here goes. We are taking a 10 day Viking Ocean Caribbean cruise in February. We are doing it not because we really want to do a Caribbean cruise but we want to check out Viking Ocean cruises so we can decide if we want to make Viking Ocean our future go to cruise line and this was a conveniently located cruise. It isn't that we don't want to go to the Caribbean but it is just that we really aren't interested in beaches and snorkeling. With that opening, does anyone have any suggestion for interesting tours on St. Thomas - cultural, historical, nature related, arty and maybe even food tours. I wouldn't want to rule out tours on boats but we don't want to spend our day in St. Thomas lying on the beach or in the water. Thanks. DON

This is going to sound like a dumb question but here goes. We are taking a 10 day Viking Ocean Caribbean cruise in February. We are doing it not because we really want to do a Caribbean cruise but we want to check out Viking Ocean cruises so we can decide if we want to make Viking Ocean our future go to cruise line and this was a conveniently located cruise. It isn't that we don't want to go to the Caribbean but it is just that we really aren't interested in beaches and snorkeling. With that opening, does anyone have any suggestion for interesting tours on St. Martin - cultural, historical, nature related, arty and maybe even food tours. I wouldn't want to rule out tours on boats but we don't want to spend our day in St. Martin lying on the beach or in the water. Thanks. DON

This is going to sound like a dumb question but here goes. We are taking a 10 day Viking Ocean Caribbean cruise in February. We are doing it not because we really want to do a Caribbean cruise but we want to check out Viking Ocean cruises so we can decide if we want to make Viking Ocean our future go to cruise line and this was a conveniently located cruise. It isn't that we don't want to go to the Caribbean but it is just that we really aren't interested in beaches and snorkeling. With that opening, does anyone have any suggestion for interesting tours on Antigua - cultural, historical, nature related, arty and maybe even food tours. I wouldn't want to rule out tours on boats but we don't want to spend our day in Antigua lying on the beach or in the water. Thanks. DON

This is going to sound like a dumb question but here goes. We are taking a 10 day Viking Ocean Caribbean cruise in February. We are doing it not because we really want to do a Caribbean cruise but we want to check out Viking Ocean cruises so we can decide if we want to make Viking Ocean our future go to cruise line and this was a conveniently located cruise. It isn't that we don't want to go to the Caribbean but it is just that we really aren't interested in beaches and snorkeling. With that opening, does anyone have any suggestion for interesting tours on Barbados - cultural, historical, nature related, arty and maybe even food tours. I wouldn't want to rule out tours on boats but we don't want to spend our day in Barbados lying on the beach or in the water. Thanks. DON

This is going to sound like a dumb question but here goes. We are taking a 10 day Viking Ocean Caribbean cruise in February. We are doing it not because we really want to do a Caribbean cruise but we want to check out Viking Ocean cruises so we can decide if we want to make Viking Ocean our future go to cruise line and this was a conveniently located cruise. It isn't that we don't want to go to the Caribbean but it is just that we really aren't interested in beaches and snorkeling. With that opening, does anyone have any suggestion for interesting tours on St. Lucia - cultural, historical, nature related, arty and maybe even food tours. I wouldn't want to rule out tours on boats but we don't want to spend our day in St. Kucia lying on the beach or in the water. Thanks. DON

This is going to sound like a dumb question but here goes. We are taking a 10 day Viking Ocean Caribbean cruise in February. We are doing it not because we really want to do a Caribbean cruise but we want to check out Viking Ocean cruises so we can decide if we want to make Viking Ocean our future go to cruise line and this was a conveniently located cruise. It isn't that we don't want to go to the Caribbean but it is just that we really aren't interested in beaches and snorkeling. With that opening, does anyone have any suggestion for interesting tours on St. Kitts - cultural, historical, nature related, arty and maybe even food tours. I wouldn't want to rule out tours on boats but we don't want to spend our day in St. Kitts lying on the beach or in the water. Thanks. DON

This is going to sound like a dumb question but here goes. We are taking a 10 day Viking Ocean Caribbean cruise in February. We are doing it not because we really want to do a Caribbean cruise but we want to check out Viking Ocean cruises so we can decide if we want to make Viking Ocean our future go to cruise line and this was a conveniently located cruise. It isn't that we don't want to go to the Caribbean but it is just that we really aren't interested in beaches and snorkeling. With that opening, does anyone have any suggestion for interesting tours on Tortola - cultural, historical, nature related, arty and maybe even food tours. I wouldn't want to rule out tours on boats but we don't want to spend our day in Tortola lying on the beach or in the water. Thanks. DON

This is going to sound like a dumb question but here goes. We are taking a 10 day Viking Ocean Caribbean cruise in February. We are doing it not because we really want to do a Caribbean cruise but we want to check out Viking Ocean cruises so we can decide if we want to make Viking Ocean our future go to cruise line and this was a conveniently located cruise. It isn't that we don't want to go to the Caribbean but it is just that we really aren't interested in beaches and snorkeling. With that opening, does anyone have any suggestion for interesting tours on Dominica - cultural, historical, nature related, arty and maybe even food tours. I wouldn't want to rule out tours on boats but we don't want to spend our day in Dominica lying on the beach or in the water. Thanks. DON

Anyone out there?? DON

I will give you the same reply about Antarctica that I give to people who are stressing out about which ship to go to Alaska on. In Antarctica it doesn't matter what is on the ship as long as the ship and your cabin are comfortable. What matters is what is outside of the ship - scenery, excursions etc. Just my opinion but I feel that spending the large sums of money to do a luxury cruise to Antarctica is a total waste of money. A few years ago I did an adventure cruise to South Georgia Island - look it up on a map. My cabin was not large and not fancy but how much time do you spend in the cabin. There was no balcony but there was lots of outside deck space to see stuff. Just one dining room without an overwhelming number of menu choices but there was always something that I liked including a meat, fish, pasta and vegetarian option. The public spaces were not fancy but they sufficed. The good part was that the trip organization and the adventure staff were wonderful and I was there. I also got to spend as much time on the bridge as I wanted which I doubt that you would have on Viking. You have to decide what is important to you - a great cruise that might be longer because it is affordable at a fair price or an overpriced fancy cruise that doesn't give you anything more than what you came there for - Antarctica. DON

It wasn't the fault of your TA that this problem is happening and it also seems that she is trying to fix it. Why are you going to punish her on the rebooking. Do you really think that you would be better off it you had booked directly on the Princess site? DON