forensic

I am so jealous of all you people with good TA's......I'm still searching for one.

 

Hope I find one soon to help me book our Princess cruise!!!

 

Dianne

Wish I was allowed to give out names.

I don't skimp while cruising but I don't believe in wasting money either. I'd never buy art on a ship, I usually stick with the DOD's because they are on special and actually seem to taste the best for some reason. I never send my laundry out but have been known to use the coin operated machines now and again. I have a limit of what I'll lose in the casino each day. I just consider it the price of entertainment. I enjoy watching people gamble. I've only eaten in the specialty restaurant once. I think the food in the dining room is excellent and honestly don't think it's worth the extra money to eat elsewhere. I also get quite attached to my tablemates and would miss having dinner with them. I love the fruitpunch and lemonade on the Lido deck so a sodacard would be wasted on me. All in all, at the end of the week, my bill isn't bad.

We are only able to do 1 or 2 cruises a year so it seems we wait forever from one to the next. We DO send our laundry out, =X= does a great job, they are no more expensive then the cleaners where I live, and as Capt. Club members we use our coupons and fill the bag w/laundry for $10. We can get a lot in there! We eat in the Specialty Restaurant at least once out of each week we cruise because we really enjoy it and think that =X= has the best specialty restaurants (can't wait to try those on Solstice!). I do not get a soda card, but for some reason it is important to DH, he brings me on these wonderful cruises and if it is important to him - so be it - small price to pay. I like the iced tea and water (and martinis). When we first started cruising I heard and read horror stories about the Casinos - we only play the 25 cent slot machines and never more than $20 at a time, so we did not go to Casino at all. On our second cruise we were will friends that wanted to go to the Casino so we went and played some DH won $2500 on a slot machine with his first $20! On our last 4 cruises we have come home winners! So we do go to the casinos! We do drink martinis and non-house wines - that is why we build up our OBaccount before we cruise, no bill at the end of the cruise - so far:D

IF YOU ARE GOING TO GO ON A VACATION - BE REASONABLE (DH SAYS) BUT HAVE FUN !

I always choose the aft of the ship - if I cannot have one of the staterooms across the aft of the aft of the ship I still choose one in the aft portion of the ship. I have NEVER felt any "vibration" or any of the other things people talk about. I think the aft of the ship gives you a great, smooth ride.

We normally eat later as our norm anyway. Plus the first time we cruised we did main dining and found ourselves rushing back to the ship from on shore to get dressed for dinner or back from the pool, etc. We find it much nicer to take a rest before dinner and then take our time getting dressed and find it very enjoyable to visit the Martini Bar, listen to the music and relaxing before dinner. For us this is part of the delightful, and elegance of cruising.

We started off by buying the brass Christmas Ornament that is the model of the ship for each ship we have sailed on. We also buy the small lapel/hat pin for each island/country/state we visited. But by far our favorite souvenir is from our last cruise on the Celebrity, Constellation. We like to go to the Martini Bar for a drink before dinner each evening. One evening we each ordered the Murano Martini which came in a beautiful souvenir martini glass. Well, we were on an 11 night cruise and the waiter told us we could pay a little extra and get any martini we wanted and still get the souvenir glass. By the end of the cruise we had collected 8 glasses and they have become our favorite souvenir. We love drinking out of them at home and remembing our wonderful cruise and we love serving them to our guests and telling them about our cruise.

As it turned out it was the best cruise ITINERARY and THE best cruise we have EVER been on!

OK - I am totaly non-mechanical. But I assume the ships that have had the most recent pod repairs are in the best shape and those of us set to said shortly would care about which one those are. Right? Then we would know what our odds may or may not be of having a problem on our cruise. SO - which M class ships have had the most recent pod repairs? And if anyone knows - which ship has had the most problems?