milepig

Yes, keep on top of it. At one point I had a folder and speadsheet showing credits, (use by dates, etc) COVID hit us hard with cancellations. My TA had the actual credits, but there were also many airline and other bits and pieces. I'm using up the last the summer, yes! Most were easy to deal with, extending use-by dates, etc. a few we had to push a little. I think the only thing we just lost was a small AirBNB deposit, the guy was being a jerk about it, it wasn't worth fighting so we let it go,

The only times we felt a little squished was in Veranda at peak breakfast or lunch time, expecially when there were a lot of tours departing or coming back at the same time. This is what room service is for if it bothers you, but any line seemed to clear quickly.

This is not the first report I've seen that says the sailed ships are feeling really old. Is this a general consensus? I know that there were thoughts that they' surpassed their normal lifespan and that the cruisers were bought to extend the life of WS as we know it. Several years have past, and gobs of money has been spent on them, but very little (apparently) on the sailed ships. Are there any plans afoot to reconcile this? I can't say, since only sailed on the cruisers since they came online (including the first trip on the Pride out of Singapore under WS ownership) best trip EVER, we even had Capt. Jack, who I still miss, what a hoot. I hope they have plans!!

Disagree. It would be nice but On Board Credit means exactly that, it must be used on board. Cancelling and rebooking excursions is a way around that.

The yacht club is staffed as well and they make coffee to order. I think it opens at 6. I get up first, get ready and grab a coffee up there. Then we meet for breakfast in veranda a bit later.

We had bad wine service exactly once, in 20 itins. They just never came and were uncooperative. When leaving Amphorae we complained to the maitre-d, who we knew from previous trips. He not only apologized and said they had a lot of new staff, but the next night he flagged us down and we had perfect service with never ending wine, and all was back to normal the next night. WS pays attention to details and handles things. No drama.

I have something similar - they're dirt cheap and weigh almost nothing. Throw some in your bag. If you don't need them you're out a few bucks.

Northern Europe later in the season can be very dicey. We are doing mostly private excursions and the operators were all very understanding, we were doing a back to back and we had a stop in the same port on both legs and the operator just switched dates. WS will certainly reimburse you and it will show up as a credit on your final bill.

He is great - got a little bit into ecologial politics but that was easy to ignore. Really had to work to find the dolphins on our trip, there weren't were he through they'd be, but he found them and it was amazing. We saw the blue eyed eels on, I think, a WS tour that included a stop at a pearl farm out in the water that was better than expected. The tropical fish were all around us.

Is the dolphin guy still around? Dr. somebody.

This is a report from 2022, so should be fairly current. https://eatsleepcruise.com/complete-guide-to-windstar-cruises-drink-packages/ I am not away of a better quality wine-only package. There is a Topmast beer and wine, but I believe that is a sub-set of the full package. As far as my experience has been (over 20 itins) is that the wines are from the "by the glass" list, and there are some perfectly fine choices on there, but they'll pour you as many glasses as you'd like. Booze is most things from the bar, although there are a few exceptions mostly things like higher end scotch. Some things I thought weren't included, like Hendricks, were gladly poured for me. All in all, it is a reasonable list of offerings. You also get 30% off on bottled of other wines when you have the package.

On our last trip the Lobster was MIA from the deck BBQ and everything, especially the dessert bar, seemed very downscale, no more elaborate carvings, etc. Is this still the same. It was all still tasty, just not quite as elaborate.

It's been "scheduled" to come on line several times, we'll see if "end of May" with the grace period holds.

It appears to not yet be live and without a firm date (that I can find) This page offers you the chance to be notified when it is. In any case, following past practice your airline should notify you when it is. https://etias.com/etias-application#:~:text=The ETIAS will be live,apply for ETIAS until 2023.

Hang up and call again (HUACA) Even better, book through a travel agent. They handle all this stuff.

Star grill is really the place to go for dinner if the weather is nice and where you can be completely casual. A nice option.

It is sometimes open for dinner. The tea smoked duck is amazing. The usual schedule is lunch, then it switches to burgers and such late afternoon. Then it may or may not reopen for dinner. That deck tends to be pretty busy during cocktail hour, which would, i think, may service difficult.

Yeah, I was puzzled at first since all those things have had "good to go" checkmarks, and then this one popped up with the not complete message but then didn't go anywhere.

I just logged into my windstar and noticed what I think is a new option coming? Under passenger information, the headers are: Immigration Information Guest Information Household Information The Guest Information is labeled "not complete" and when I click on it it just pops up an "under construction" box. I don't recall this option in the past.

I've not seen a pillow menu as such, but I have a hard time sleeping with a foam pillow, and when I ask early enough they do have some down pillows but not many.

Windstar maintains a list of tender (or Zodiac) ports, I'm not sure it's 100% accurate: https://www.windstarcruises.com/accessibility/

LOL. From the map it looks like there are maybe 2 streets. My TA has contacts with tour companies in case WS doesn’t come through. The price is very high for the WS option, but in this case the convenience means a lot. I’ve told my TA that we expect the Yacht Club discount. That should be a hoot.

Was this the continuation of the itinerary from Singapore to Doha? If so, we were on board for that and it was indeed magical. SW had just taken ownership of the Pride, and that part was a bit rocky with much reworking to do, but the crew was absolutely top notch, and the passenger load was light. All sorts of top brass were onboard.

As in part of the price? Now it's extra.

Thanks. It's less the thought of "not doing the tour" and more of if WS doesn't add more space. I have now seen that there are various day trips you can book privately and that may be my backup.