waldorf

11 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

 

You say you are picking up new passengers in Sydney? 

 

Are you on a segment of a world cruise?  Or a segment of a 45 or 90 day cruise?

 

You will find the demographics on these cruises - IMO - to be older because the younger are working and are not able to commit to long cruise itineraries like that.

Some are on a 93 day trip, we’re on for 31 days, Auckland to Bali but many are getting off in Sydney & no doubt new passengers joining us. 

Well, we’re on the Orion, heading for Melbourne. There are indeed some other gay passengers on board but overall the passengers are quite a bit older than we were expecting. The ship is pretty dead after 10pm. The age profile may change when new passengers join us in Sydney, I hope so anyway 😁

1 minute ago, Teechur said:

Did you have to pay to use them? TIA

No, they were free.  The entrance was by the gym. 

23 minutes ago, minnesotasisu said:

not the free saunas.

Diamond had free sauna & steam room when I left the ship in mid September 2023. 

On 2/3/2024 at 12:08 PM, Lanwood said:

Was that removed in the last dry dock? Shame. Looks like the OP's instincts are on the mark.

 

My next grand class type ship will be Diamond again in Sept. Wonder if they'll still be there....

They were in September last year. 

We actually tried its first night on the Diamond in August. It was a disaster, we didn’t enjoy it at all, very disorganised. Our side dishes arrived after we’d finished eating!

It was all the more disappointing as we’d been in the steak house format the previous week.  We wouldn’t do it again. The whole ambiance didn’t work, they block off part of the Horizon Court, no atmosphere at all. Princess, please revert back to a steak house and find a better location. 

21 hours ago, JourneyMan89 said:

I'm not sure if this is off-topic too much, but I had a general question for those men who enjoy cruise ship saunas.  Regarding the social atmosphere in the sauna, do you prefer it to be very quiet and peaceful with very little or no talking, or do you enjoy conversations and camaraderie with other gents, or perhaps something in between?

Definitely like ti chat. 

1 hour ago, JourneyMan89 said:

My wife and I are considering Celebrity Equinox.  Does anyone know if that has complimentary sauna/steam room?  And are they co-ed or single-sex?

They did 6 years ago, the sauna in the changing area was quite small, the women’s sauna was larger! (I saw it on a spa tour on embarkation day!)

1 hour ago, JourneyMan89 said:

Does it cost extra to use the men's sauna on Equinox?

It didn’t when I was last on it, although that was 6 years ago. 

2 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

Wow - you have sailed a lot of cruise lines.

 

We have now done 10 Viking Cruises, and although I would say that the demographic and the marketing material is not focused on drawing the 2SLGBTQ+ community, we have never sailed - river or ocean - without seeing other gay couples.

 

We sail Viking for the experience that they offer which is very different from some of the more mass market and large ship cruise lines.  You will immediately see a difference for many reasons.

 

What ship and itinerary are you sailing?

We’re joining Orion in Auckland and disembarking in Bali. We’re really looking forward to it. 

We’re sailing with Viking in February so we’ll see how it is. 

We disembarked the Diamond Princess on the 15th September and we had a large credit balance on our onboard account (this was due to having so many excursions cancelled which we’d prepaid), we are still waiting for this to be refunded to our credit card. We were told this would be refunded straight away, our TA has chased but still no joy. 
 

Is this usual?

47 minutes ago, AussieVoyager said:

Lol towels intended for a full body wrap?

Probably, I just sat on it 🤣

On 9/3/2023 at 5:59 PM, LEESRE said:

Anyone going on Seabourn Encore in the coming weeks.

We were on it in February, very small sauna in the men’s changing room, I never saw anyone else in there.  Towels were far too big. 

A nice step, please extend to the entire fleet & we will be tempted to book. 

I had a tour of a Silversea ship this week and asked about the dress code, I was told there is typically one formal night every 7 days, tux or suit with tie required for the Main dining room, Informal nights were no tie is required and Casual trousers & shirt. No jeans or shorts. They said you can use the grill if this doesn’t suit!

I’d like to try Silversea but I’ll be giving it a miss until their dress code is relaxed. Being told I can use the grill on the deck if I’m not appropriately dressed isn’t a selling point. When Silversea joins the 21st century I’ll give them a try. 

We did an Asian cruise earlier this year, (Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia & The Philippines) whilst we’re quite discreet we never encountered any problems. 

17 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

Viking does these countries, but maybe not Philippines.

They do but only quite short cruises, I’d like to see options for at least 28 days cruises. 

I’d like an intensive Asian cruise, excluding Japan as that deserves its own cruise. Covering Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, perhaps Hong Kong & China. 

Is anyone aware of Royal are planning an Ultimate World Cruise in 2025?

We were on Encore in January/February and they had two meet-ups. Both poorly attended even though the cruise director had invited people we’d spotted on the ship. We met a nice couple in the laundry who we ended up hanging out with.

I’m waiting too! Not sure why Princess are so much later than other cruise lines? My TA enquired and said the 2024 cruise were released in August 2022, so perhaps this August is the time to look. Crazy.

On 3/4/2023 at 4:08 PM, Vineyard View said:

I did NOT mean to ruffle feathers with the question of wearing upscale, collared short sleeve quality shirts (think silk, etc) in a warm Mediterranean climate. I should have clarified and stated ‘in addition to long sleeves’.
I had already looked up on Seabourn’s website what the dress requirements are. It states ‘collared dress shirt’. After reading all these responses, I actually perused the definition of “collared dress shirt”. Several websites clearly state that in warm climates short sleeve collared dress shirts are appropriate. 

We are new to Seabourn. I was simply trying to understand expectations. I was not trying to step outside of the rules or stated dress codes. If Seabourn’s printed dress code was more specific I would not have asked. If it stated ‘long sleeve collared dress shirts”, there would not have been question. I specifically said warm Mediterranean weather, which was the main reason to even ask. DH cuts a fine look when he dresses and enjoys dressing up.  Based on all the responding comments, then he will pack more long sleeve. 
I guess, thank you. 

We were on Encore in February, apart from formal nights, short sleeves were quite common, in fact also saw polo shirts as well. 

Seabourn Encore has a Concept 2 rower. 

Wow, if the recent comments are typical of Seabourn passengers then perhaps I will look elsewhere. I’m not sure if it’s the green eyed monster or snobbery, probably a combination of the two 😬. 
 

We’ve got future cruises booked on Viking & Regent so will compare.

I will say that the passengers I have met on here have been delightful and the staff are equally lovely. There are service & procurement problems, acknowledged by loyal Seabourn passengers we’ve chatted to. We had expected to be wowed by Seabourn, sadly we haven’t.
 

Perhaps the above posters will reconsider after they’ve actually completed a recent sailing rather than recalling a golden time. 
 

Even more sadly, Seabourn don’t seem concerned, this should concern all passengers as the product is not shining as much as we were told. 
 

Happy cruising.