Pomcoach

WOW! You all are absolutely wonderful with your comments! I feel like I've already been there! Thank you all so very much!

Dear LHT28,

I will keep working on my hubby, so we can both experience Oceania. Thank you so much!

Thank you so much Classiccruiser777!:D Sounds wonderful so far! The prices seem higher than what we've done so far. But we want great food and nicer treatment, so we are willing to pay more. We also have always had a balcony, so are spoiled in that regard.

When we were disappointed with 2 other cruise lines, many people recommended Oceania. I just wondered if you might take the time to tell a few things that you like about Oceania, and what makes them stand out to you.

Thanks so much! Your help is greatly appreciated. My husband will retire next year. We want to take a memorable cruise.

And hopefully the PVP is nice. Ours was not. He actually yelled at my husband. We tried to ask for a change to another PVP, but we were continually directed to the same one. We didn't want to specify the problem (that the guy yelled over the phone), so they wouldn't give us a different one, just because we were asking. So it was easier to just not use that Cruise line ever again. And yes, people will say, "You should have told on him." Me being a teacher, I didn't want to be a tattle tale." And I didn't want to hurt someone's career. That was a long time ago. Hope you have a great relationship with yours.

Oceania is sounding better all the time!

And yes, we enjoy every cruise, even if there are things that are irksome. We always have a good time, no matter what.

We're just looking for a BETTER time :cool:, and benefitting greatly from all of you with so much experience and super suggestions!

As always, I'm amazed at the amount of help I've received from all of you! Just so wonderful!

We did look at Cunard and saw that it's too formal for us. We will definitely look at Oceania, Celebrity, and Viking Ocean and River Cruises. I don't know much about Windstar, so will have to study up on that. We'll keep in mind Crystal too.

I know the food isn't expected to be gourmet on a cruise ship. But we do expect it to have taste. And we don't expect people to bow to us, but civil and polite is a requirement for us anywhere we go, even the grocery store.

Thank you everyone for helping us narrow down our search. I can't wait to have a memorable cruise!

You're all wonderful!

Original Poster: Pomcoach

Dear Captain:

Oh my Goodness! What a wealth of information! That may be exactly what we're looking for. And the people enjoying the deck look just like us. Our style of dress and our age. Thank you sooo much! I actually copied and printed out all your wonderful info., so I can refer to it.

Bless YOU!

Thank you so much Amber! That's exactly what I wanted to know about the food.

And Captain: We are very interested in Viking Cruises because it seems to be educational besides maybe catering to Seniors? At least that's how the commercials and brochures look. I'm a retired teacher, and we both love history. They also looked a little fancy and formal for our taste, so I was concerned about that. We'll also look into all 3 you mentioned. Thank you so very much!

Thank you MOM!

We will definitely look into Celebrity. You thought the food was really good? My husband doesn't mind wearing long pants for dinner and I usually wear a skirt and nice top. But we both still like to wear comfortable tennis shoes. Thank you so much for your help. Mom always knows what's best! :p

We have cruised with Carnival and were not so happy with the treatment of the passengers. We cruised with Norwegian, and although staff was wonderful, we found the food to be good on embarkation day, but it got worse and tasteless throughout the cruise. Very strange.

We're looking for great food, but don't want to go to a specialty restaurant and be charged extra every night. We really love the complimentary dining room experiences. My husband doesn't want to wear a tux or suit and I don't want to wear heels while on vacation. We enjoy being treated special and don't mind paying more for a well-appointed balcony cabin. We aren't drinkers really. We love the comedy shows and dance shows. Can someone recommend a cruise line that you think we might enjoy? We appreciate any help. Thanks so very much.

Thanks so much, everyone, for your helpful information! Ireland sounds wonderful! I will certainly check into everything. And congratulations "EGG" on your retirement!

Thank you for letting me know what "ta" means. "Trans-Atlantic". That makes perfect sense!

Thank you for your answer, but What does "ta" mean?

We've cruised 3 times on Carnival, once on Norwegian, and now we're thinking of taking a Respositioning cruise next Oct. 2015 for our Anniversary and my retirement from teaching. We're wondering if a Repositioning cruise has the regular things, such as entertainment, all the restaurants open, normal activities, like a normal 7 day cruise has?

We're also interested in seeing Ireland. Are there any cruises that leave from or go to Ireland? Thanks for any help.

Wow! Thank you both, so much, for the incredible information! I am looking a bit at the repositioning cruises because they have lots of "down time" and are an incredible price. My husband may not be able to take that much time off of work, though, since I will be the only one retired! So much to dream about and research. I am so very thankful for your answers and direction.

My husband has just surprised me by saying we should take a Mediterranean cruise around October 2015. I've been teaching for 30 years, and we'll be celebrating my retirement and also our 40th Anniversary.

We've sailed Carnival 3 times and will take a short cruise on Norwegian this summer, but we've never ventured to Europe. Rome is on my bucket list, (has been since age 12 or so.) I also took French in college and enjoy hearing the language spoken, so I'd love to visit a French speaking area somewhere.

Our anniversary is in October, but if that's a bad time to cruise, we certainly could plan for another time of year. We also have a daughter we like to visit in Florida, and wouldn't mind sailing from Florida or disembarking in Florida, if that's even possible. Thank you for any help. I'm so excited, even though it's a long way off.

So here's my questions:

1. Which cruise line do you think we should look into? We will both be about 62 at that time.

2. Is October a bad time to cruise in the Mediterranean as far as bad weather or too crowded?

I enjoyed your review very much! Thank you for taking the time to write it! We sail on the sky in about 2 months and want to learn everything we can. This will be our first NCL cruise.

By the way, you have a wonderful attitude and it's sure to rub off on your son!

Pomcoach (Kindergarten Teacher)

Your quote: "The Italian restaurant (charge) is open for lunch (INCLUDED) you can get a made to order pasta or pizza there for a light lunch. We went once and it was very quiet not busy at all. They will try and make you take a slice of pizza that is pre made, but you can ask them to make you a pizza to your liking."

I don't quite understand. Do you mean that if I go to the Italian restaurant for lunch, that it will be free? But if I go there at night, there's a charge?

Angela, Thanks so very much!

We are booked on the Sky for July! Your review was perfect for us, since we are not party people either. We have always wondered what it might be like to NOT get a balcony, but so far, we've been "chicken" to try an inside or ocean view. So thank you for explaining your experience about that.

For our first cruise ever, we did a short Carnival Cruise during Spring Break, no less, which turned out to be Party Central! That was maybe 10 years ago.

This will be our first cruise with NCL just to try them out. I see from your review that maybe this cruise will not be such a very good likeness of NCL ships to help us judge what sailing with NCL ships is like. Oh well. We will be so happy just to get away together. We are young active senior citizens. Usually we spend most of our vacations visiting grandchildren. So this will be a cruise to relax and enjoy with each other.

Enjoyed all of your tips! Thank you soooo much!

I'd like to know too. We're sailing in July on the Sky.

Yay! I got the bubbler right! You all are so much fun!

My daughter went to college in Arkansas. They asked her what kind of Coke she wanted. She said, "Isn't there another kind? You mean we have a whole big pop machine and all they have is Coke?"

So we call it "pop", but in Arkansas, it's all called Coke. Now that's almost as weird as the baking Soda.

Ha Ha!

Thank you for all the wonderful, perfect ideas! We will try to put the bottled water and soda pop in a rolling bag. And either roll it ourselves or put a luggage tag on it, so it will be delivered to our room.

Now we are true Midwesterners and call it "pop". But we couldn't figure out what a "bubbler" is. But after a bit of thought, I think the "bubbler" is maybe the older style drinking fountain that is bubbling with water in the park??? Is that it? Are you laughing at me, or am I right?

Cruise Critic family is the absolute best!

Thank you! Thank you!

I read that we can bring bottled water onboard at embarkation. I love Cherry Coke. Since we are only doing a 4 day cruise, we'd like to bring maybe 12 bottles of water and 8 cans of Cherry Coke/Mountain Dew. Do we need to have it in a suitcase? Or can we just carry it out in plain sight?

Does anyone know if the balcony rooms on the Sky have a mini-fridge?

Now 2 even weirder questions: My husband has a medical condition where he needs to have milk when he eats food. When we used to sail Carnival, we'd grab cartons of milk and have them in the cabin fridge, just in case.

1. Do they serve milk in the Main Dining room, and is it free?

2. Do you think we'll be able to grab some milk cartons from maybe the Buffet area, to take back to our cabin?

Thank you so much, everyone, for reading and any answers you may have. This will be our first Norwegian cruise.

Don't ever be sorry for a long review! Just means you are more thorough! We sail on the Sky this July! So thank you for the review!