PaulMCO

Most cruise lines use a coffee syrup in their dining facilities. Syrup and hot water, instant buffet coffee. Yuck. Of course if the barista has no skill even the best coffee will be ruined by a bad grind or wrong temperature. My DW did some instruction with the barista on Seabourn on our last cruise -- on that plus the roasting.

It is a big terminal. If you are coming via taxi make sure they drop you off in the cruise ship departing area. It is on an upper floor. You then drop your luggage off. They will have dogs sniffing the luggage. Then you can check in. We were on Seabourn and they gave us a boarding piece of ticket. You will then take an escalator down -- go through passport control. Then down another level and depending on where the ship is located you will walk in the building then on to the dock at the appropriate point. We were on the 1st bearth the the walk was short. It could be 4 cruise ship lengths.

Risky to say the least -- likely ship is not cleared until 8:15. Then a bus to the terminal, grab luggage and get a taxi or car. BEST CASE -- not until 9am before you are heading to the airport.

@ak1004 I am debating your exact point. Just looking at the 2025 cruises. I have purposely waited to book one until Crystal published theirs. Wanted something in Venice and Dalmatia. When comparing between SB versus Crystal, Seabourn wins by over 25%. SS is closer to Crystal but on a new ship. Crystal is not going to succeed by attracting their own loyal crowd back. Why? Because they failed before and they will never attract everyone back because many are owed money and many have drifted to other lines. They have to be competitive in the luxury market place and they are not carving a new space in the market. How should they market themselves as the Great food and service -- old partially renovated ship specialists??? The market is too crowded with existing and want to be new entries all trying to rise to the top.

I can relate to this. Our first OC cruise was a 7 day Caribbean Cruise. It was very obvious who were the past guests. They got significant obvious attention in the Terrace - why because the guys knew them. Same from the Maitre D - Remi...and CD Rick.. Our next cruise was a 24 day cruise and it was totally different. You had time to find a great waiter, time to joke with the staff in the Terrace, and time to get even Remi to smile.

We are not sailing Explora until January.

do you have a sample sea day???

Easy to spot especially one annoying one who continues to post reviews after her cruise has long ended. FB is full of them on many lines. Not a TA. Then you have TA's who start an Explora page to drum up business -- you think they would have an objective review 🙂 . Then there is the Crystal Society site, which is owned by Crystal, mention another cruiseline and post gets deleted. That is why CC is great.. I think I will head to Crystal and start a snarky post about where is the money they owe me 🙂 @Stickman1990 really a perfect time to do the sound crossing. Many times cruiselines try to do this in July and fail as the ice has yet to melt. Any warnings yet about Hurricane Lee??

gives me hope that we at least booked something we would enjoy.

Thanks -- wow almost thought -- look at all of the charters in the Med Season.

They have to manually link it. Use the contact form. Provide them the booking number, names and Dates of birth.

@Keith1010 It depends on the airline. United pretty much offers most flights to FF points for a flight purchase. United can swing as much to a ridiculous 255K pp one way to Tokyo to as low as 90K. We just recently paid 100K. Europe so far to Amsterdam it has been a 255K to 132K swing. We ended booking on Virgin for 65K. Virgin to the UK typically runs a constant mileage plus a hefty airline surcharge fee. When awards are non available -- nothing. As for upgrades the rules can be totally confusing. The are miles and money (amount would vary based on your fare), status plus points/rewards, buy ups at the last minute when you check in and a rare operational upgrade. The priority can be so convoluted you need to be a lawyer to figure it out, Status in the program, what class you are booked in (economy versus premium economy), fare basis, corporate preferred members, credit card loyalty, and when you made the request. Been flying United for 40 years, the last international operational upgrade (without miles or certificates) was in 1999. Then of course if you are a pilot because of their union contract -- you bump ahead. @travelberlin as Ivi stated LH (and LX) used to operational upgrade people and fill the remaining seats. No longer happens. And of course Pan Am used to do that too -- but they went bankrupt 🙂

We have enjoyed our SS (3 + two booked) and Crystal (7) cruises going back to 2014. We had 3 booked in bankruptcy limbo with Crystal (one charge back, one insured, and one lost forever). My DW refuses to sail with Crystal until we get our money back. We enjoyed them both. Thought the food was better on Crystal, the cabins better on SS. I think Terry's point is right on. Two Crystal ships versus multiple classes from small Shadow, to larger Nova/Moon/Ray to the Expedition fleet including the former Crystal Endeavor. This equals limited itineraries for Crystal. If really wanted to sail Crystal (and I do) where would I go?? The 2023/2024 cruise ports are so vanilla. All of the three majors (SS,SB and RSSC) have several sized vessels that can do the vanilla ports but also the small Greek islands or the Dalmatia coast, or a round about of Japan -- I do not see Crystal doing any of this.

Thank you @Roland4 Looking forward on how it compares to OC and the cruise we took with you in the past...

Then again they know he is a TA (owner) and they will have his photo in the crew area and everyone will be told to treat him like royalty. I trust him too, but the experience will not be if you or me were on the ship. And yes Management should read cruise critic.

For 2024 -- 24-26 May..

A November 2021 Antarctic Solar Eclipse Expedition cruise on Quark. Originally we were to board in Ushuaia on 26 Nov 21. We made our air bookings accordingly MCO to BA/EZE and then to USH. With all of the lock downs and startups after COVID Quark changed the process and they were now going to provide a charter from BA to USH. Reason they wanted to put us in a bubble with multiple tests one on arrival and one before arriving to our bubble hotel. Getting money back from the BA to USH tickets was a nightmare, but eventually successful. We arrived in BA five days early, did some usual siteseeing. Day before we were to check in at the bubble hotel, we received an email stating that our voyage was being shortened due to operational reasons and we would still go to Antarctica but would miss the Solar Eclipse. Needless to say we were mad and we arrived at the bubble hotel, and were informed we were requested to meet in the conference room for a presentation by Quark. Well the presentation was to inform us that due to operational reasons the cruise was cancelled. All of the guests were in a bubble, but Quark had not done same for the crew as 6 of them tested positive and the Argentina authorities had quarantined the ship. Quark agreed to pay for three days in their hotel until people could arrange transport home. Having been in BA for 5 days, we decided to see if we could get home on the evening flight and we were lucky there was space. This was our shortest non cruise - cruise. The good news was with a good TA pushing Quark, we did get a full refund of the cruise, plus also our RT air fare.

Just be careful as to what you pack. AirTags are a definite NO - NO. As are perfumes or any restricted items for cargo (alcohol, battery powered items) or customs clearance flags (prescrips/ medicines).

They would put us in during slow periods, allowing the "professionals" their break. What I remember was the heat... Not just the summer heat, but the heat of the grill. Next summer was as a Good Humor man.. White clothes, cool freezer, plus 100% on commission -- hustle and would clear $120 a week. Min wage was $1.25/hour then. Now we can diverge to Ice Cream 🙂

There was a huge geomagnetic storm earlier in the week. Conditions are still unsettled. Chance of another flare is 54% -- that is today's Space Weather 🙂

You would have debates even in the US, whether the best is Chicago or even New Haven. And yes SS has the best Pizza at sea. As for the condition of Symphony -- she can complain but everyone did an inspection of the ship before the auction and A&K/Heritage, surely knew the condition and the winning bid was only $25m compared to the $100m + for Serenity..

I worked at Coney Island Nathan's during summer college break. And yes it was a mass production and we were grade as to how quick we could serve a dog.

It was Bill Clinton's favorite. Can't agree with Bill as also grew up near Nathans. Presume you mean Oceanside is the closed one??? Still like a dirty water dog occasionally which these sort of reminded me. We did try the Pizza (across from the Radisson) and it was acceptable (not good but acceptable).

Good to know. Our TA enquired several weeks ago, they said 1+1 initially and another 1+1 once onboard.. Good to know you got both in advance. When onboard -- can you post the Residence Room menu, as it is supposed to be different with several items from each of the restaurants.

I disagree. Egypt is a hotbed on Russian tourists in the winter. Why base a cruise line in both Jeddah, which is not known as a tourist port, and Dubai which had lots of Russian tourists in the winter. Those itineraries are rather odd. Notice that the one GCC country that has sanctions on Russian is missing from the cruise -- no stops in Kuwait.. Definitely suspicious and make me think a lot less of Explora and MSC,