Sheik

Our last O cruise was on the Marina in December 2015. It truly was wonderful. The food was excellent in all restaurants (quality/portions/presentation) and so was the service and maintenance of the ship. We loved O in each and every way. The quality has not changed the past years in our opinion.

My wife and I are 38 and 37 years old. We have been on 23 cruises so far.

Roads were closed in 2012 (scenic road in Skagway to Yukon and to famous abandoned mining town, forgot the name.) Roads opened on 7th of June.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn HTC One_M8 met Tapatalk

My experence so far.

May (whole month): High risk of closed roads (snow). Even early June can be risky. The weather can be nice.

September: Rain, closed attractions etc.

Best month (weather/animals): June

My advice: Go for May instead of September.

I was in Egypte in 1999 and the day after I visited Luxor, 12 german tourists got killed by a terrorist attack. A couple of years ago my neighbours got married and spent their honeymoon in Egypt. They visited the pyramids and Sphinx as well. On their way back a big truck hit their mini van and got killed. A lot of dreadful accidents took place the past years in Egypt. Even on the road it's dangerous.

The reason I write this is not to spread fear. I just want to warn people here (and almost 'beg' them) to change their plans.

I'm from Europe, I travelled I lot to the middle east and next December it's gonna be my 21st cruise. I'm not afraid to visit the more adventurous/dangerous places but my advice is to wait a couple of years to visit North Africa.

Last week a terrorist killed 39 tourists on a beach in Tunesia. It's just not safe for tourists at this moment. And yes I know that New York and other big cities can be dangerous too, but it's different. Keep in mind that Egypt and any other North African country is not safe these days. You are a tourist, you are a victim. Terrorists aim at tourists, they want everyones attention.

So give it a little bit more time before you plan visiting the pyramids. The people are nice, but definitely not at the tourist areas. Here is an example my best friend witnessed in front of one of the pyramid back in February 2014.

1. A vendor with camel asked an American couple if they were interested in a picture with the camel.

2. The wife agreed with the of 20 Egyptian pounds (2,50 USD) to sit on the camel and get a picture.

3. After the picture was taken, the wife got afraid of the heights and wanted to get off the camel. The vendor told the couple to pay him 200 Egyptian pounds (25 USD) to get her off the camel.

4. The couple started to scream to attract the police' attention. They did nothing to help. To make it even worse, they started to laugh.

5. After the man went to the ATM (loooooong and unsafe walk), he paid and got his wife back.

This is one example of how they treat tourists if you have bad luck. Ok, this has nothing to do with attacks, but again...please take my advice and do not go to these places right now.

Looking forward to the rest of your review. After 21 cruises with (mainly) Celebrity, Azamara and a couple with Royal Caribbean and HAL, we are ready for our first Oceania cruise (Marina) on December 12th 2015.

I LOVE your review. I was on the same cruise and it was great! I did see my wife and one of the pictures :D

If you want to check my pictures (not all of them are up yet), add me to my Facebook (Robin Schrijnemeeckers). I welcome all cruise addicts to my Facebook by the way ;)

send an email to : contactmichael@celebrity.com

 

It goes directly into the CEO's office and a reply is normally made within 24 hours. Be sure to include your Cruise number as you may just get a phone call. I did when I had an issue

Or simply contact customer service....:rolleyes:

Yes I booked an Opel Corsa class for USD 110,17, This price includes all insurances.

I prepaid with my CC via the Sixt website.

Do you have a mail address of their office in Fredericia?

Never mind, the address is: fredericia@sixt.dk

 

I arranged with Sixt Car rental,to pick me up at the dock.

Do you have a mail address of their office in Fredericia?

......

Thanks for your reply!:)

Thank you for this review and pictures of the Silhouette. We will be on Silhouette on May28th.

Good to see pictures of the food. The food on our Royal Caribbean (dec 2014 jan 2015) holiday cruise was not good at all. We hope that the food is better (presentation, healthier, better quality instead of quantity) on the Silhouette.

I love to get a copy as well. We are going in Juni on the Celebrity Silhouette. Thank you so much!

schrijnemeeckers@hotmail dot com.

Radiance of the Seas - Seward, June 2012

I really like your review, thank you so much for your pictures and informative and entertaining story.

We did this (same?) itinerary in 2009 on the Azamara Quest. It was a quiet ship, entertainment was zero, but to be honest...were we too tired to party the night away. We paid 5 dollar each at Prime C and Aqualina.

Yes!!!!! We won!!! ;)

When The Dutch win the WC, all ships will stop their services onboard immediately. Officers and crewmembers disembark for a couple of days to party :D :D Me too!!! Tonight will be an important match against the Aussies.

I'm now thinking of going on a land vacation to Hawaii. Thank you all for the good advice!

So not much has changed ;)

Is there any other option, f.i. a less well known 'cruiseline' to explore the Hawaiian archipel?

On our last MS Rotterdam sailing (Feb-Mar 2014) people got upset due to the last minute changes which were make in the schedule. It was also very frustrating and caused a lot of stress, because the private tours where not informed and some tours had to be cancelled or modified. As a result that you simply could not see the main attractions. So people had little choice and booked the shipstour instead. Was that their strategy to force people to book their overpriced shiptours? I don't know, but it smelled dirty.

I also cruise with Azamara, Celebrity and RCCL, but never noticed so many changes in the schedule as on the HAL cruises.

Each cruise I book, I compared a couple of itineraries between HAL and other lines. The last 5 cruises it happens that HAL offers roughly the shortest days on land. I'm definitely not saying that this is always the case, which it isn't. But I do notice a change in their business model...

Although I really like HAL's itineraries, I prefer more time on land than on the ship.

Very good question!! I am interested to visit Hawai by cruiseship, but I don't want to have 5 cruisedays in a row. I also don't like the NCL "hotel"cruise concept.

Please stop calling HAL a premium, deluxe or luxury line. I am Dutch, but I am absolutely not proud of the overall HAL product. We sailed HAL a couple of times, just to give them a 'second' change, over and over again. Their itineraries are often better than what other lines offer (my opinion). That is mainly the reason why we choose HAL. But not anymore. Our last cruise in March (MS Rotterdam - Indonesia) was excellent, but not thanks to HAL. The ship and cabin was in poor condition. The refurbished cabin was dirty and a lot was broken down (the 'new' pillows and sheets contain blood stains!!!) . The service was sometimes non existing and tourprices (double the price of the same RCCL/Celebrity tours!) were too high. We've sailed different cruiselines and lots of cruises, but HAL is definitely NOT a 4 star cruiseline.

I finally was able to resize a picture.

Wow! Blue skies and a beautiful ice field!!

Mr. Sheik,

 

Beautiful pictures. Thanks for posting. We will be there this year on June 14th. :)

You're very welcome. I think that you've picked a very good time to cruise in Alaska. In 2012 the scenic mountain roads were open in the first week of June, some famous goldmine sites were still closed. But the weather was great, hardly no rain and wind. It's still Alaska ofcourse. I would go in the same period again.

We did a 6 days landvacation and started in Anchorage.