the penguins

Nor Reflection 2023 Transatlantic.

Just curious. 4 restaurants but I understood they have the same menus - is that correct? If not what are the differences?

Strange maths. 4 main complimentary restaurants ?- surely that's just the old MDR split into sections. Blu is Aqua only, Luminae is Suites only. Mast Grill for dinner? only in very good weather. Spa Cafe - is that open for dinner?. The rest are not free.

Check out the Roll Call for your cruise there may well be fellow passengers organising private tours who are looking for people to join them. Also check out private guides. Lots of companies provide this service (for example Toursbylocals), look for ones that give full refunds if the ship doesn't dock.

This response is following the same pattern as with compolsary AI which was withdrawn after about 12 months. If anyone wants change: keep reporting it to Corporate, on the ship report it in writing to the Captain Club Host ( available every morning at the Elite Breakfast) and on the Questionnaire at the end of the cruise.

The MDR menu looks just like Silhouette's last May/June. If that's after the "cutbacks" it will be fine with us.

All good advice. To add another is the season. Cruises run from Novemberish to March. The early season has: more snow making landings harder, lots of "baby" animals and whales. Late season, end Feb/March: less snow but more exposed rocks, no babies mainly juveniles, most likely no whales. The exception re babies are King Penguins as they breed all year.

More importantly the Antarctic Convention, which all responsible cruise operators should adhere to, requires: 1) no more than 100 passengers/crew combined to be on land at any one time 2) no one person to be on land for more than 60 minutes. These necessitate in passenger groups being continuously rotated. 3) Whilst on land nothing should be picked up, dropped or moved. 4) You should not go closer than 20 feet to any of the wild life. Fortunately, if you stand perfectly still, a lot of the wildlife especially the seals will come to you. Hurtigruten enforce all these and more and any passenger who does not cooperate is simply banned from subsequent landings. The Convention does not apply to the Falkland Islands nor South Georgia.

This should be compolsary at least once a year for every senior member of the Management Team and all the people in the Corporate Office. It's very clear when you talk to anyone in Corporate that they are not "cruisers", yes they go on the ships for a few days but never as ordinary passengers. Their experience should start by simply trying to book a cruise using X's award winning system. The President's cruise is always promoted as having lots of extras so again not a "typical" experience. On the positive sign X does listen and react (albeit very slowly) as was clearly shown when passenger pressure resulted in it dropping compolsary AI for all cabins below Aqua.

The responses seem to be following a similar pattern to the AI saga. On board the CC Hosts had so many "comments'", they were banned from calling them complaints, that that they were instructed to send in details every day instead of at the end of each cruise. Corporate responded to written complaints in the manner described, you wouldn't expect any one individual to admit X was wrong. By December 21 I, and I am sure others, received responses stating " they appreciated that not everyone wanted a drinks package nor unlimited WiFi and were working to correct the matter" . It then took until sailings after September 2022 for Complosary AI to be dropped. What will also help is if passengers stick together and don't adopt the "it doesn't affect me" attitude as I believe that this was one thing that slowed down the dropping of compolsary AI. I. e. Lots of passengers who liked AI were not prepared to add to their comments that it should be optional.

More recently passenger responses got the compolsary AI dropped for all cabins below Aqua. This was a truly dramatic change of policy by X, so yes they do listen and react. It's important not to "rant" but to put reasoned arguments and, if you mean it, to tell them that you won't be booking any more cruises until the policy is reversed.

I was responding/ questioning your point that Celebrity would raise the fare when it realised there was only 1 passenger. As you rightly the OP's idea of booking themselves twice would be a deception whereas mine has the same effect price wise.

We are in the "bantering" group. We love interacting with passengers from other countries and cultures. The best thing about cruising is you have the choice. No right or wrong, choose what suits.

Ok, I was just, sort of tongue in cheek, pointing out that for example to use your figures to cruise Princess costs 💲544 a day X 16 = 💲8700 for which you get 4 days cruising the Peninsula so 💲2175 a day. As to quality that's very subjective. We chose Hurtigruten and had an inside cabin as it was the only we we could afford to experience this unique environment in the way it deserved. We had already done the scenic version on Celebrity and frankly for us it just wasn't the way to do the Peninsular.

Costs depend on how you calculate. If your objective is the Antarctic the cost per day there on an expedition cruise is probably lower than either Celebrity or Princess. True you can see penguins in Argentina and Chile (although it involves extra cost excursions) but then you might as well do the round South America cruise which is the one we chose for our Golden Wedding. We also turned it into a B2B ending in San Diego - the saving on the airfare paid for a lot of the second cruise. As I said before, no right or wrong just choice. We have done both the Scenic on Celebrity and expedition on Hurtigruten.

Totally agree if it's at all possible South Georgia for the Kings and the smaller Falkland Islands (Albatross and Rock Hopper Penguins etc) are a must. You pinched our SG King pictures ( see post 19).😂 and below.

Curiosity got the better of me. Celebrity and Princess both have cruises in Jan 24 Celebrity - 14 nights - 2 days scenic cruising Antarctica Peninsula. Princess - 16 nights - 4 days scenic cruising Antarctic Peninsula. Both include Port Stanley which is your one opportunity to do a real excursion to see King Penguins in the wild. However Port Stanley is only accessible by a very long tender ride (25 minutes each way) so actually getting in is problematical ( in some years less than 50% of scheduled cruises are successful). As this figure includes the small expedition ships which actually dock the % of larger ships failing must be higher.

more than 100% cruising time in Antarctica? - that's an interesting concept 😂

We love Eclipse and chose it to celebrate our Golden Wedding. Would we do it to the Antarctic - no. The ship is not designed for this type of adventure. Look at the itinerary and see how much time you spend anywhere near the peninsular. What we would do? Put the money in the bank, add to it next year and do an expedition cruise on an expedition type ship. Other opinions will vary. No right or wrong just personal choice.

Really. You book for 2 people at AI rates both real with passports etc You pay the price requested. At check in 1 person is a "no show". Bring a letter from the missing person saying ,"sorry can't travel for whatever reason. X has its money. How does X charge the person travelling extra? If you book at Sail Only Rates and pre pay the tips surely the same would also apply i.e. no extra charge.

They have raised prices across the whole RCCI group. In the last quarters review they reported average prices per passenger higher than the record figures of 2019 and the onboard spend per passenger also higher than the 2019 record figures. What hasn't yet gone back to 2019 levels is total passenger numbers.

Spa cafe a haven of peace away from the chaos.

The spa cafe is most definitely open on embarkation day. Last year Silhouette offered the "embarkation day" lunch on a different day due the check in time problems. The passengers involved pointed out to have it on a different day completely missed the point. Yes it's perk of Concierge but the timings have not been adapted to take account of the post Covid changes to the boarding process. The problems are likely to continue until the old system is reinstated which, at present, X has shown no inclination to do. Other perks, for example priority for Elite and above or the CC Meet and Mingle gathering, have also been affected by post Covid changes. Just relax, go with the flow and enjoy your cruise.

Most hotels in the UK, other than the "big brands" , don't have Aircon. Heating yes. The same goes for restaurants, pubs and of course our houses.

This is great advice if you are on Select Dining. If you want to reduce your waiting time pre book your preferred dining time then when you arrive at the Desk you simply give your cabin number followed by "sharing please" and, if it's important to you, your preferred table size - our preference is a 6. At the same time you can mention that you always want to share. If you don't prebook you will end up in the line with everyone else who doesn't have a reservation which,at popular times, can be long.