cathaana
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Posts posted by cathaana
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The after-hour access to the Hermitage inclusive of a classical concert in the Italian Room on a HL Baltic cruise was one of my absolute highlights.
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I remember seeing offers for single travelers in previous years but that was once or twice per calendar and always on specific routes if I recall correctly.
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They usually have group shuttles to and from the airport which you can use even when you have booked your own flights. They normally also offer a shuttle to a hotel where guests can relax at (in a meeting room/lounge, with food&drinks and a representative) before departing for the airport. Not sure whether they offer that on arrival.
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I did a mini-review of the Ovation where I included some comparisons to the Solstice.
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On 8/8/2019 at 7:26 AM, Lexus1224 said:
Hi everyone. It's been a few years since I've cruised, and I've just begun researching for next year. My husband and I hope to cruise to Alaska next summer on the Oasis, and we'll have our then two year old with us. I've read things about splash pads on other posts, and have scoured Royal's website to see if the Ovation has one, to no avail. Does anyone know if they have a splash pad for toddlers in swim diapers? I have no idea if he'll be potty trained by then, and will plan as if he won't be.
Also, any other advice for travelling with a two year old? I rarely leave him with babysitters (other than family), so I don't think I'll be utilizing any of that. But, I'll take all the advice I can get!
thanks
Alexis
There is a splash area next to the kids slide. It was closed several times during our (Australia) cruise though. The play area for babies/toddlers next to the kids club is not too bad. Our 2yo enjoyed herself.
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Sorry to hear of your experience, MsSommelier. I'm not really surprised though. I love their ships and itineraries but I've had a bad customer experience as well which put me off booking them for a while. But as we are travelling with two little ones now, we have decided to give them another go as the Europa 2 really is the only option for luxury when travelling with children.
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Not very in-depth but a nice little English-language article about the Europa 2. It is a bit older though so maybe been posted before?
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1 hour ago, Diddn said:
@cathaana:
I am sure there are several english speaking people working for Aida Cruises - they even run a website in english language. As Aida Cruises is a bit different - not only in language - it should be better imho to contact an independent travel agent especially for non-german-speakers to get the right explanations of the differences of their cruise concept and the booking process under german law.
As all other competitors, the cruise line's own staff will always sell their own product only. To get a better information, an independent, cruise specialized travel agency would be the best choice.
Since cjw928 said that they specifically want to book Aida, talking to them about their product offering would make sense. Doesn't mean you need to book through them.
The one thing a TA might be able to offer that Aida probably won't is an onboard or direct credit so that's always a consideration.
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On 6/14/2019 at 8:47 PM, BlueBear4Travel said:
You have to be aware that a big part of the people on Aida choose Aida because there are still quite a lot (even younger) germans who do not speak english very well. All shows, all games, all talks, all entertainment will only be held in german.
We´ve long avoided Aida but will now travel with them in July since the price and routing are of interest to us.
Apparently -the way we understood so far- TUI Mein Schiff is the holy grail when it comes to german cruise lines and even better than Aida. We´ve been on Mein Schiff and it was very lovely but we hated the shows that were strictly german and not very good.
The holy grail of German cruise lines is Hapag Lloyd. 😉 Basically it's HL for high end luxury (they have the highest rated ships in the world according to Berlitz), Tui for premium (think Azamara or Celebrity) and Aida for basic cruises (P&O Australia, Costa).
There is a German cruise reviewer who has extensive videos of Aida (Matthias Mörr). Might be worth watching even without being able to understand. I think the newer Aida ships are quite different from the older ones.
My parents have been on Aida a few times so there are English-speakers around. I would expect most guests to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of English as most would have had at least 4 years of English at school.
@cjw928
I might be able to suggest a few German TAs that would probably take a US client.
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There is always HL's Europa 2. It is a mostly German ship but bi-lingual. Their kids club is supposed to be quite good. I know a few people who have taken their kids and they were quite happy.
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On 2/24/2019 at 6:04 PM, vistaman said:
I am afraid from now on Hapag Lloyd is charging 20 % of the cruise fare as deposit
it use to be 10 % and 20% if the cruise was within 6 months , I believe
Also , if you have to ( or want ) to cancel well in advance the fee is 200 € ( was 150€ )
I noticed it on a booking for the MS Europa in 2021 ( ! ) , short cruise with the Beste Event . ( gastronomy )
so far no movements on the options chosen for 2020 and 2021 on the Ms Europa 2.
I have been contacted by HL on Friday for the two Europa 2 cruises that I put options on, so things are happening. But I requested information on two other cruises that I am also interested in for which I received nothing yet.
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I probably suggested Transferwise, which I have used extensively. They usually come through in 2 days.
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There are regular discussions about Hapag Lloyd's ships in the Luxury Cruise forum if you are interested.
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We just returned from our cruise on Ovation and I decided to post some thoughts here as the Ovation doesn’t get a lot of comments.
Caveat: We used to cruise only Hapag Lloyd but due to having kids now decided to try out some mass-market lines. We did Celebrity Solstice a bit over a year ago so there will be some comparisons.
Room: We had a Grand Suite which was good-sized (about the size of HL's entry-level rooms). The bathtub-shower combo was not ideal but there was enough space to easily move around even with kids. 😉 We thought is was much better for travelling with the little ones than the Sky Suite on Solstice as we had a curtain to separate the areas.
Kids Entertainment: Good program at the kids club but only having 100 spots total for over 1000 kids on board is just not okay. People started lining up to get into the little kids’ club 20 minutes earlier with usually no spots left 5 minutes before they opened. It was better towards the end of the cruise, probably because most parents had given up by then.
Food: What can I say… We are food snobs and there wasn’t one single dish that I would describe as truly good but it was better than expected. We were surprised by the fact that food items such as the pizza and desserts/sweet treats were actually better on Ovation than on Solstice as we had heard that Celebrity had the better food. We had access to the suite restaurant on both ships and neither came even close to the kind of food offered on Hapag Lloyd. Solstice’s Luminae had a few good dishes but also quite a few disasters, while Ovation’s Coastal Kitchen was more consistent (in being average). The suite lounge was also better on Ovation. Not so dark and better food offerings. We avoided the speciality restaurants as our try on Solstice was a major fail and the reviews weren't very promising.
Ports: RCI cancelled the exact same excursion that X had cancelled the year before so we didn’t even get of the ship in Noumea. We didn’t find it very exciting the last time around. Mystery Island was quite enjoyable. The kids loved playing at the beach and in the shallow water. There were same blue box jelly fish but thankfully only on one side of the island.
Embarkation/disembarkation in Sydney: Embarkation was much easier with RCCL, maybe 20 minutes max. Was a zoo with Solstice, possibly due to the Noro outbreak on board. Getting off took only 5 minutes on both ships.
Other stuff: We didn’t really do much as the kids are still too little to leave them alone in the evening. We tried the rock-climbing and the North Star which were both fun, sadly missed our appointment for the iFly rip cord thingy on the first morning (and no availability left for the whole cruise), and spent some time in the casino. After finding out it was still possible to use the on-board credit to play (with a 5% fee), I played through all of it and brought the winnings home in cash. 😄 Internet was good throughout the cruise. Service was fine. A bit slow in CK and a few forgotten water bottles when also ordering something else but overall no complaints.
We have decided for ourselves that we won’t book a suite on a mass-market ship again. Food is one of our main enjoyments and they just can’t deliver. And when pricing a family cabin on a Europa 2-cruise, it’s actually not more expensive in most cases. Still, due to our super-low expectations after the Solstice cruise, we came home positively surprised. And the kids certainly had a good time. 😉
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Very envious! We are tentatively planning for Jan 2021. :o
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The article says that they hold that number of staterooms for international guests (saying that Germans tend to book early) not that that is the maximum number of rooms international guests can book.
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23 hours ago, MMDown Under said:
WOW - Four days in Mauritius is an impressive stop over in a port. I often admire the interesting itineraries of German cruise lines. I should have kept up those German conversation lessons!
I hope passengers enjoy their overnight in Fremantle.
You could always check out Hapag Lloyd's Europa 2 or Hanseatic inspiration, both international ships. HL's expedition ships have really great itineraries and even the cruise ships often have slightly different ones due to their smaller size.
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If you go with AirBnB, Nundah might be a good location. Great local infrastructure, next to the airport, short train ride to the city. My parents stay there a lot.
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Europa and Europa 2 offer dialysis treatments but they only come around once a year for a few cruises and it's a German cruise line (Europa 2 is an international ship though).
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On my Europa cruises we would usually have 3 to 5 excursions to choose from (very rarely 2, at the popular stops often more than 5). Even on the small Hanseatic, we would often have a choice of 3 to 4 excursions.
Since these were all non-international cruises, most of the excursions were in German (sometimes in English with a translator).
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A bit off topic: The USA Today has this interesting article about the Northeast passage. https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2018/09/21/arctic-cruise-northeast-passage-voyages-rare-adventure/1327353002/
It states at the bottom that Silversea will also start offering a Northeast passage cruise. The prices are nearly twice those of HL. I am sure that the Silversea Explorer is a nicer ship than the older Bremen but still - twice the price?
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Thanks for the link. (y)
Crazy, the family cabins on the Christmas 2020 cruise on Europa 2 are already gone...
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It was in March this year:D:D:D My favorite is Morgentau....
Mine, too. :D The Nana is very lovely as well.
Luxury cruise line that regularly has 4+ passengers in their 20s or 30s?
in Luxury Cruising
Posted
We've only been on HL's Europa (where we were the only young couple) but acquaintances have been on Europa 2 and confirmed that there were couples in their 30s and 40s.