What is It Like

[qsuzi]

What is it like being on a Grand voyage or any cruise 2 weeks or longer? 12 days in Europe has been the longest for us and it was very port intensive so it was fine. But what about the practical arrangements at home, etc. Also have you been at sea 4 days or longer and what is it like?

Edited December 30, 2014 by qsuzi

[kazu]

What is it like being on a Grand voyage or any cruise 2 weeks or longer? 12 days in Europe has been the longest for us and it was very port intensive so it was fine. But what about the practical arrangements at home, etc. Also have you been at sea 4 days or longer and what is it like?

 

Haven't been on a Grand Voyage but have been on for 30 and 31 days :D

 

And yes, we crossed the pond for 9 days (one break).

 

We LOVE it. You get into cruise mode so to speak. The ship becomes your home. You really get to know the staff. The service is better IMO than a shorter cruise. They know you are on and they know you.

 

Our last cruise was strictly Europe (Med & Black Sea). VERY port intensive and we did a pretty dam good balancing act between touring and relaxing in certain ports (ports we had been in before).

 

Either way, we enjoyed both cruises thoroughly.

 

Arrangements? stop the mail - put it on hold, house checking, all the normal stuff. I pay my bills on line, so I will prepay a few and do the rest on line while we are travelling on pay day.

 

I like to keep an eye on the finances anyways.

 

Our dogs go to a great place where they are very happy. They start dancing as soon as I tell them they are going there.

 

In all honesty, it's not that much more work to prepare for a 30 day cruise (other than port planning) than it is a 12 day cruise. But it's a lot more work for my kind neighbour that takes care of my house :o

 

It's too long a trip to go to Europe so we won't go for any less than at least two weeks, preferably much longer :D

[lazey1]

Never been on a grand voyage but we have been on 3 voyages that were longer than 2 weeks.

Arrangements at home, lights and water system are on automatic timers, a trusted neighbor picks up the mail and brings it into the house daily along with watering the house plants when needed, another neighbor parks his car in my driveway when he is not at work, and the bills are paid automatically by the bank.

We have spent as many as 7 days in a row at sea and loved every one of them. You can attend lectures, attend afternoon teas, go to the gym, go to the spa, play in the casino, do wine tasting, attend demonstrations around the ship, or just relax in your cabin or other favorite spot with a book or whatever electronic devise you choose.

[qsuzi]

What a great description and so helpful Kazu so THANK YOU. We have been thinking of flying to Europe, then x days in Europe and then the same ship transatlantic back to the USA. The biggest kink to this plan is our dog who is super sensitive. My brother stays at our home with him but not sure how he would fare if longer than 7-8 days. If we could find a place where he would love to go and have other dog companions this would solve his moping around the few days after we leave and the few days before we get home because he seems to know about when to expect us back.

Edited December 30, 2014 by qsuzi

[qsuzi]

Lazey, did you have any issues with rough seas because that is my biggest question about a transatlantic? We have weathered rough seas just fine but have been close to the coast. HAL has the most interesting itineraries yet I keep reading comments that HAL has less activities compared to other cruise lines people have been on. I love to walk and read so maybe more days at sea would be fine.

Edited December 30, 2014 by qsuzi

[SilvertoGold]

We've been on many extended cruises and what we like about sea days, other than the sheer luxury of having so much time and so little to do, is that it really builds anticipation for the ports to come.

On Med cruises, especially, the port intensiveness drives me crazy. With lots of sea days, we find ourselves actually anticipating the next port.

[qsuzi]

We've been on many extended cruises and what we like about sea days, other than the sheer luxury of having so much time and so little to do, is that it really builds anticipation for the ports to come.

On Med cruises, especially, the port intensiveness drives me crazy. With lots of sea days, we find ourselves actually anticipating the next port.

 

That's a great point Silver. It is sheer luxury to have sea days after port intensive Europe and other destinations.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

It gives you time to know the ship ( your 2nd home )

[SilvertoGold]

That's a great point Silver. It is sheer luxury to have sea days after port intensive Europe and other destinations.

 

Right!

That is why we like west bound TAs: a rest after all those ports!

[lazey1]

We have had rough seas in and out of San Diego, had to skip Cabo San Lucas due to a hurricane, on a different cruise we had to skip Half Moon Cay, on another cruise we had to skip Nassau, on another cruise they had to shut down the tendering at one of the South Pacific ports. Rough seas can be anywhere.

 

On our Baltic/Trans Atlantic cruise the only really rough seas were as we left Copenhagen. HAL had to cancel the evening show for the safety of the entertainers. We were warned to wear flat shoes only and to hold on to something (rails, fixed furniture, the walls) at all times. This lasted for about 18 hours. The rest of that cruise was very smooth.

[crystalspin]

Before I began enjoying cruises, DH and I did Hawaii (from San Diego, on the Statendam), taking his elderly mom in a triple. Basically 5 sea days, 5 port days, 5 sea days. The sea days WERE very long to me, but the problem was my relationship with MIL (!) and the fact that I corrupted the operating system on my computer very early on and had brought no knitting (was not as big a knitter as I am now) to take its place as a timefiller. But there was a coffee bar and I got real close to the barrista while both DH and MIL would take their Bonine followed by naps. Long long naps. I also went to what 'enrichment' activities there were (learned to tie a sarong and arrange tropical flowers, as I recall) and watched some movies that I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

 

Meanwhile fast forward through Alaska cruising with my [fun] mom in the same arrangement, two river cruises in Russia, the Canal last year on NCL, and South America on the Zaandam last month... also discovering Cruise Critic plus some "maturing" on my part. None of the above had the long stretches of sea days of course, but I enjoy sea days enough, now, not to shun them. We're booked for another Canal in 2016 (on Princess) that starts off with four days at sea. And DH has hinted he would be interested in the Nieuw Amsterdam's TA+Med in April of this year... and I didn't turn him down! Honestly to see so much of Europe without having to pack-unpack-repack between every city is looking pretty good to me!

 

Our housekeeper comes every day we're gone to tend to the cats, water garden as needed, and "keep an eye on things" (with a list of phone numbers if anything were to go wrong, like a water leak etc)... for an obscenely low price. The cats still get a little clingy when the suitcases come out, but we don't return to psychotic kitties like when we had to board them! We get our mail at a Private Mail Box establishment where they hold everything in a big box (we travel a lot, they're used to it!). As far as bills, DH does everything on line.

[kazu]

What a great description and so helpful Kazu so THANK YOU. We have been thinking of flying to Europe, then x days in Europe and then the same ship transatlantic back to the USA. The biggest kink to this plan is our dog who is super sensitive. My brother stays at our home with him but not sure how he would fare if longer than 7-8 days. If we could find a place where he would love to go and have other dog companions this would solve his moping around the few days after we leave and the few days before we get home because he seems to know about when to expect us back.

 

Your itinerary sounds perfect. That is what we are doing in November. Heading to the North of Spain to see the Basque and Galicia area for 10 days and then taking a TA back.

 

I encourage you to find a good kennel for your dog. My dogs would just mope here looking for me to come back every night.

 

Not to detract from the thread - but a good kennel should encourage you to come and visit to see if you like it and get your questions answered. Encourage you to bring your dog for a visit to get a comfort level.

 

Provide any and all info you need.

 

It took me a long time to find a kennel I was truly happy with and now I go knowing they are on vacation too. I have three dogs. (yup, it's an expensive venture but part of the cost of cruising). They have huge kennels and then an outside area where the three of them can play together. Kennel is air conditioned in the summer and heated in the winter. They are walked twice a day and get their cookies. A nice exercise run works too, but my dogs are used to being walked and with 25 acres of land, they have lots of area to explore.

 

It takes a bit of work, but once you find the right place, the first thing you will do is call to make sure she/he can take your dog and you will be a happy camper.

 

Oh, and when you drop them off, keep it upbeat, no guilt, no sadness - they sense it. Mine go dancing in and I simply tell them the same thing I do when I leave the house "I'll be back". Not even a bark or a whimper when I leave. :D

 

oops edited to say - a good kennel doesn't have 50 dogs either. It should be a reasonable size so here is time for each dog.

Edited December 30, 2014 by kazu

[qsuzi]

We'reSailing- yes the ship does begin to feel like a second home when you are on a longer cruise.

 

Crystal - Hawaii is also another itinerary we have considered. I enjoyed your comments.

 

Kazu - Thanks so much for the encouragement. I will start looking for a good kennell and I know I can find one with in/out door walks/runs and air conditioning - finding one that will give him the attention he needs and he is a good fit for will take some time. I found one that also is a combination pet resort and pet clinic/hospital just in case so I'm going to start there. It's my husband that has to get used to the idea. It's been awhile since we have taken a long flight from the West Coast to Europe but there are ways to deal with that. We haven't been to Spain other than landing at Barcelona and Russia and the Baltic are high on my list.

[summersigh]

A few years ago we flew to London for a 3 week self done land tour - touring England and Scotland by Britrail passes then the overnight Ferry to Hook of Holland/Amsterdam for 3 days then the high speed train to Paris for 3 days and finally Chunnel train back to London for another 3 days before boarding the Queen Mary 2 for a 6 day trip TA.

 

It all worked out wonderfully. We stopped the mail and newspaper. We set online banking to pay most bills and prepaid or over paid the rest so none came due while we were gone. Our grown son and a friend took care of our cat and the yard man kept the house looking lived in. We had those timers on a couple of lamps as well as a radio (for the cat's benefit).

 

The 6 days at sea were wonderful. We frequented the same spots often and Staff gets to know you and your needs/preferences. There were lots of things to do and with late seating for dinner we always went to high tea midafternoon. You DO get into cruise mode as someone mentioned above. Time really becomes fairly unimportant in the big scheme of things. :):)

 

We'd do it again in a heartbeat if DH's health was better :D

[qsuzi]

A few years ago we flew to London for a 3 week self done land tour - touring England and Scotland by Britrail passes then the overnight Ferry to Hook of Holland/Amsterdam for 3 days then the high speed train to Paris for 3 days and finally Chunnel train back to London for another 3 days before boarding the Queen Mary 2 for a 6 day trip TA.

 

It all worked out wonderfully. We stopped the mail and newspaper. We set online banking to pay most bills and prepaid or over paid the rest so none came due while we were gone. Our grown son and a friend took care of our cat and the yard man kept the house looking lived in. We had those timers on a couple of lamps as well as a radio (for the cat's benefit).

 

The 6 days at sea were wonderful. We frequented the same spots often and Staff gets to know you and your needs/preferences. There were lots of things to do and with late seating for dinner we always went to high tea midafternoon. You DO get into cruise mode as someone mentioned above. Time really becomes fairly unimportant in the big scheme of things. :):)

 

We'd do it again in a heartbeat if DH's health was better :D

You're right about time being fairly unimportant. One thing I just remembered about our longer cruises is it was such a glaring difference being back in the "real" world and doing things for yourself, etc. lol

[Vict0riann]

I, also, love all the sea days in a TA. Our last cruise, we had one at each end! My only complaint was that the seas were too calm, and I didn't get rocked to sleep, which I had been looking forward to! In between the two TAs, we had a very port-intensive 3 weeks in the Med, also enjoyable, as we had been warned not to take on too much. If there are 6 ports in a row, it's better to make a couple of them "easy" days, with no rushing about or "3-people-walking" tours!

 

Going back to the sea days, it's good to have a small project - knitting or such, just in case. I usually don't get much done, but at least it's available. A Kindle with lots of books (or just use the ship's library) also is needed! Once you settle in and establish a routine, every minute is filled, even if it's just with relaxing. :)

[ksqueak]

I've done a 28 day out of Sydney so I was gone closer to 30 days. a 15 day to Hawaii, and 14 in Europe (gone 17 days). Bills were either prepayed or overpayed (If over payed, I pay the same as the last bill essentially doubling the payment), a friend comes in to take care of the cat every few days, mail is stopped, and lawn guy does his job as usual. Plus the neighbor watches the house. Said friend has all the numbers plus intinarary. And I post on a private facebook page every day or two so I can be reached. I don't typically carry the cell phone with me.

 

BTW - I love sea days, just to do nothing, read, or knit. Learned all sorts of stuff on both the Hawaii and Sydney cruise. Attended tons of lectures and was fully prepared to watch the solar eclipse (even understood what I was seeing)

 

Have a blast! I'm anxiously awaiting my gaelic and celtic explorer which I hear can have rough seas *ugh*

[Krazy Kruizers]

No grand voyages. But longest has been 29 days.

Love the sea days to relax and catch rest for the next ports even though we can't do as much in the ports as we used to.

[take us away]

We have had the privilege of the 3 Grand cruises and the World Cruise. Depending on how long you are gone, can offer some tips as we were sailing for 9 months less a 2-week break over Christmas in 2012/2013.

 

Mail: you can only hold for 30 days but you can do a temporary forward for up to 1 year. We had our mail sent to my sister who double checked to make sure everything was okay.

 

Household bills: We have everything on auto-pay and we prepay the yard service provider. We are able to put our phones and our cable/internet 'on vacation' at a very reduced rate. Think it was less than $20/month for our cell phones (only ones we have) and know it was $5 a month for the cable and internet. We had them start our services for the day we got home.

 

Extra bills: Opened a checking account with my sister, who is also the executor of our estate so she can pay any miscellaneous bills that come in while we are gone. There were bills such as the uninsured fee for some MD appointments and lab work we had done just before we left.

 

Meds: My insurance allows for 1 'vacation override' each year so we could get 6 months of meds at one time. We refilled as early as we could prior to the 1st cruise so we had enough for the extra 3 months.

 

Credit cards: Always tell the credit card people where we will be with dates so they do not stop the card. Have an aversion to opening our account information while on the ship and most definitely in ports due to security issues so gave my sister access to the credit cards to pay on line. We send her an email when we use the cards with where and how much we spent. Do know you can preload some credit cards so this would be a moot point if you have them.

 

Email: We did not want to spend a ton of time (okay - it was really the expense we did not want) uploading our regular email so we opened a special gmail account and only gave the address to a very few people such as 1 person in each family and our good friends who were watching the house for us. Sent an email telling people we were 'off the grid' for a while and if anything important popped up to contact one of the people with the special email address. Wrote "Tales from ....." in Word every now and then and attached it to an email to my sister who them sent the document out to the rest of the families.

 

At sea days: Our longest stint for sea days was 9 or 10 days across the Pacific and we absolutely loved it. We got into a rhythm with going to the gym, Trivia, tried Tai Chi, went to almost every guest lecturer presentation and port talk by the destination person (Barbara Haenni who was awesome!), even went to a few shore excursion talks, played Mah Jongg, took a meditation class that was great, met and befriended some truly wonderful people, took a few cooking classes, found a favorite deck chair, read a lot (thank heavens for Kindles), did the daily puzzles plus some of the cross word puzzles and sudukos we bring from home, etc., etc. Hardest decision was lunch in the MDR or the Lido.

 

The service on HAL is always so good and I have to say, the service on the Grand cruises is even better. We are now so very spoiled! - and addicted!!

 

If you have the chance, do NOT hesitate to try a Grand cruise, even if just a segment.

Edited December 30, 2014 by take us away

[crystalspin]

@qsuzi

 

I hope I didn't sound too negative about Hawaii. The point was my opinion has changed over the years! In fact, we offered Hawaii, Alaska, or the Canal to take my sister and BIL on -- the Canal won with Alaska second... I think they were worried (too) about "all" the sea days coming and going with Hawaii!

 

As Vict0riann and take-us-away mentioned, book-readers (Kindles) have changed one heavy thing about packing for ALL of our travels! I even got my mom to take and read on one for the South American cruise... after explaining the nuts and bolts of the matter: you have one suitcase, you can pack a range of clothes, or a book for each day. (She is a big reader.) She thought about it and then asked, can you get [insert list of seven books that she hadn't been able to find in second-hand bookstores] on that device??? I could and did and the rest was history. She hasn't given up paper books or used book stores, but she IS planning to take the Kindle on home now!

 

We travel a lot, as I said, and I'm starting to tire of the "if this is Tuesday, it must be Belgrade" type of bus tours. My very favorite vacations were three weeks in the same breakfast-included-hotel in Beijing, and the five days we spent in Moscow on our own at the end of the second river cruise, staying in a rented apartment. Looking at the TA/Med cruise, I was inspired that the European port stops might give us ideas for additional stay-in-one-place-and-really-get-to-know-it type holidays!

[USN59-79]

We have taken two Grand Voyages (69 and 70 days) and half of this Spring's World, all on the Amsterdam. We would have taken the second half of the next WC, but didn't want to visit India again or deal with their visa bureaucracy. We have no pets, so the biggest thing is to arrange for the post office to hold our mail for two months or so. The secret is to get to know your mail delivery person. While the yellow form they have for holding the mail says 30 days maximum, that is only a guideline. If they want to, they can hold it for a longer time. Of course, we always bring the mail person a souvenir like a carved giraffe from Namibia this Spring or a small wooden box from Thailand this Fall. Most bills we pay online, but a couple of utility bills we pay double so there is no balance the following month. The reason we enjoy the longer voyages is the relaxed ambiance and getting to know the passengers and crew members. I bring a couple of books for the library book exchange and my kindle and attend all of the enrichment lectures and some of the techspert lectures. I also try to research each port we will be visiting so we know what to do and how to get there before we arrive.

[qsuzi]

Thank you VictOriann, Ksqueak, KrazyK, takeusaway, Crystal, and USN. Lot's of interesting and helpful comments.

[mame42]

Lazey, did you have any issues with rough seas because that is my biggest question about a transatlantic? We have weathered rough seas just fine but have been close to the coast. HAL has the most interesting itineraries yet I keep reading comments that HAL has less activities compared to other cruise lines people have been on. I love to walk and read so maybe more days at sea would be fine.

 

On my recent 42 day transatlantic on the Maasdam, we had rough seas going and even rougher seas coming back. I personally did not meet anyone who was seasick. However, many of the ladies gave up eye makeup for the duration, or risked losing an eye! Since I am of a certain age and recovering from an injury, I did find my back and legs tired by the end of the evenings from the effort of staying upright.

 

The number of sea days had worried me, but I found that by the time I had worked out, stretched, showered, and dressed, it was time for a late lunch. Squeeze in an afternnoon activity and presto, time to change for Sip and Savor and the rest of the evening.

[SurferJoe57]

HAL has the most interesting itineraries yet I keep reading comments that HAL has less activities compared to other cruise lines people have been on. I love to walk and read so maybe more days at sea would be fine.

I've never been on a HAL so I can't answer, though HAL reportedly has the best libraries at sea. During the two week to Hawaii (5 sea days out, 5 in the islands and 5 back), the entertainment got thin as they simply can't come up with a different major production show every night - and most comics only have one or two routines. Good to bring books - and enjoy the ambiance.

Other posters have noted how on longer voyages (and I can only imagine a 114 Day Grand Voyage), the staff provides much better service. I'll note that generally the passengers on longer voyages are a lot more polite, accomodating and accepting as well, which makes their jobs so much easier.

I've only done the north Atlantic in the military (I'm not including my years at sea here - that's cheating, darn it!) but the north Pacific (Vancouver) is about the same most of the year. Swells and rolls, but not too bad. If you've never experienced "weather" at sea it might be rather unpleasant though.

Edited December 31, 2014 by SurferJoe57

[summersigh]

Since we'd booked our August TA on the QM2 way in advance we chose a cabin mid-ship and one deck above the lowest deck with verandahs to avoid some of the wave action if necessary. It worked out great for us and the difference was noticeable.

 

There was a hurricane coming up the center of the Atlantic in a perfect "collision course" for our ship. The hurricane did a small course change, our captain made an adjustment and we ended up with minimal rocking. In fact, it was so little that the Captain came on the speaker and jokingly apologized to those passengers who'd been looking for some excitement. :D