Mini cruise on Eclipse

[Milly2010]

We are new to cruising ..have booked a mini cruise as a taster as we are not sure it is for us. Any reviews on mini cruises?:)

[chemmo]

Party goers and travel agents tend to be the major customers on these cruises...certainly not your average cruise clientele.....I hope you enjoy but am concerned you are possibly going to judge a whole genre of holiday style on something that is not typical.

 

You would be must better in my humble opinion booking a minimum of a seven night cruise...you might actually find it more price effective too.

[TeaBag]

Welcome to Cruise Critic and the world of cruising. I agree, a 2 day cruise is not a good way to get the feel of cruising. You're hardly on the ship till you have to get off and the type of cruiserwill be different.

 

A 7 day would give you a much better idea of cruising.

[jsf]

The others are right about the 2 day cruises, try at least a 5 day day cruise you won't have anything to compare with so the mini cruise might give you the wrong idea of cruising. The first cruise we took was a 4 day back in 1991 and since then we've been on 26 so I guess we kinda like cruising.

 

J.

Edited February 15, 2017 by jsf
x

[Milly2010]

Thank you Chemmo..Teabag and jsf for your comments and advice. We have booked so will keep an open mind about it and try and enjoy the experience ..thanks again

[easyboy]

We are new to cruising ..have booked a mini cruise as a taster as we are not sure it is for us. Any reviews on mini cruises?:)

You won't know unless it is on a regular cruise length. Take at least the 7 days.

[billy10]

when is this mini cruise ? Just curios

[chemmo]

Hi Milly2010,

 

Really hope you enjoy your cruise. See it for what it is a 'mini-break' not a standard cruise experience but a little bit of luxury to break up the working year...

 

 

Hopefully you will have a great crowd on board and really enjoy. But just remember it is what it is, a 'taster', and don't let it influence (positively or negatively) your choices in future years.

 

 

Have a wonderful cruise!

[Shadow9612]

Enjoy.

 

Think of it as a win-win, no matter how the 2 days go.

 

Outcome 1 - If you love it, book another longer cruise onboard -they often have additional perks for booking onboard (I don't know if this is avail on mini-cruises but I would assume so - that's the whole reason you are there).

 

Outcome 2 -If you don't love it, know that 2 days isn't enough to accurately judge. See outcome 1 above and book another longer cruise so you have a more accurate picture ;)

 

Yes, I love cruising.

[Northern Aurora]

We were on the Eclipse two night "taster" from Southhampton to LeHavre in May 2016. In our case we were on the Eclipse trans-atlantic followed by the Norwegian fjords cruise. There was a two day gap and then we were booked on an Iceland-Ireland cruise. Initially the "taster" wasn't available to North American bookings, but when it did become available we booked it so that we wouldn't have to leave the ship for those two nights between the Norwegian fjords and the Iceland-Ireland cruises. The "taster" was an interesting experience, but I am not sure I would do it again.

 

Depending on which staff person you talked to there were up to 500 UK travel agents onboard for a travel industry meeting. This meant that the theatre and specialty restaurants were used for their meetings during the day. Apparently the Blu breakfast was moved one day to Murano so that the industry group could start their meetings at 8 AM.

 

The bulk of the other passengers were British twenty- and thirty-somethings who all seemed to have alcohol beverage packages and the intent to use those packages to the maximum. In LeHavre the bulk of these young adults didn't seem to leave the ship but just sat in the bars and drank. Two bartenders told us that there were passed out folks both in Quasar and one other bar. One of the assistant Food and Beverage managers told us that the Eclipse essentially went through the same amount of alcohol in forty-eight hours as they would expect to sell on a seven night Caribbean cruise. In all fairness, we didn't observe any obnoxious behavior at all nor were there any loud passengers in the stateroom corridors.

 

If Milly does book the "taster" just understand that the "taster" is not a typical passenger demographic and that passengers generally don't drink themselves silly on Celebrity cruises.