Do These Type of Sea Days Exist?

[clo]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I have no idea of the cruise line but Libby Riddles, the first woman to win the Iditarod, gave a great talk. Probably more than ten years ago. Here's a Smithsonian article about her.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/facing-blizzards-and-accidents-iditarods-first-woman-champion-libby-riddles-persisted-180974371/

[Heidi13]

9 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

I'm not sure about Viking -- maybe someone familiar can chime in. I'm thinking that, based on their Viking TV offerings, they might feature itinerary-related lectures...

 

We found the Resident Historian provides itinerary related lectures. Through the South Pacific he covered the origins of Polynesia. As we approached New Zealand and Australia, he then presented a series of lectures on those countries.

 

The Resident Wildlife expert would provide lectures on marine life and birds that were prevalent to the area.

 

Both of the aforementioned were available daily for 1 on 1, or small group discussions.

 

The Guest Lecturers provided a combination of itinerary and general lectures.

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, clo said:

I'm embarrassed to admit that I have no idea of the cruise line but Libby Riddles, the first woman to win the Iditarod, gave a great talk. Probably more than ten years ago. Here's a Smithsonian article about her.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/facing-blizzards-and-accidents-iditarods-first-woman-champion-libby-riddles-persisted-180974371/

 

Have attended her lectures on a couple of Princess ships. Most interesting.

[whogo]

8 hours ago, jtwind said:

I would hope that expedition cruises would be pretty good about this.  Are they?

 

Seabourn had two or three interesting lectures per sea day on our Antarctica cruise plus non-shopping port talks. Eighteen expedition staff, 420 passengers, plenty of expertise.

[Essiesmom]

The Caribbean, and to some extent Alaska, are the only places where the port lectures are mostly about shopping.  Since there are no recommended shopping stores/maps, there are no shopping experts on European cruises.  Also, enrichment lectures require sea days, and European cruises have few of those.  I have had good talks on Princess in South America and trans-Pacific cruises, and Cunard in Norway and Iceland.  And on Solstice TA.  There was an interesting lecturer on our one Oceania cruise, even though it was in the Caribbean.  EM

[Hlitner]

The OP asks a great question.  The reality is that none of us know what to expect post Covid.  That being said, all the mass market lines (i,e, Carnival, RCI, Celebrity, HAL, etc) use a business plans that depends on maximizing onboard revenue.  This means subtlety steering folks towards cruise line excursions (profitable), shops that kick back to the cruise line and/or their shopping lecture companies (profitable), etc.  So if you cruise on mass market lines and go to shore excursion lectures, shopping lectures, etc....you will get pushed in ways that benefit the cruise line.

 

So how do you find an alternative.  In many cases it means doing your own homework (prior to your cruise) and looking to sources other then the cruise line.   Some of the more expensive ultra luxury lines also do a pretty good job informing cruisers about the ports.    Many of the lines that used to give great advice have gone out of business or changed their strategy.  A great example is HAL who used to have some terrific port experts on their longer cruises (the retired Frank Buckingham comes to mind) who would give very informative lectures and also have desk hours where anyone could ask him questions.   But HAL (and other lines) pretty much eliminated those independent minded folks in favor of "experts" that primarily push cruise line excursions.

 

I do think a great place to find information is right here on Cruise Critic under the various Ports of Call boards.  Ask a question and you will get some pretty honest answers.  If somebody misleads...others will usually jump in an take that person to task.  When I have made mistakes with my advice.....even friends have taken me to the shed (for a spanking) here on CC.  

 

DW and I really love great port lecturers and we used to find a few on our cruises.  Most were on HAL which gradually phased out the port experts in favor of "experts" that pushed the cruise line excursions.   I suspect that anyone who would really be helpful for ports are no longer used on cruise lines who have put the sales of their own excursions ahead of informing cruisers.  

 

Post Covid there will be lots more pressure on cruise lines to maximize revenue.  That does not bode well for cruisers that simply want honest information.

 

Hank

[capriccio]

We sail mostly on Princess and have had excellent and memorable (even if I've forgotten their names) port and subject matter lecturers on our 2009 Baltics cruise (the incomparable John Lawrence acting as both), on an LA to Rio cruise in 2016/17 when we had both port and subject matter (a retired US professor) experts, and 3 Alaska cruises between 2007 and 2018 with excellent subject matter and guest lecturers.  On the other hand we've had absolutely horrific ones on a Panama Canal transit in 2008 and a Western Mediterranean/westbound TA in 2017.  They were so bad (incorrect information, poor presentations, etc.) we attended one or two lectures and decided not to waste our time.  We do not attend 'shopping' talks.

Edited January 17, 2021 by capriccio

[ontheweb]

21 hours ago, ontheweb said:

In 2007 we did a Baltic cruise and the cruise director was John Lawrence, who I believe has long since retired. For each port he gave a lecture not only on the ship's excursions, but also what you could do on your own. On the next to last day he gave a lecture on what you could do in the disembarkation port, Copenhagen.

I should add that we also had excellent lectures on our Princess Alaska cruise by a naturalist. I do not remember his first name, but his last was Modzelewski. (His father and uncle were famous professional football players respectively for the Cleveland Browns and NY Giants.)

[cruisemom42]

26 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

I should add that we also had excellent lectures on our Princess Alaska cruise by a naturalist. I do not remember his first name, but his last was Modzelewski. (His father and uncle were famous professional football players respectively for the Cleveland Browns and NY Giants.)

 

That's the same man I mentioned in my post #6 above. He was really good -- still have a copy of his book.

[Aquahound]

Sorry duplicate post. 

Edited January 17, 2021 by Aquahound

[ontheweb]

17 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

That's the same man I mentioned in my post #6 above. He was really good -- still have a copy of his book.

I spoke to him several times. He was glad for us that we see deer in our neighborhood. I was not so glad the day DW called me and said she hit a deer. (Actually the deer hit here as it did not look twice before crossing the street and took out her rear view mirror.)

[navybankerteacher]

1 hour ago, ontheweb said:

I spoke to him several times. He was glad for us that we see deer in our neighborhood. I was not so glad the day DW called me and said she hit a deer. (Actually the deer hit here as it did not look twice before crossing the street and took out her rear view mirror.)

I wish we could convince our deer to relocate to his neighborhood.  They spend so much time enjoying our “buffet” that too few of our perennials actually get to be perennial.  

[clo]

1 hour ago, navybankerteacher said:

I wish we could convince our deer to relocate to his neighborhood.  They spend so much time enjoying our “buffet” that too few of our perennials actually get to be perennial.  

From our recent trip to Yellowstone:

 

[cruisemom42]

4 minutes ago, clo said:

From our recent trip to Yellowstone:

 

 

Is he looking for the Elks Lodge?

[clo]

2 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

Is he looking for the Elks Lodge?

Har dee har har har 🙂 A couple of his lady friends were grazing right by our rv.

[donaldsc]

On 1/16/2021 at 10:06 AM, cruisemom42 said:

It's a good question...  Like you, I really like lectures on board that are geared toward the itinerary, not just "random" guest lecturers. (I've heard enough lectures about the Titanic and about ocean liners of old, btw...) And I don't want to attend lectures shilling for either shore excursion sign ups or local shopping; it's fine if they are offered, just please clearly identify them as such.

 

For about 10 years I frequented a niche cruise company called Voyages to Antiquity. With only 1 ship (carrying 350 passengers) it was certainly unique. Their itineraries were themed around certain time periods or ancient cultures. Each cruise included 2-4 lecturers (most were retired college professors and good speakers) that would talk about the period -- history, archaeology, culture, art, etc.  Sometimes there would also be a naturalist onboard.

 

I really loved that line and its premise. Unfortunately it seems to have ceased operations; leasing its one ship to the Road Scholar operation (which offers a similar model, if you are interested).  I also read that VTA has some kind of agreement with Fred. Olsen lines out of the UK to offer special groups on some of their cruises going forward (e.g., when cruising resumes) -- I'm looking forward to more info on that. FO also sails with smaller, older ships. FO caters largely to a British customer base; VTO was majority British also but with a healthy helping of US, Canadian and Australian passengers as well.

 

Most mass market lines offer nothing like this, really. Holland America offers lectures but only on their longer cruises (more than 14 days) and the quality can be variable. Some of the premium and luxury lines offer enrichment lectures (Crystal notably) but they are not always related to the itinerary. Same with Cunard.

 

I'm not sure about Viking -- maybe someone familiar can chime in. I'm thinking that, based on their Viking TV offerings, they might feature itinerary-related lectures...

 

 

 

I agree on the Road Scholar suggestion.  We have done several trips w them and there was a good mix of lectures, tours and free time.  The lectures were on specific topics given by experts in their field.

 

DON

[ldubs]

On 1/16/2021 at 3:22 PM, neverbeenhere said:

Want 4 to 6 hours of cruise specific talking. Look for the oldest cruiser, who is of sound mind and ask that person, Have you ever been to this port before?

 

" . . .who is of sound mind . . ."

 

Well, that leaves me out.  😀

[aungrl]

On 1/16/2021 at 12:38 PM, jtwind said:

We've been on 6 different cruise lines.  The port talks on all 6 were heavily shopping focused.  Not our thing.  Our preference would be more focused on the culture and history of a place, tossing in a few recommendations on where to find local dishes, and throw in some basic language and customs lessons.  On sea days, we'd be interested in having 4-6 hours of talks such as this.  Is this available on any cruise lines?

Viking.

[clo]

3 hours ago, donaldsc said:

 

I agree on the Road Scholar suggestion.  We have done several trips w them and there was a good mix of lectures, tours and free time.  The lectures were on specific topics given by experts in their field.

 

DON

This may be OT but I've heard that their trips can be very tiring.

[ontheweb]

9 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

That's the same man I mentioned in my post #6 above. He was really good -- still have a copy of his book.

There have been a few threads in the past in the Princess forum asking which ship should you take for an Alaska cruise. I have replied, unlike others, to look at who would be the naturalist on the ship as opposed to which particular ship.

[ilikeanswers]

On 1/17/2021 at 6:28 AM, jtwind said:

I would hope that expedition cruises would be pretty good about this.  Are they?

 

Expedition cruising at least the ones I've been on has pretty good lectures by people who are usually experts in their field and the staff I find are really knowledgable about the cruising areas in general. The best thing is to check the itineraries as they tend to list the lecturers they expect to do.

[jtwind]

I'm the original poster.  I normally use the cruise port info on this site and sites like tripadvisor to figure out what we want to do in each port.  I then print a paper copy of our itinerary for each port, to take with us when we leave the ship.  This works pretty well.  Where I've had problems is when we dock at a place different than expected, go to an alternate port due to unforeseen schedule changes, or when we've done last minute port intensive cruises, and just didn't have enough time to research.

 

On short and/or port intensive cruises, if the cruise line and passengers have time for a shopping and cruise excursion talk, they should also have time for a cultural talk.

[cruisemom42]

13 minutes ago, jtwind said:

On short and/or port intensive cruises, if the cruise line and passengers have time for a shopping and cruise excursion talk, they should also have time for a cultural talk.

 

I agree with you; it's a matter of priorities.  On Voyages to Antiquity, a featured lecture might actually be given in the evening, preceding the entertainment -- which is mild and might be a concert by the onboard musicians or a local group (e.g., flamenco dancers in Spain).  

 

I can't imagine that being a draw on most of the large mass market ships!

[sfaaa]

4 hours ago, jtwind said:

 

On short and/or port intensive cruises, if the cruise line and passengers have time for a shopping and cruise excursion talk, they should also have time for a cultural talk.

To shopaholics, shopping is the ultimate cultural talk

[ontheweb]

7 minutes ago, sfaaa said:

To shopaholics, shopping is the ultimate cultural talk

Unfortunate, but probably true.

 

When DW (an art teacher) and I went on a Florence on Your Own excursion, it seemed we were thev only ones interested in art. Everyone else was excited about shopping.