Anyone done a full month? How's that work?

[EngIceDave]

I am sure many of you have done trans-Atlantic/Pacific, but we haven't. We've never cruised longer than 10 days.

Wife and I booked the Luminosa 30 day Transpacific. Seattle to Melbourne

 

Here's my questions....BTW, I doubt anyone REALLY knows the answers, so best guesses are fine.

 

How do you think the menu will work? Same thing over and over, like "every monday is Italian, every tuesday is fish" Do you think it'll change as we go to other ports, like in Japan? How many "formal nights?"

 

Do they discount laundry for longer cruises like this? Have laundry special sale days? Same with Spa? I got a Cloud 9 balcony, so we'll have plenty of time to use the spa amenities and the therapy pool (tontolassoloneranger pool).

 

Lots of sea days, just sleep? Chill? 

 

It's during school year, mid-Sept to Mid Oct (2023), so safe to say not too many kids will be aboard, yes?

When y'all have done the long ocean crossings, what is the average clientele? Upper-middle age to older? I imagine the crowd is more mellow, less hard parties? Mostly retirees?

Staff treat you different, knowing they'll see you every day for a month? Same with cabin stewards? (Yes, post covid, things are different)

 

Casino pretty dead? 30 day bankroll is a lot of cash. Same shows over and over? Do they try to do new and different things, knowing it's such a long cruise? I think at some points we have 4 and 5 sea days in a row.

 

Basically, we both excited and concerned about such a long cruise....what to do, how things will work.

Never been on any vacation that long. Cool part is, my BIL lives in Australia, so we have someone to visit and places to go once we arrive.

 

What's also crazy is that Luminosa is so "Carnival New," there's no photos, not even on Carnival's website.

 

Thanks for all your help and edumucated guesses

Edited October 26, 2022 by EngIceDave

[CruisingWalter]

15 minutes ago, EngIceDave said:

How do you think the menu will work? Same thing over and over, like "every monday is Italian, every tuesday is fish" Do you think it'll change as we go to other ports, like in Japan? How many "formal nights?"

 

Since this is a true 30 day cruise, and not a bunch of back to backs, they should be working to make the menu more interesting so you're not stuck in a rut for 30 days. In general I would suspect the menu will evolve over the course of the trip, starting out with whatever they were normally doing for the Australia sailings, and then transitioning over to a more "American" menu as you get closer to Seattle. That's the main dining room. I'm not really sure about all the specialty venues because those menus are pretty well set throughout the fleet. But they may offer a few more variety types of offerings. Also watch for 'food events' throughout the cruise like possibly an outdoor BBQ or other things you might not normally see on standard sailings. The number of formal nights should be available in your cruise planner. 

 

18 minutes ago, EngIceDave said:

Do they discount laundry for longer cruises like this? Have laundry special sale days?

 

With 30 days you will probably have 2 or 3 "laundry bag sales" where anything you can fit into the laundry bag is a set price. We've had that on 14 day cruises. 

 

19 minutes ago, EngIceDave said:

Lots of sea days, just sleep? Chill? 

 

Yep, I'm sure they will have plenty more trivia games and things like that, but when you're at sea for that many days, you get the opportunity to try out everything the ship has to offer.

 

20 minutes ago, EngIceDave said:

It's during school year, mid-Sept to Mid Oct (2023), so safe to say not too many kids will be aboard, yes?

 

Very rare to have many children on any cruise over 7 nights, let alone a trans-pacific repositioning cruise. If anything, you might have some pre-school children, but not many should be on board. 

 

21 minutes ago, EngIceDave said:

Casino pretty dead? 30 day bankroll is a lot of cash. Same shows over and over? Do they try to do new and different things, knowing it's such a long cruise? I think at some points we have 4 and 5 sea days in a row.

 

No clue on the Casino but yes there will be a repeat in the shows most likely, but they also tend to bring on guest speakers, more comedians and things like that so the entertainment is not entirely repetitive. I've also heard of 'cabaret' style nights where the performers get to simply sing and perform vs. a big set show. You might even see a 'crew show' and those are always fun! But definitely there will be repeats in some of the big set shows.

 

24 minutes ago, EngIceDave said:

Basically, we both excited and concerned about such a long cruise....what to do, how things will work.

 

It's definitely a long cruise but a super cool itinerary. I wish we had the time to take that one or the 34 day sail back to Australia after the season. You can definitely expect an older crowd, in general it'll be retirees or self employed folks taking that cruise as they are the ones who have 30 days to get away. 🙂 And for the images of the ship, just Google "Costa Luminosa." It's the same ship, they've just added a few Carnival touches and repainted the hull and funnel. Also the website Cruise Hive did a story recently on the Italian stylings inside the ship that show the amazing indoor solarium pool.

 

Have an awesome cruise!!

[EngIceDave]

I have been looking at the "old" photos and there's even a review from April this year, which had to be right before she went in for the refit.

 

Thanks for your help, that all makes sense

[EngIceDave]

Maybe I used the wrong title? Can I edit that?

 

Maybe it should have read "Who's done a trans-atlantic/pacific repositioning cruise?"

 

How does it vary from a regular cruise, other than the number of days?

[Pellaz]

I spoke to a guy on the Horizon last cruise who did a 50-day cruise on the Conquest back in 2020. 

 

--It was one of the Havana pool-deck staff.  🙂  

When the industry was shut down due to COVID, Carnival had to get 40,000 crew members back to their home countries and flights were nonexistent or hard to come by.  So, they simply designated certain ships to sail to certain countries and divvy'd up the crews between them.   

 

His description of the experience was fascinating, including seeing nearly every Carnival ship all coming together in one spot for the big meet-up to exchange crews. 

Today, if you ask a crew-member and they were part of that massive diaspora, you'll probably get a smile and a good story.  

[jsglow]

The longest we've done is 14 nights.  I remember the menu being quite extensive.  It's still the set Carnival menu but all their possible entrees will be included over time.  Of course there will be repeats but it's not at all like repeating the 4/5 night menus over and over.  And as others have said, there won't be any kids; like if you see 2-3 you'll be lucky and remember them.  Yes, the crowd will be older.  Essentially everyone will be retired.  I teased my PVP on our 14 that she had accidentally booked us on HAL.  The CD and the Fun Team will respect that dynamic although will still be 'fun'.  Take a book, or 3.