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MV Discovery Greenland cruise


minke

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I have submitted a review of this cruise that it appears was to long to be in this section, so hopefully it will be in community readers reviews section sometime in near future. In meantime it is on a couple of other cruise message boards

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Thank you so much for writing the review. I am glad you had a good holiday. After seeing your message the review is not on Cruise Critic but I picked it up elsewhere.

 

We found the report very interesting in two respects. We had been considering Alaska, but to be honest I am not so keen. Somebody told us about a month ago how good Greenland was and your report confirms this so it is now "on the list".

 

The other respect of course was Discovery itself. Generally we liked the ship very much for the price paid. Yes our inside cabin was small but enough storage for us. Palm court was our favourite place to sit, though unfortunately on our cruise which was a special bridge cruise the whole lounge was taken over in the evenings and the afternoons at sea. We found the other lounge somewhat cold and draughty and despite the very large window you could not look out at scenery. The entertainment we thought was good for the size of ship and the dining room as you say is okay if you got a round table which we did. The dining room and cabin staff were excellent.

 

We are however, delighted to hear that the food seems to have been much better. Like you we generally ate in the dining room. We did not care for the open deck buffet particularly in hot weather in Egypt and Libya!!! A pity you did not manage to go to the Yacht Club because we thought the meals there the best of the holiday. We had Oriental one week, Italian the next, and then Oriental again. The food in the dining room was however poor with poor quality tough meat and very dry fish generally. We have juggled with ideas as to why this was so and came up with three solutions:

 

1 It was the last cruise of the Voyages of Discovery season and money was running out

2. Kitchen trouble. Certainly a new chef arrived the last few days of our cruise

3. It was just par for the course and was never going to be good.

 

This was a shame as in many ways Discovery suits us down to the ground. It has very good itineraries, good lecturers and very acceptable entertainment. We now believe it was perhaps one of the first two reasons and will certainly try again.

 

Again many thanks.

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Thanks for your comments Angela, not sure when you looked but review was put up quickly, it is available through the community button to member reviews (said that in case anyone reads this who cannot find it)

Re Alaska, for us from UK it is rather expensive & not good value, perhaps better if combined with a Rockies tour but we would rather do that on our own in a car. For our American friends it is on the doorstep & quite cheap for them. If you do go consider booking cruise only with a US TA on the web & your own flights (cheaper to Seattle than Vancouver & that is a nice place to spend a few days). We found Alaska's inside passage dissapointing after Norway's. Also we had been hyped up to go on a cruise into Glacier bay not one of the others--well it dissapointed us & some others, I did actually overhear a park Ranger's response to someone who had said "It is not like the brochures" Rangers response "If we showed it like it is no one would come" that is the truth I kid you not!

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Thank you both (minke & Angela) for your posts. I'm considering North Africa

in November on the Discovery. Angela, how were the flights from England to join the ship and the return? Minke, you mentioned using a U.S. travel agent

for Alaska. The cruise is not marketed here in California, so I'm in the reverse

situation. Do you recommend buying through Voyages of Discovery's website

or trying to contact an agent in England? Minke, did you find out if the beds were 30" wide throughout the ship? Finally. since everthing here (including cruising) is relatively casual, we're concerned as to what is proper (expected)

attire at mealtimes? Your answers, and any other information you think would

be helpful will be greatly appreciated. If you rather e-mail me than post, send

to stanonpch2@aol.com

 

stan

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We did the North Africa cruise last November. Actually it has changed slightly this year. We started in Alexandria and finished in Lisbon. We actually did a double cruise and did the Sharm el Sheik, Red Sea to Alexandria first. Most places on the North Africa cruise are the same as this years itinerary. It was very good and we particularly enjoyed Libya.

 

The flights are charter and I have to say short on leg room. However they are relatively short flights. We flew from Manchester - they do two charters -Manchester and London. I am not sure how to advise you to book if you are in America - possibly direct with Voyages of Discovery.

 

It is fairly casual - formal night was probably 50/50 dinner jacket/lounge suits for men. The rest of the time anything goes. Many British men however tend to wear a jacket and tie as smart casual. Having been on both british and american boats it fascinates me that generally british men dress up and british women down compared to their american counterparts. You don't see many sequins on a british boat. I wonder why that is.

 

Have you ever been on Orient Line. Discovery being Gerry Herod's ship tends to mirror Marco Polo in many ways - of course so many of the staff are from Orient. If you think of any other questions about that particular cruise do ask.

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Stan, I echo what Angela has said. On this trip I was one of the 25% who did not wear a DJ, I took a dark blazer instead & a lighter jacket for the informal nights, casual nights were fully casual. I can see that ratio of DJ's would be lower on a Nth Africa cruise than Greenland. Now I would always take my DJ on a Celebrity cruise, but was surprised to find on my last HAL cruise that I was in the minority!but these days a dark jacket & tie is OK on most ships.

As regards booking, that is a tricky question, not many TA's in UK do VoD but try an email to... info at oceanworldtravel.com (you know how to address it properly) their current price for cruise you want is 1079pounds with air from UK for an inside guarantee, 1149pounds for os.

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