When and Why did you start Luxury Cruising??

[Erica@cruisecritic]

I second TravelCat2 on the luxury deal angle. If you've ever wanted to try out luxury, prices have never been more affordable. We've got a long list of luxury deals on Cruise Critic's Luxury micro-site: http://www.cruisecritic.com/luxurycruises/dealsindex.cfm And we're starting to see more-generous-than-usual early booking discounts for 2010, as well as some last-minute 2009 sales.

[DDWW]

We are thinking of luxury lines for our next trip. We have been on ten cruises over the past 20 years and are seeing a steady decline in service and food in our usual lines.

 

The buyers market has forced many of the regular lines to cut back in order to be competitive. We miss the personnel service we use to get, ......and will pay for it now.

 

 

DDWW

[Wendy The Wanderer]

To answer the original question, we had no desire to cruise, ever. Do not like casinos, nightclubs, broadway musicals, etc. But I had always wanted to see the South Pacific.

 

So, somewhere in the late 90's, I started hearing about the Paul Gauguin, and thought this would be a perfect way of seeing this part of the world. Our son was approaching 20, we both had well-paid jobs, so we did it, in May 2000, for our 20th anniversary.

 

We were hooked on French Polynesia, and that ship. But we were also more open to other, similar ships. In 2004 we tried the Radisson Diamond, after having been on the PG again in 2003. There were bargains galore back then.

 

Now almost 10 years later, we've been on the PG 4 times for a total of 42 days, and have done 8 Regent cruises total. We embark on Voyager again for 14 days in December.

 

Prices are no longer what they once were, so now that I'm not working (unemployed, but perhaps forcibly retired), we will no longer to yearly trips. Love that all-inclusive! We will stay with the tried and true, just less often, although never having experienced the mass market, but knowing what to expect, we may try Azamara or Oceania at some point.

[Rally]

martinsfo,

 

i found regent's alcohol prices ridiculous.

 

have you looked at alcohol prices on seabourn, silversea, seadream?

 

and the wine dinners on silversea?

 

Comments like this get picked up by people new to these boards and read as Gospel from someone they assume, often incorrectly, is an expert. I have been known to make a few tongue-in-cheek posts, but always try to make sure an innocent reader will understand that I am not being serious.

 

Regent is all-inclusive except for the very, very top, and even then their prices are very reasonable ($20/shot of Johnny Walker Blue Label is about 60% cheaper than anyplace else I have ever seen it offered.)

[Rally]

Our first cruise was in 1990 on Crystal Harmony in a verandah suite on deck 9. Big mistake ------------ because it ruined all other lines for us! ;) After that cruise there was jsut no way we could cruise without a blacony, nor on one of the mass market lines, so we did not cruise at ALL for the next 16 years. Then we sailed on Regent's Paul Gauguin in Tahiti and loved it, so booked Regent's Navigator the next year for two weeks in the mid --- it was even better than the PG, so we booked 30 days on Regent's Voyager for the next year ------ it was better still! So then we took the grandkids to Alaska on Regent's Mariner -- guess what? Awesome! Then Voyager again in the Baltic. Next week we are trying something new: SilverSea Shadow out of L.A.

 

As for your quesiton about working or retired: we own an online boutique and are fortunate to be able to work on the ship (well, not all the time =)