Too many days at sea

[Redtravel]

We just got Azamara and Oceania catalogues. Many of the cruises are similar. The one overall difference was the number of days at sea. Azamara visits fewer ports and has more sea days....anyone know why?

[LHT28]

$$$

You save port charges , people spend more onboard when you are captive.

 

 

Are they same ports of call for both?:confused:

 

Lyn

[BurBunny]

Also, some people like a break of a day or two in a port-intensive itinerary.

[lisiamc]

The phrase "too many days at sea" does not exist in my vocabulary! I like an itinerary with lots of sea days. I get culture overload if I'm running from port to port every day without a break. A transatlantic with at least five or six sea days in a row is my ideal cruise.

 

I love having nothing to do and all day to do it! Usually though, we find that we're very busy on sea days.

 

Lisa:)

[Druke I]

I'd much rather have some sea days. Port intensive cruises tend to tire me out!

[critterchick]

For me, there can be too many sea days. I don't mind (in fact, I enjoy) having 2-4 sea days on a port-intensive itinerary so I can recharge my batteries - we had 2 on our Best of Italy cruise. Other than wishing that the last day had been a sea day so we could pack at leisure, it was terrific. On our Journey PC transit, we had 9 days onboard, and that was too many for me. I can read a few books, but I need some entertainment, too, and for me (your results my vary), Azamara didn't provide enough variety.

[JennAngel9]

I tend to think that a 2 to 1 port to sea day ratio is ideal-- but I also think it depends on the length of the day in port. Our 14 Day Baltic cruise on Connie had at least 5 sea days and I still finished the trip exhausted!

 

I too noticed a very large number of sea days on some of Azamara's 2010 cruises. In particular, we want to try to do the HK/Singapore to Athens/Dubai/London repositioning in the Spring, and while Azamara had an unbelieveable promotional price of I believe about 2500 for an oceanview on a 24 day cruise, the only stops over 24 days from Singapore to Athens were: Phuket, Cochin and Bombay, Dubai, Suez Canal (onboard), and one day in Cairo/Giza. That's 15 sea days not counting the suez canal! Would an extra 2 stops have been that difficult? Other similar routes make multiple stops in Egypt, plus Jordan, Oman, Malaysia, or additional stops in India.

 

DH and I will have to give some serious consideration as to whether we are willing to swing through that part of the world and see so little of it.

[DougYWG]

Same here. We were initially attracted to Singapore - Athens but have to agree that if we were going to do that part of the world, we would like more ports and less sea days. I started another thread, why are there eight sea days from Dubai to Alexandria? Does it really take that long?

 

We have heard that Oceania thinks their passengers want port-intensive itineraries. We don't. We enjoy our sea days.

[Aussie Gal]

We did the Hong Kong to Athens cruise on Oceania last year and I think that had just the right amount of sea days and port days. We had a busy time in the ports we visited including flying to Agra for 3 days whilst in India, but it was lovely to return to the ship knowing that we had a few sea days in a row.

 

To us, it was the ideal cruise with just the right mix.

 

Jennie

[boatboat]

I tend to think that a 2 to 1 port to sea day ratio is ideal-- but I also think it depends on the length of the day in port. Our 14 Day Baltic cruise on Connie had at least 5 sea days and I still finished the trip exhausted!

 

I too noticed a very large number of sea days on some of Azamara's 2010 cruises. In particular, we want to try to do the HK/Singapore to Athens/Dubai/London repositioning in the Spring, and while Azamara had an unbelieveable promotional price of I believe about 2500 for an oceanview on a 24 day cruise, the only stops over 24 days from Singapore to Athens were: Phuket, Cochin and Bombay, Dubai, Suez Canal (onboard), and one day in Cairo/Giza. That's 15 sea days not counting the suez canal! Would an extra 2 stops have been that difficult? Other similar routes make multiple stops in Egypt, plus Jordan, Oman, Malaysia, or additional stops in India.

 

DH and I will have to give some serious consideration as to whether we are willing to swing through that part of the world and see so little of it.

 

I agree ... did the 24 day cruise this year .... the stretch from Dubai was too long without a break on a small ship. I love doing transatlantics. We also had to blackout the ship one night as we traveled through pirate territory.

[Redtravel]

Thanks for mentioning the blackout. Now I know for sure that I will avoid the Athens to Singapore route. Knowing about how many problems the prirates have caused, it would be in the passengers and cruiseship's best interest to avoid this area. Keep the Quest in either the Med or in Asia without traveling through dangerous areas.

[DURSEYGIRL]

How expensive was it to fly to Agra from Mumbai? Did you go independently or via a ship's tour? We will be on the 24 day Athens- Singapore this Nov/Dec. & are,therefore, interested in seeing the Taj Mahal.

 

Durseygirl

[Aussie Gal]

We did the trip with Oceania which we thought was very well organized. We did a morning tour of Goa and then were taken to an airport in Goa which was run by the Navy and we flew directly to the airport at Agra on our private plane, which is run by the Air Force arriving around 4pm. We were then taken directly to the Taj Mahal so we could see her at sunset.

 

Next morning we were up early and once again went to the Taj Mahal to visit her at sunrise. After breakfast that morning we went out to the desert to visit Fatehpur Sikri. After lunch we had a choice of places to visit or to go shopping and we chose to visit Itmad-ud-Daulah which is a smaller version of the Taj. Next morning we visited the amazing Agra Fort and left Agra around 11am arriving into Mumbai around 2pm after 3 wonderful days.

 

The cost at that time back in 2008 was around $1600US per person which we felt was worth every penny.

 

I do know that friends of ours were on the Azamara cruise this year which went from Singapore to Athens and when they priced the ship's excursion it was double what we paid, so instead they arrived into Singapore a few days early and did a private trip to Agra from Singapore which took a couple of days and only cost them around $1000USp.p.

 

Jennie