…e is not a remarkable experience. And this is, a Transatlantic Crossing on Cunard Queen Mary 2 is, which I have done 5 times now as is in my view, one of the true great cruise experiences. Queen Mary 2 is the only ocean liner in the world, every other ship taking passages are cruise ships. It is the only passenger ship in the world specifically designed to handle the North Atlantic. The ship is a one-of-a-kind. It harks back to the glamorous and g…
…ed a cruise line that’s wrong for them. They love to party but booked onto Cunard, which is very formal and heavy on enrichment talks. Or they don’t want to be with children but booked on a Royal Caribbean, MSC or Norwegian cruise, which is often packed full of families. It can be complicated choosing the right cruise line. There are so many and each one is designed to cater for someone different. Broadly speaking, there are four key categories of…
…happen. Two dancers were thrown off the ship when I was on some legs of a Cunard cruise. They had been caught shoplifting on land. You may also have seen the Australian family thrown off a Carnival ship for causing trouble and fights. While we may understand why lines are coy about talking about levels and how security works, one thing they definitely don’t want to talk about in detail is the level of crime on a cruise ship. Global database There…
…ise lines, which include things like Celebrity, Holland America, Princess, Cunard, which can have mid-size or larger ships. You also have premium small size ships, Oceania, Wind Star, Azamara. Then you have this ultra-luxury category. However, what I’ve found is no one can agree what is or isn’t in the ultra-luxury category. So, I did lot of Googling, I spoke to different travel agents, I even spoke with some people within the ultra-luxury world a…
…hey’ve written frequently about Beatrice Muller, who lived for 14 years on Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2. Lee Wachtstetter, known as “Mama Lee”, who lived on Crystal Serenity for over 12 years. Morton Jablin, who lived for 13 years on Regent Seven Seas. And Mario Salcedo, known as “Super Mario”, who has been living on Royal Caribbean for over 20 years. So, I started by exploring roughly what it was costing these well-known residents to live at sea. H…
…xcursions. The premium lines include Princess, Holland America, Celebrity, Cunard, Oceania, and Viking with more traditional cruise ships without resort features, while the luxury lines include Seabourn, Silversea, Regent Seven Seas, Ritz Carlton Yacht Club, and the European lines like Ponant and Hapag-Lloyd. There are some exceptions in this premium category, like Virgin Voyages, which are coming into the premium category, but are trying to have…
…ckier, like most of the Carnival Group. For example, I’ve had success with Cunard, where I’ve managed to get upgrades when fares fell, but other people have struggled to get them to budge when prices go down. Cunard arguing the fare was locked in the terms of conditions of a specific promotion. Ask what happens if the price goes down Once you’ve paid your final balance, the lines are less willing to match any fare reductions, so always do that dum…
…ew Appreciation and Service Charges” on my Scandinavia cruise, while on my Cunard Queen Mary 2 Transatlantic voyage it was just called a “service charge”. Maybe they’re renaming them to cloud that they are ramping up the cost of gratuities at the same time. Most lines now have gratuities at between $14 and $20 per person per day based on cabin grade. This also applies to children sharing their parent’s cabin. That adds between $200 and $300 for a…
…hey compete with. So, that’s lines like Holland America, Princess, Virgin, Cunard, and P&O Cruises UK. I wasn’t as impressed with the food as I thought I would be. I found the menus large and the food on Disney good, but it wasn’t, in my view, as good as Celebrity or Virgin. It was probably on par with Cunard and Holland America, and is better than Princess and P&O. So, it’s kind of mid-range in the category, I guess. However, on the plus side, I…
…et. But I have also seen it change based on where I am sailing. I was on a Cunard Transatlantic Crossing from the UK to the US and the table minimums were really low. $3 on Blackjack. Once we got to New York to head down to the Caribbean, it increased to $5 as more Americans boarded. The biggest change I saw was travelling in Asia, we’d sailed up from Australia to Hong Kong with $5 minimums. Once we got to Hong Kong and there were more Chinese gue…
…lays. Many ships that were due to come into service have been pushed back. Cunard’s Queen Anne, which was due to come into service at the end of 2023, had to cancel all their cruises, including mine, into May 2024. Carnival Jubilee is delayed from October to December 2023. I was booked on Norwegian Viva, and that was then delayed – I had to change my cruise to November. These supply chain and shipyard delays make avoiding booking maiden voyages a…
