…your own thing, and meet up together again at mealtimes. With a land-based holiday destination that’s much more problematic. If you are a traveller with limited mobility, cruise lines are great at accommodating everyone, even if you have pretty specific requirements. They have specially adapted cabins, will make sure some excursions are suitable for all levels of mobility, and once you’re on board, everything is across the ship is easy to access….
…going to happen and where any options will be explained, then you’ll have dinner which will be at a set time, and again, not necessarily with lots of choices of places to eat. And every day on a European river cruise is similarly curated, with not much opportunity to flex that. Of course, you can skip some of the excursions and go and explore yourself, and if you’re perhaps docked overnight you can head into the town in the evening, but the days t…
…and other public holidays So, those shoulder periods, when it’s not school holidays or public holiday times, are always going to be when it’s harder for the cruise lines to fill the ships. This is when they’re more likely to be discounting and you can cruise for less money. Also, you may want to choose times when the weather is less predictable, so choosing the Caribbean in hurricane season might mean that there may be some disruptions to the crui…
…e less inclined to return to cruising and maybe even looking at land-based holidays. Some of those, of course, would have loved cruises, but certainly what I’m seeing is that these are the people who are pushing really hard to get money back, rather than future cruise credit. Here in the UK, the Independent newspaper did a survey looking at people who cruise a lot and people who cruise infrequently and a very large percentage of those were saying…
…ribbean and probably anywhere in the world is their Music Walk. This is an innovation they’ve been rolling out across their ships. How many of the Music Walk features they have will depend on which ship you’re on. In the Music Walk there are a whole series of music venues all focusing on different types of music, so there’s BB King’s Blues Club, which is really popular – they have an eight-piece band here, and they play really great, funky blues m…
…all things that I have done and feel are a great alternatives to a cruise holiday right now. Watch My Cruise Vacation Alternatives Video https://youtu.be/_OcbhqD5jbI Watch My Cruise Vacation Alternative Video on YouTube Join this channel to get access to perks Take a look at my Cruise T-shirts Gary Bembridge’s Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of th…
…u are based in the UK, feel free to contact her to handle your next cruise holiday. If you are in the United States I can suggest Gary Pluck of Travel by Red and Walter Biscardi of Where’s Walter Travel. If in Australia then I can suggest Jake Hower. Note: I get no benefit or commission if you do book with any of them and I recommend them based on my personal experience and those of people who follow the channel. Make sure you check this page ofte…
…else to go. In that time, there is the sail away party, getting ready for dinner, dinner, going to go to a show or to watch some other entertainment or live music, and then sleeping. There is not enough time to be bored. In fact, what you’re more likely to find is that you didn’t have time to do everything on the ship. Ships have so much to do. They have so many venues, so much going on that you just can’t do everything you want to do in the limit…
…rk too. Everything’s open. It’s great, but not stifling weather and since Winnie doesn’t have to go in school holiday time and is going with a friend of hers, they’ll have a less costly and less crowded trip. Winnie had said she wanted to go on a mid-sized ship, but I worried she was falling into another trap here too. Mediterranean Cruise Traps – Trap #4 (Mid-Sized Ship) So, I suggested she step back as there are a few considerations before settl…
…ng all info, Ephesus is about an hour from the port. After this, I wanted Winnie to know that I also recommended ports that would sound like some of the worst to go, but she would thank me after visiting, as they will be some of the most memorable. Overly Popular The Mediterranean is a popular vacation region, and the best cities draw land-based holiday makers, weekend, and city breakers and, of course, cruise passengers. All the cities I mentione…
…room, there is a smaller main dining room menu, but I found ample choice. Dinner had items unique to that day, some specials usually themed to a region of the world and a set of always available items, like salmon, chicken breast and steak. I found the quality still matched that on premium lines like Princess, Holland America, and Celebrity, but it still probably was not as good as Oceania, which has cuisine as their big point of difference. It wa…
