…s cruise, with land and cruise combined vacations. They even have specific train journeys which will take you off the ship and to the various parts of Alaska on a land-based trip. They cruise everywhere – you will find them in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Australia, the South Pacific, Mexican Riviera, they go through the Panama Canal, Canada and New England and World Cruises. You can do anything from a three or four-day cruise to up to over 1…
…ou’ll also go to Skagway and get a chance to go on the magnificent Skagway train. Depending on your cruise, you may go to more out of the way places if you go in a smaller ship, but however you cruise, Alaska would be one of those to think about and plan to do in 2021. So, these are my tips around the seven cruises to look at as you head back cruising in 2021. Lots of you reading this will probably be looking at how you can use your future cruise…
…d I do think we’ll see restrictions lifted quicker perhaps on airlines and train travel. One of the things I guess we’ve learned through this whole process is that the cruising companies don’t actually have as much influence and political sway as perhaps they thought they did. This has largely come out through the fact that they are not incorporated in countries like the United States or the UK, or big cruising ports or places like Spain. They act…
…out it will take time to reposition ships, get crew back, quarantine them, train them, restock ships and then run the test cruises. The industry appears to be trying to set expectations that cruisers should be prepared for some delay. If you want to know more about why this replacement to the no-sail order looks challenging for cruise lines watch my video covering this. Of course while lines work through the new framework and stages, cruisers like…
…e mooring out at sea as they work through all the various preparations and trainings. Fifthly, lines with much fewer ships in the stage one program include MSC Cruises, who have 3 ships close to Miami (MSC Meraviglia, MSC Seaside and MSC Armonia), Disney have 3 (Disney Wonder, Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy) and then there is Oceania Regatta and Seabourn Odyssey also on the reporting. Virgin Scarlet Lady has not returned to the US from Europe and…
…comes to relationships between the crew and passengers. Many cruise lines train crew how to diffuse a situation if people come on too strong. If the crew are found having inappropriate relationships with passengers, they are usually fired. There is also a real fear of being accused of inappropriate behaviour. Inappropriate behaviour One crew member said to me, ”If passengers ask to take a picture with me, I resist them wrapping their arms and han…
…i where lines like Princess and Holland America own lodges, operate scenic trains, and busses. Best Time To Go One thing many worry about getting wrong is when to go. I don’t think there is a wrong time. The season is short, roughly five months from May to September. It’s always in demand, and it can be pricey. It’s likely to rain pretty much any time you go, and the weather will fluctuate from being chilly, right through to warm pretty much all o…
…o at Lake Todos Santos Lake, Petrohue falls, Falkland penguins, a heritage train through Tierra del Fuego National Park in Ushuaia. I always check excursions as soon as the cruise line opens them, and again a month before cruising. For this cruise, excursions opened 100 days before sailing, but on others like my Regent Seven Seas Japan cruise it was nine months before. As most passengers wait until they are on board, I was able to get every excurs…
…n Ushuaia, as the town itself is not particularly interesting, taking the “Train to the End of the World” tour deep into the Tierra del Fuego National Park was amazing. And in Port Stanley in the Falklands, the tour that took me over an hour out of the small town to roam the Bluff Cove Penguin Reserve and hear about the war fought in the lands around it was amazing. However, in Puerto Chacabuco I decided to self-explore, but a bad choice as it was…
…and $71 for kids). The cruise line tour would involve walking them to the train, which admittedly often departs from the pier where the ship docks, and that’s it. The publicly booked ones usually depart from the station which is also close to where the ships dock. In Juneau instead of a cruise line tour up the Goldbelt Mount Roberts Tramway for stunning views at 1,800 feet above the city, they could just book tickets online or there. It’s right o…
…x to them due to the different languages, culture, currency, and moving by train or planes between the countries and so it worked for them well. A river cruise drifting through multiple countries, for example on a classic Danube cruise meant they saw a slice of Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary in less stressful way. That’s why when I wanted to tour Eastern Europe, I went on an Emerald Waterways “Enchantment of Eastern Europe” cruise between…
