What is a TA like

Do TA's get very full?[/color] My husband and I love just relaxing' date=' reading, working out, listening to music so I find it very appealing. We love the sea days or staying on the boat when it's in port because the boat is not that crowded. I wouldn't mind the crowds in the evening but if I could never get a break I would be less enthused.[/quote']

 

 

Oh yes they do!! The one I am booked on in a few weeks on the Pacific Princess has only about a half dozen cabins still available. And on the ones I have already done, the little sign was always displayed on the passenger services deck saying that it was a full sailing. They are popular with a certain segment of cruisers.

 

But even a fully booked TA will have plenty of places to escape to onboard for quiet time for reading, view watching, or just contemplation of the pleasure of being on a ship.

It seems like TA's used to be a best kept secret known by mostly well traveled cruisers, and the fares were very reasonable, even for solo cruisers. Now that the secret is out, and TA's seem to be a more "in" thing, the fares are not as good.

 

Do TA's get very full? My husband and I love just relaxing, reading, working out, listening to music so I find it very appealing. We love the sea days or staying on the boat when it's in port because the boat is not that crowded. I wouldn't mind the crowds in the evening but if I could never get a break I would be less enthused.

 

When we retired about 13 years ago, we started doing multiple TAs every year since they were an amazing value and we loved the sea days. It also allowed us to purchase round trip air to/from Europe and use that round trip ticket to get us to/from 2 TA cruises :). But in the past 5-7 years, TAs seem to have been discovered by many retirees plus the cruise lines have done a good job extending the cruises to provide decent itineraries, Hence, athough they are still a bargain, its not as good as in days past. Many of our TAs (we will have done 3 crossings just this year) are near-full.

 

Hank

In the winter, several UK based ships go on world, or extensive cruises. A few other ships do a TA followed by 2 weeks in the Caribbean, with passengers flying home, before the ship settles into the fortnightly fly/cruise routine.

But what we've noticed is the increase in ships which do a month's cruise-from Southampton across the Atlantic; seven or eight Caribbean islands, and then cruise back to the UK. The ship we were on last January for this cruise was doing it for the first time; next Jan she turns round when she reaches S'ton and returns for a similar trip, this time including some ports in the south of the USA.

This year's cruise was fully booked, and we met a couple who'd been on the wait list for 3 months, hoping for a cabin. We have also found quite a few forum friends who only go on these monthly, two TA cruises.

But even a fully booked TA will have plenty of places to escape to onboard for quiet time for reading, view watching, or just contemplation of the pleasure of being on a ship.

We are booked on the IotS TA that leaves next week. The cruise has been fully booked for weeks and I don't remeber ever seeing a real price drop.

However... we assume that "fully booked" means mostly singles or couples in the cabin with only few cabins having three or four people (as TAs aren't really that child friendly - our first two TAs maybe had a hand full of children on board). So even though it's sailing "full" it's most likely "all cabins" full and not "all berths" full. I am sure it won't feel overly crowded and there will be plenty of space for everybody.

My wife and I went on our first cruise last fall and it was a TA. Friends thought we we're crazy to choose that as our first. The first three or four days out of Southampton heading to Miami we're pretty rocky. First night I wondered what we had gotten ourselves into but thanks to meds everything was great after that. We are booked on another TA in November only this one is the northern route to Boston and New York. Should be interesting. We are also booked on a Windstar TA in April .