Live Cruise Reports

In 48 hours, my mom, oldest niece and I depart on a trip to Alaska that -- like so many others this summer -- has been 3 years in the making.  Originally planned as a college graduation gift for my niece in 2020, we delayed twice but finally (fingers crossed) will be leaving Philadelphia Wednesday afternoon to fly to Vancouver.  We'll spend 3 nights at the Pan Pacific at Canada Place before boarding Koningsdam on Saturday for a round-trip voyage to Alaska.  After a final night in Vancouver due to flight times, we will be returning home on 17 July.

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I'm in final preparation stage with several things already done
 
My big bag sitting in Luggage Forward's Red Hook office.
E -ticket, Cunard Health Questionnaire, and ArriveCan Code
Proctored Covid test printout
Amtrak Pre-travel health check completed
And advance checkin to my hotel
 
I hope to be on the road early, on my train before 10, and in New York before noon.
 
This will be my first time on Cunard since I was thrown off QM2 in Perth 2+ years ago and I hope everything is ready.

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After 6 months of waiting, scares about the cruise being cancelled, contracting & recovered from Covid, tomorrow morning we're flying to Fairbanks a day early before we start our triple Denali land tour with our 11 year old granddaughter who is anxious to do her first cruise.  We even booked a balcony cabin on the port side so we could enjoy the view of Alaska from our stateroom (and not get the granddaughter feeling claustrophobic on her first cruise).  She's especially interested in the wildlife. 

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OK, so the cruise itself starts Friday next week but receiving the final documentation today seems like the right time to kick off this thread. 
 
By way of introduction we are both 65-year-old retirees with over 200 days on Silversea, a QM2 crossing and a 14-day Seabourn Caribbean cruise under our belts along with a couple of river cruises. Saga has drawn us for this trip because we, at the time of booking last spring, didn't know what the international travel arena held for 2022.  In addition we haven't done a British Isles itinerary and felt that Saga's all inclusive sailings would fit our needs. 

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It doesn't seem like there are many "Live" threads on this board, but I will attempt to do one on our upcoming Grand European Tour.  it has been challenging to get a lot of information since we've booked.  As an example I bought the Rick Steve's Germany tour book and several of our 'ports' Rick has nothing to say about.  I understand docking times can vary based on lock passage and such, but we don't even have a tentative schedule to work with.  As a planner, that is a bit challenging.

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Arrived at Southampton early at 1145 and boarded easily. There was a bit of confusion at check-in as staff hadn’t seen an ArriveCAN form for entering Canada at Halifax before.  It is one form with both my wife and my name on it.  This couldn’t be correct, we should have one form each - NO!

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Summit 6/26/2022 Bermuda Sailing - Live Blog, Cat Blog, Vlog!
 
Good Morning.
 
After 2 years away from Celebrity (I wonder what happe…oh, wait), we are once again ready to get back on Board and see what has changed post-cruising-apocalypse. Lingering suspicions remain that this ‘Live’ Blog will quickly become a ‘Recap’ after day 3 as is usually the case, but until then, we’ll try to keep things tight.

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Day 1
So where do we start? Well after a tiring journey from the UK via Paris we finally reached Venice.
We reached Venice around mid-day, got to the baggage reclaim, its always an anxious wait to see if your luggage appears on the belt, thankfully after about 15 minutes the cases popped their heads up.

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Day 0
 
We departed Trieste and another cruise for Civitavecchia today.  I thought taking three trains and spending 8 hours traversing Italy would be fun…I was wrong.  The Regionale trains (4 of the 8 hours) were packed and not very comfortable.  However the Frecciarossa 1000 from Venice to Rome was excellent.  Definitely splurge for Executive class.  The carriage has 10 seats total and full dining/drink service included.  For perhaps a $50 upgrade, it was well worth it.  Tomorrow we embark!
 
PS. This live review will mainly focus on the ship, the food and the service.  Don’t expect lengthy port reviews from me…I will be comparing the current quality to what we experienced pre-Covid.  
 

Come join us as we take our third voyage on the Mardi Gras, this time staying in a Havana Cabana room.  The delta between cruises has been a while (the Elation in March) and to be honest, we have been jonesing to get on a Carnival ship.  This will be our 46th Carnival Cruise.

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Hi Everyone,  we passed our Covid tests, our bags are packed and now we wait until tomorrow when we board the Zaandam.  This will be a B2B Boston to Montreal and back to Boston.  We are looking forward to being on a BHB once again.  This time there is no air involved.  We are using a service to drive us to the pier.  This is our first time on this ship and took an upgrade to a Neptune Suite.

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We are onboard now, and I will say that the experience has been different in a good way from what we expected.  We are in our late 60's and were not sure this was a good fit, and we are having a great time.  I will be glad to answer questions.  We will also try to eat at all 20 restaurants and provide reviews.  We will be doing videos of cabin types and ship tour videos as well.

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Hi folks,  I fly out tomorrow for The Dawn.......here to Philly, then on to London then Barcelona. I usually try to do a live from and if anyone has questions, I will try to answer them.
  Lets hope the flights all go off as scheduled and looking forward to sailing this new ship🙂

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After lots of posts in the thread "What's Going on with Scenic," and receiving little information from Scenic prior to starting our cruisetour with them in Vienna on 15 June, this thread will attempt to provide some information on our tour and cruise experiences themselves.

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Hi everyone!  I am extremely excited to be going on this cruise, which leaves out of Copenhagen on June 22.  We are flying there tomorrow so we can enjoy a few days in the city before the cruise.  We have a Danish pastry making class and a trip to Tivoli Gardens planned.  I will be posting updates about the cruise whenever I can (not sure how good the wifi will be onboard) and feel free to ask any questions.  I will do my best to answer them.
 
The cruise goes to Norway, Iceland, and Scotland.
 
Now it's time to finally pack!

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Hi all, I know another live thread from the Quantum of the Sea's.  This was, like most of them in June of 2021. But we all know how that turned out. Mmmhmmm...
 
But here we are finally. Our 1st Alaska cruise but probably our 20th overall. 15 or so with Rccl. We have been on 3 cruises since Dec 2021, Carnival Radiance 3 day Baja, Odessey of the seas over new years and the Celebrity Edge over spring break. (1st time on Quantum class and Edge class) so this is Numero #4 in 6 months which is crazy for us.  Usually once per year. 

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Welcome along for a gastronomical or gastrointestinal adventure. Quick Bahamas run on Independence of the Seas.

 
First time solo, and first time with Unlimited Dining Package. And first time to potentially see a Rocket launch onboard a ship.🚀

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Good Morning! I’ve just woken up in our Premier Inn hotel in Ringwood which is a short 30 minute drive to Southampton port. We live in Bristol and travelled to Ringwood yesterday in preparation for the cruise. We have good friends who kindly offered to run us in and look after our little Smart car while we cruise. This saves us lots of cruise parking fees. We had a delicious Chinese meal together last night and will meet up with them for the drive to the port soon! Our boarding time is 10am! 

Let’s go cruising! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Once again, it’s my pleasure to take you all along on a fabulous getaway via Carnival Cruise Line. This time, it’s a kids cruise on the Ecstasy from Mobile, AL to Cozumel and Progreso. My kids are 11, 8 and 7, with the 7 yo getting his blue card this sailing. So pull on your responsible parent pants/hoochie daddy shorts, pre-purchase cabin booze, budget time for plenty of bathroom breaks, and fill up the gas tank for an overnight road trip to ALABAMA! Hope you’ll follow along! 

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I’m going to attempt to do my first LIVE review, so wish me luck! I usually get so caught up in just enjoying my vacation that I forget to take pictures of my food and other important things. 
 
Booked this cruise on 12/24/20, thinking that surely Covid would be a thing of the past in a year and a half. We all know how that went. This trip was a surprise Christmas gift to my mom; gifted Xmas 2021, so I successfully kept it a secret for a year!

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Jim recently published a beautiful and detailed review of Celebrity Silhouette, so I don't feel the need to add more information about the ship, unless you have any questions. My intent is only to post pictures about our ports of call.
 
This said, our embarkation process in Southampton was the smoothest I ever experienced. Furthermore, staff on the ship and ashore was just phenomal! 

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Hello My Dear CC Friends!
 
Guess what I’m doing in 3 days? 
 
Flying to Florida to sail away again on the Equinox!  Anybody in the mood for another GenX live review?
 
When last we spoke (at the end of Gen Z and I’s wonderful mother-daughter Millennium cruise in March), I was due to stay on land until hubby and I sail together again in late July.  
 
But then came a series of both fortunate and unfortunate spring events including…

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Hello CC, 
 
We're back onboard the beautiful Carnival Radiance for a live review! I'll go over new stuff we've learned, since this is our first time in an Ocean Suite (got an upsell offer I couldn't refuse)
 
On this trip is my DH (63) and myself (62). We're newly-minted Diamond cruises, (as you can see by my signature) and this is actually our 49th Carnival cruise. For those who are math aficionados, it becomes obvious how we got to this point. We live in SoCal (North San Diego County) and are great fans of the 3-4 night cruises. Ws cried a bit when they retired Imagination and Inspiration but we've made Radiance our new home, and are happy to have you join us. 
 
I'll add some of the questions I wanted to answer on this trip, but if anyone has something they'd like to know, just post it here and I'll try and find out for you. Keep in mind that this is a 3-night cruise, so it goes by pretty fast. So, post your questions quickly. 

Hello all
My wife - Pip - and I are on our first ever cruise (though we are somewhat 'experienced' travellers since retirement 5/6 years ago, travelling, pre-covid, for up to 6 months total per year. And as a point of reference too we haven't put a bag into a plane hold all that time either, travelling with one 40 litre and one 30 litre rucksack with max weight of 10 kgs, so packing for this with proper luggage was an experience in itself) 

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Hubby and I are going to be boarding Oasis of the Seas on Sunday 6/5/22 for 4 consecutive cruises.  The 1st is a 5 day to Canada and the other three are 7 cruises with stops in Port Canaveral, Nassau and Coco Cay.
 
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