MissMilliment

We had 6258 and 6260 on our Baltic cruise in August. Spent a lot of time on the balcony and never had an issue with cigarette smoke. And I HATE cigarette smoke. But go for a port side cabin if you want to be totally sure.

Can't do a great deal about travelling in school holidays - I am a teacher so even when the kids are doing their own thing we will be stuck with travelling in school holidays until I retire!

Good to hear you enjoyed Ruby Princess. We are not bothered by evening liveliness or lack thereof as we generally get up early to make the most of port days and are shattered soon after dinner! But we do like a good drink package! Had the classic package as a 123 Go perk on Eclipse last year and made the most of it!

Thanks for all the opinions so far, I have got a couple of quotes in now and it looks like we are not going with Ventura after all because they want to charge full price for the third passenger in the children's cabin whereas Celebrity and Princess charge only half the fare - a saving of nearly $1000! :eek:

I am looking at Caribbean Princess now, operating a similar itinerary or going for a fly-cruise out of Venice,this would give us a greater choice of options the increased cost would mean losing the balcony which we don't want to do.

Also we live close to Southampton so flying elsewhere to start a cruise seems crazy.

I know this is the P&O board, but if anyone has any experience of Princess that they want to share, I would be most grateful.

Also, on a general note - we kind of fell into booking our cruise last year having never even considered it as an option before and we booked in January. Now here it is only October and we are looking at next summer. How long in advance do most people tend to book stuff? Is there much less choice if you leave it till only a few months ahead?

Thanks for the information. I will have a look at RCCL and also at Princess. To be honest, it is mostly about the itinerary for us - our Baltic trip last year was amazing - but we plan to do the Med next and most of the big cruise lines seem to operate roughly the same itinerary in the school holidays so differences in fare and onboard amenties could be the deal breakers.

My girls aren't great on activities - I couldn't even persuade them to try out teen club last year - but you never know if something novel might tempt them - like Quantum of the Seas roller disco perhaps! Out of our price range I think though.

On the friendliness point, we found the staff on the Eclipse lovely last year, particularly in the dining room where they made a real fuss of the girls and always made time for a chat.

I see what people are saying about the crowded public spaces on Ventura, but this is not such a problem for us as we do like to hang out on our balcony quite a lot on sea days. On the Eclipse we had adjoining cabins and the room steward pulled back the partition between the balconies so we could share them - don't know if this is possible on Ventura?

Also a plus point for Ventura for us - the drinks look way cheaper on P&O!

Last summer, my family (husband and I, three teenage girls) had the holiday of a lifetime on a Baltic cruise on Celebrity Eclipse. We absolutely loved the ship and the girls loved dressing up for dinner, formal nights etc. They didn't use the teen club at all, preferring to hang out with us, especially as it was a very port intensive cruise. We had adjoining cabins with the partition between the balconies pulled back and all of us spent time sitting and reading out there rather than round the pools which tended to get very crowded.

We are now looking at doing a Mediterranean cruise next summer on the P&O Ventura. I wondered if people could give us some idea of their experiences of the Ventura and how it compares - we looked at Cunard but it looks a bit staid for teenagers, but yet they do like the glamour of old-fashioned cruising!

Any info on the Ventura and P&O would be much appreciated.

Thanks for the info about Bruges - looks like we need to be on the ball re trains - would hate to miss the ship on our first stop.

That's a really useful website, thank you.

Great review - really helpful thank you as we are also on the 19th July sailing and doing a tour with Alla. Counting down now - only six sleeps left! Your info about Bruges was really helpful as it clearly is going to be tight for time getting back to the ship - what time would you say you need to leave Bruges at to make sure you get back to the ship on time?

Bob - can I ask you how you get the info about which pier we are docked at? I had planned for Langelinnie - we have bought Copenhagen cards, but will have to rethink how to get to the city centre now.

Thank you everyone. Just to be clear, we were not contemplating allowing them to sit directly at the bar! A table in the general vicinity will be absolutely fine. Those photographs are fantastic and do give me a much better idea of what the ship is actually like, thank you very much for posting the link.

So looking forward to this trip, it will be our first cruise ever so expect more naive questions over the next few weeks!

Thank you. I have not got a very clear idea of the layout of the ship fixed in my mind yet. I guess I was imagining a smaller, enclosed venue.

That's good to know, thanks.

Our family - two parents, three teenagers - are going to be on a two-week Baltic cruise on the Eclipse this summer. It just occured to me to wonder if when we want to go for a pre-dinner drink in the Martini Bar or such our children will be allowed to accompany us or are the bars viewed as adult-only spaces? They are lovely, sociable, well-mannered young ladies, by the way, just in case anyone is worried about bad behaviour!

Thank you. And a follow up question, if I may - what sort of balcony furniture is there? There will be five of us over the two staterooms - will there be enough seating for all of us?

OK, well at least we will be able to communicate!

Great, that is good to know, thank you very much. I am envisioning family breakfasts on the balcony!

Hi everyone

We are taking our first cruise on the Eclipse (and, in fact, our first cruise ever) this July. We are a family of 5 and have booked two C2 class cabins with balconies (6258 and 6260). When we booked, the Celebrity staff member we spoke to said that it might be possible to have the partition between the two balconies opened so that the balconies interconnect. I just wondered if anyone here had seen this done as I am finding it a bit hard to get through to Celebrity on the phone right now?

Thanks for your help.

If you have a Kindle, the Robert Massie books are available for around £1/$1 on Amazon at the moment - I've just downloaded them for a bit of pre-cruise reading.