the_dylaness

Following with interest... first Azamara cruise this fall, and first Regent in January 2024. Have sailed on ships from Carnival (EEK) to Crystal and most things in between!

@bitob Thank you for sharing that info. I meant though, the fact that I could not get the purchase to go through even though some had openings. It is all sorted now though and I'm in for Wok Cooking.

They are almost impossible to book online, too! 🙂 I finally got a break today during their business hours and called; they were able to sign me up for one of the 10am classes. They did not know why I could never submit the payment online. What else am I supposed to know or be doing in advance!? I did make shore excursion reservations and I know dining reservations open for me in October...

I've been perusing the cooking classes offered on our January 2024 Grandeur sailing. Many are full (I had no idea this even existed until I was poking around the website this weekend.) I found one that sounds interesting enough and have tried several times to book it. We have some unused onboard credit - it allows me to select to use the OBC and then at the end when I am to submit the entire purchase it just peters out. So really, two questions in one: 1) What would you say about the onboard cooking classes? I am a reasonably experienced home cook and my husband is a good sous chef 😉 The last "well reviewed" cooking class I attended in Antigua last month (private tour, not cruise ship) was fun and enjoyable, but quite a bit more basic than I had anticipated. 2) Outside of trying to call Regent (each time I've had the time to call it's been outside their business hours... my problem, not theirs) any ideas on what might be holding up this purchase? TIA!

Not on Regent, but on other lines, when we've shared tables or otherwise met folks that we'd put into the "never again" category... we always try to remember that the upside of spending an hour or two with these folks (even if it feels like six) is the great stories we can share gossiping about them later! Terrible, yes, but true 🙂 Always a silver lining.

Remember that it is widely acceptable to bring your own food and even alcoholic beverages such as beer onto shinkansen. I loved traveling this way in Japan and it's a really cool experience. Enjoy!

I haven't sailed Viking but would like to... for us, a major plus over Seabourn is frankly the price. Our upcoming Mediterranean cruise (in an OV cabin, however) was SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive than it would've been on SB. We have sailed Seabourn and liked the experience; this will be our first on Azamara, but the price was a big, big difference.

Not sure if this is helpful, but maybe a comparator is a useful bit of info... to fly into a largish midwestern city *one way* from Venice in "premium economy" we paid $2.8k for two tickets. I booked the tickets about 6 weeks ago, and we fly in October. I hope that is useful for you and good luck!

My first luxury cruise was on the Seabourn Legend. I'd been on several cruises but all mass market lines. I did not really know exactly what to expect, but somehow we learned that we could request anything (within reason, of course) that we wanted, at any time. We took advantage of this once, and only once... This knowledge lead us to place order one night, upon leaving the dining room, for lamb chops and chocolate chip waffles to be delivered to our stateroom for breakfast. Kind of silly in retrospect but it made such a huge impression on us. We were AMAZED that it could happen! (And it was INCREDIBLE.) Even now, no matter what amazing breakfast we might be enjoying, we will often comment "but it's not as good as lamb chops and chocolate chip waffles."

I miss really DRESSING for dinner... I remember packing long evening gowns, my husband packing a tux... and this was not that long ago, 2009 is the last time I remember doing it but I think we've done it since. The expense and hassle of extra luggage has made this much less feasible in recent years. We either skip it or "dress our best" which for me usually means a cocktail type dress (or on the more casual side of that...) and nice slacks, nice shoes, and a very nice long sleeve shirt for DH. On our X cruise in March there MAY have been men in tuxes but I didn't see them (we skipped the second formal night) and women's attire was all over the board.

We took four of us (two adults, two kids) for a week in a 2 bedroom Aqua Theater Suite with a Genie in Star Class... the actual cruise itself was just over $14k. Something doesn't make sense.

OP, all I can say, is good luck. Our first Azamara cruise is in Sept, but we tried FBC for one of our Celebrity cruises last year. Short version: total nightmare. Spent over 17 hours on the phone in total, IIRC. I hope you are ticketed soon and have seats together with your traveling party but it seems worrisome at this stage. Crossing fingers for you. I am unlikely to book another X cruise again soon for a variety of reasons despite having done many in the past; I will never, ever use FBC again.

The ship was held last week for my mom and my two (minor) kids who got stuck on a very delayed non-ship shore excursion; they broke into her room and had me break into her safe to obtain her passport (my kids had theirs) so they could hand it to the authorities. So, depending on your POV it was bad she didn't have it with her, or lucky she did, because as they were handing it off to the authorities, they showed up running down the pier. Maybe the delay saved her. Worst day of my life.

As long as they don't charter it and take up all the public spaces, who cares? 😇

I'd rather you set my hare on fire, then we can at least have a nice dinner, perhaps with a mustard sauce and carrots?

Their, their! We all can't handle the wait of the whirled on our shoulders when it comes to spelling and grammar.

Guessing you weren't on Equinox last week with one of the cabins (standard balcony) occupied by my mom, my 11 year old, and my 8 year old. They could have used 3x a day cleaning (just kidding... mostly) but different cabin situations have different needs, for sure! (And we DO make our kids pick up after themselves BEFORE the cabin attendant comes... not their job to pick up PJs and shoes and stuff.) There's a lot of people in a small space with a lot of stuff, a lot of showers, and some dirty dishes, for sure.

Deck 11 Equinox cabins 1136 and 1138 were great for our group in January 2020. Nice location, quiet, shady balcony. We also stayed in Sky Suite either 2148 or 2150 in late Feb 2020 and it was like a nightmare meets Groundhog Day. Scraping, thumping of OVC chairs every morning around 6am. Over and over. I could not sleep despite sound machine, ear plugs, etc. I am really close to saying it ruined our cruise because we came for a week as a couple to rest and relax from stressful jobs and 2 young children (boy if we'd known what was in store for us 2 weeks later...) It's hard to feel rested and relaxed when you're getting up as early as you usually do at home or even earlier. I would not take a cruise in that cabin again for free.

Sorry, sort of a running joke on the RCCL boards it seems... while I am sure many do love it (and I have never seen it), many folks there do NOT care for the Cats show and it gets a lot of jokes made about it.

I keep getting the feeling that X doesn't want us spending time in our staterooms. The furniture keeps being designed and supplied in such a way that seems to suggest this. One of the things I want to do the most is sit in peace and quiet on my own balcony and have coffee or a light meal. NOT spend the cruise stubbing my toe on an unnecessary rocking chair.

Or 35 minutes on hold while ON THE SHIP to order room service (this was my experience in June 2022)... insane.

This is of interest to me--- I don't understand well enough how the X/TA relationship works. I purchased the drink package online and later cancelled via phone (with X) and rebooked to use OBC; I don't remember why I didn't initially book with OBC, either a website issue perhaps or maybe wanting to get Elite discount? Anyway, my question is this; how would the TA be in the know or responsible for purchases made in the online cruise planner? I am genuinely asking for knowledge, not challenging or disputing your statement.

Not a big deal to pay- as far as I can best tell I owed the money. (I think?) What was a big deal is that I was notified four days before sailing that I had to pay up in the next few hours for a charge I didn't know I owed (and was hard to verify at the moment.)

I likely would not have noticed if they had overcharged me, to be honest. (Maybe they have, I frankly have no idea). Again, with probably 2 dozen transactions and verrrry slow refunds from X, they make it quite difficult to track charges and refunds. It's not as if this is the only thing happening in my life, you know?

I agree something isn't right here, but no, I owed no money for the fare (paid in full already) and the exact amount requested was the cost of 2 beverage package upgrades.