MamaFej

Cool. Thanks for pointing out another option!

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!!!!! We are far from loyalists, having sailed on Princess, Celebrity, Windstar, Azamara, Ama (river), SilverSea (expedition), and Viking Ocean in the last 9 years. We did sail NCL in 1988 and 1991 for 3 and 4 days, but those are too long ago to be relevant to today's cruising. The majority of our cruises have been on Celebrity, and I used to always check Celebrity first when looking. Not anymore. We retired in October of 2019, and had a great X cruise from Honolulu to Vancouver to celebrate. We had lots more planned for 2020 and early 2021. Kablooie! 🦠🦠🦠 Since cruising restarted, we've taken 4 in 2021, 8 in 2022, and 5 in 2023, with two more planned (17 days to Australia on Celebrity and 28 days around Australia on Princess). We have five Celebrity cruises booked in Asia next year, plus a Total Solar Eclipse cruise on Princess and a Viking Ocean cruise up the Amazon. We have three cruises booked so far in 2025. None of those is on Celebrity. As I sit here, Hubby is looking at replacing 2 or 3 of those 2024 Asia cruises on X with additional land travel and other cruiselines. Honestly, we got such good deals on them, booking early, that we will likely keep at least two of them. . . but we are still looking. We wouldn't have been a year ago. We scrimped, saved, and invested well for decades. We now get to spend what we saved, invested, and grew. We might be downright impoverished compared to most folks who regularly sail in suites, but we do have money and we are determined to spend it on awesome experiences. It seems that that "Secret sauce" is pushing us away as well. I'm confident that other travel companies will happiy take that money. So, yeah, we are REALLY looking at other cruiselines bacause of the changes.

I literally call each kid "My favorite" in front of the others. One will say or do something, and I'll say. "That's why you're my favorite." They'll all be home for a holiday, and I'll walk into the room and say, "Hi, Favorite Kid!" They'll ask "Which one?" and I'll reply, "You know which one." Or they'll say, "It's me, right?" I answer, "Of course!" It has been a running joke for years. I was the only girl in my generation until I was 20. One of my grandmothers delighted in calling me her favorite granddaughter until my first and only girl cousin came along. That cousin now has a four year-old who is the closest thing I've got to a grandchild, and there are no signs of that changing. I spoil the child accordingly. You can call me Mama or Donna. Either is fine. I've also been known to respoind to "Hey, you!"

It's perfectly okay to have a favorite child. In fact, I have three of them.

Even the smallest ones are too big for me. I may get the courage to trim them down someday. I'm just afraid of making them worse.

Chilean fjords? Yes, please! Then Chilean wine country? Yes, please, again! I hope my two trips to Chile aren't the only ones I'll ever take.

I prefer Fuji apples. That won't stop me from commenting on also Gala apples in the appropriate context.

I think Bose owes Jim a kickback for all the earbuds he's respsonsible for selling! They do work nicely, but I find them extremely uncomfortable. Fortunately, PapaFej snores less than he used to, after some weight loss, and he doesn't mind me playing my Sleep Stories out loud. The man could drink a triple expresso, then fall asleep on a roller coaster during an earthquake. I still use them on planes, despite the discomfort. I've thought about trimming down the silicone, but I'm afraid to make it worse.

I probably should not have quoted you for that post. I had not been aware that more casual dress would be permitted on our expedition. Once my dear TA friend told me about the amazing deal he was offered for Antartica and would we like to come along, I started looking at the Silversea board, and became nervous about the whole "Men must wear jackets after 6pm" thing, regardless of whether the night was designated "formal." I posted what I did just in case others found themselves similarly wondering.

We are those dreaded middle class people who have gotten lucky and cruised in suites three times on paid upgrades. Each time, the delightful butler asked us what we'd like in the mini fridge, and made sure we had Coke Zero, Sprite Zero, water, and an occasional Newcastle beer. I didn't know that wasn't suposed to be the case until reading it here lately. All three acted like it was part of the service. We have asked our steward to empty the fridge in regular cabins so we could put stuff in ourselves. They've always put the mini bar chargeable stuff under the bed.

The last time I spoke with Iain, we were on the stairs of the Summit. I'm glad he wasn't rolling: that would have been dangerous!

A bit of information for those considering Silversea for Expedition cruising: evenings are not formal. Some folks wore the same things to dinner that they'd worn on land in Antarctica (minus outerwear, of course). We dressed the way we do for dinner on Smart Casual nights for dinner, and a little nice the evening we had dinner in La Dame. I'd been very nervous about what I'd read about the formality, and SS did not make it easy to find that information, so I was very grateful to the posters on the SS forum who explained the much moe casual atmosphere on the expeditions.

Does that explain your love for Iain? 😜

🤣 I'd be willing to settle for Grand PooBah.😜 Nonetheless, I'm glad I got the match with Azamara when I did.

Thanks for that, Jim. It is interesting that Discoverer Plus on Azamara equates to the highest level, even though it was previously equal to Elite Plus on Celebrity. We made sure to get an Azamara cruise in (actually two: B2B) before the official split, as we had thought we might lean toward small ship cruising in retirement. Spoiler alert: we like it! X's Elite Plus is equivalent to the second highest level. We hit Elite Plus right before the official split, so we made Discoverer Plus on Azamara, too. In the extremely unlikely event we could ever find a Ponant cruise we could afford, we will match to Azamara. Thanks so much for the link!

I imagine you can find some fantastic charities that align with your values. You might want to check Charity Navigator (dot) org which will give you an excellent idea of how well they use donations.

I will not be surpriesed if they start offering Onboard "Specials" for formerly included Alfredo's at the fabulous price of 50% Off (ooo, aaah!) to regenerate demand.

We did it sitting side by side, both logged in. Hubby canceled on his tablet, I refreshed my page to be sure the OBC had landed, then I rebooked. We have a couple more cruises to do today, and hopefully we will continue to evade having any sold out from under us.

Thanks for that perspective. We've done M & S Class on Celebrity, not E. Our largest ship has been Royal Class on Princess. We have discovered, since the restart, that we really like the smaller ships. Docking closer to the things we want to see (sometimes hours closer) and having more overnights is a real plus for us. The smaller ships just seem to suit us well for other reasons, as well. I don't imagine we will ever do a mega ship, unless we have grandkids (doubtful at this point) and travel with them. We did mostly RV travel when our kids were younger, taking them to 49 states and a few territories and provinces that way. The National Parks Pass is a huge bang for the buck! I'm writing this from our motor home in a valley nestled into the San Jacinto mountains at the moment. We did nearly burn out our brakes coming down to your hometown one day. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggerration, but not a huge one.

I'm going to need to go look for Charla's review. We've never done the Caribbean, and it's not a high priority, but I do appreciate my fellow Gen-Xer's point of view. Her budget is WAY bigger than mine, however, her perspective is intriguing and her writing style is fun. Thanks to everyone who shares their experiences and alternatives to X. We are cruising newbies compared to most folks here, but we have sailed quite a bit in recent years, and on Celebrity more than with anyone else We have more days booked with them than anyone else. Nonetheless, I am becoming disillusioned, like many others.

Linda, it is so nice to see you. I was wondering about you, as I have not seen any posts by you in a while. Maybe I have just not been in the right threads. Anyway, I'm glad you're still around here. ------- We now return you to your regularly scheduled Jim and Iain aficionado thread.

Even with very few people onboard in September 2021 on both Millennium and Majestic Princess a week or so later, WiFi in Alaska was very iffy. I agree with @phoenix_dream. I don't think it's fair to blame X on this one. I'm glad to see @Cruiser_Steven acknowledge this. I'm not piling on, I'm just confirming. We've had similar issues that far north in our RV. Perhaps as the Starlink network expands, this will improve. So far, there just is not enough demand at those lattitudes to provide great connectivity...yet.

Our first back was Millennium out of Seattle to Alaska. 600 passengers. 900 crew. Utterly amazing! It was a couple of days shy of B2B with a Princess cruise on a similar itinerary (using up those credits). That one was one week too late. We had a perfect day in Glacier Bay, but only made it to one port, as the weather made darn sure we couldn't dock. 70 knot winds and 10 meter + swells. Princess threw OBC at us every time we lost a port, plus gave us a 35% FCC. The ship was not crowded, but the shops were, as everyone had OBC to spend and they were selling all the Alaska merch (originally purchased for the 2020 season) at 75% off. The whole family got Alaska jackets for Christmas. Hey... those might come in handy in the Arctic before we board an expedition ship and get those nifty parkas.

That dream is actually for the Arctic. Polar bears, not penguins. Two of my kids are teachers with overlapping school years, so they we only have a small window in northern summer during which both are available. The third is still in college, and still undecided on a career. Hopefully, he will be able to get away from whatever it ends up being for that grand adventure.