new_cruiser

That's another case of Royal Caribbean only showing the guarantee fares for double occupancy bookings as I mentioned above. If you go a step further by clicking "Select", it takes you directly to inputting your booking info saying you have selected a guarantee fare. There aren't currently any specific interior cabins left, but some might become available (e.g. cabin changes with Royal Up). Therefore, they are willing to sell a guarantee. If no one moves cabins, that might end up in a currently available higher category cabin.

Munich (and Europe in general, at least Schengen countries) doesn't require collecting checked luggage to go through customs. The US is the only place I've had to do that. 50 minutes is still very tight. Munich is a lot better than Frankfurt but still. IIRC, MUC has some "remote gates." You deboard the plane down stairs to a bus that takes you to the terminal. That really slows things down. It's very common for the big ocean crossing planes to use these gates. On our recent flights from the US to Italy through Frankfurt, both flights at Frankfurt used remote gates.

It may have been a sale rate that wasn't programmed into the solo fare (either intentionally or by mistake) or something like the guarantee fare coming and going. On the cruise I mentioned, the guarantee rate would come and go every few days and at varying prices.

When taking a cruise with family on Royal Caribbean, I saw pricing like that. When I selected 1 passenger, the guaranteed room rate didn't appear - only the higher price for selecting your room. My guess is that with the very low fare, they are hoping for additional revenue from add ons like excursions, drinks and specialty dining for two people. For that trip, it turned out not to matter because someone else decided to come along so I ended up with two in my cabin. The extra cost for a solo that I was seeing was significant but not as large as what you are seeing. $750 pp double occupancy going to $3k single occupancy is a 300% solo supplement. For the cruise I was looking at, it was more like 150% (and not quite equivalent because the lower rate was for a guarantee but as it was past final payment, there wasn't much room choice available anyway). I usually sail on Windstar and their normal solo supplement is 75%.

An officer on our recent Wind Surf cruise mentioned that the passenger capacity of Wind Surf is about the same as the capacity of a tender on the 6000-passenger ship he previously worked in.

You can also look for cruises with a reduced solo supplement or no solo supplement (i.e. a solo passenger in a room pays the same fare as per person double occupancy). A lot of cruise lines offer that for some cruises.

I used this earlier this year. If you live close to a US Passport Agency office or are willing to travel to one, it works fine. Note that "within 14 days" includes the day you call for the appointment. I called one day too early and had to call again the next day. The only extra cost is the $65 expedite fee (+ whatever personal cost there is in getting to the passport office). My appointment was in the morning and they said I could come back in the afternoon to pick-up the passport because I live more than 100 miles from the office. If you live closer, you may have to come back the next day to pick-up.

Our experience this morning. Sunday morning for a flight to the US at 10:30 AM. 7:15 Left our Rome hotel 7:45 get to the airport zipping along with no traffic. 8:15 arrive at duty free (after dropping off bags, security and passport control). 8:30 in lounge (my husband isn't a fast walker) Only line was at the United counter to drop bags. Using the kiosk and bag drop might have been slightly faster. Other than that, we were practically continually moving. It almost couldn't have been any faster for us. Walked past a large empty rat race before security so it isn't always that easy. Glad I didn't spend money on Fast Pass. It wouldn't have been any faster this morning Caveat: US passports use the electronic passport control gates along with EU and some others. There was a significant line for the non-electronc passport control desks - no guess on the speed of that line.

I still see the Winter Med cruises. They are all the same itinerary or it's reverse: Citivecchia (Rome), Livorno, Nice, Marseilles, Barcelona with overnights in Rome, Nice and Barcelona. Some prices are pretty low: starting at $1400 pp, but with 17 sailings of the same itinerary, it is hard to see how they will get enough customers who want to do that cruise in winter.

Rome Cabs didn't have availability on our arrival date so they recommended Rome Chauffeur which has more cars. http://www.rome-chauffeur.com/ We were very pleased with the service. Our driver was prompt and courteous.

FRA gets my vote for airport I'd most like to avoid. Sometimes your gates are so far apart. And then they use remote gates so often - you get through the gate. Go down stairs with your carry-ons, board a bus that drives forever to get you to your plane and then up the boarding stairs. This trip, we had the joy of remote gates for both arrival and departure. It's well run and facilities inside the airport are good but it is a pain to get through.

Is there any point to fast pass if you are flying business class? Will that get you into a faster line anyway? We will be on United.

There has been lots of variety in the plant-based items offered, but I haven't seen any of the junk food items you mentioned so far. There is a vegetarian burger, but not a vegan one.

I sometimes have to make things that are dairy free. I can make a reasonable cream cheese substitute from cashews and I've used dairy substitute products from companies such as Mykonos and Kite that have simple normal ingredients so it doesn't have to be over processed to be vegan. I fear that Windstar may be trying to cover too many dietary limitations at once with it's plant based items. The description of the indicator on the Amphora menu says they are also free of gluten, sugar and oils. The additional exclusions probably don't affect items such as chili and tofu scramble much. They normally wouldn't have gluten or sugar. (Sorry, I can't taste those to check the quality - They contain an ingedient that I have an allergy to.) It's desserts where the extra limitations are likely to change the nature of the product too much. I tried one of the plant based chocolate cookies. I wasn't a fan of the texture. It wasn't terrible but oddly gummy.

We were nearly full on Star Breeze for New Zealand and Australia. Weather was cool to cold for much of our trip. Yacht Club could have used expansion - it gets crowded on cold weather scenic cruising days. Sometimes I would go to Compass Rose instead which has lots of window too, but not as easy to pop outside for pictures. The rest of the ship felt fine.

I'm on board Wind Surf now - cruise started yesterday. I noticed that Amphora menu last night had both a "plant-based" item and a vegetarian item. There was also a plant-based dessert. There were plant-based items on the lunch buffet yesterday (I remember there being a chili and cookies) and on the breakfast buffet this morning (including a tofu scramble and plant-based muffin). Sorry, I don't know what classic vegan comfort foods would be so can't speak to that.

The restaurant entry is aft of Amphora while the cabins are forward of Amphora so people won't be gathering near the cabins for that. There isn't a closed door, but enough space that restaurant noise shouldn't affect the cabins. Possibly guests waiting to tender might occasionally be by the cabins. The excursion groups meet in the lounge (aft) and go from there to the tender so don't go by the cabins. There is some space by the tender doors so a guests spilling into the hall by the cabins usually only happens when there are a lot waiting for the first tenders at a port.

We were there in October 2021. I guess we got lucky as only Star Legend and one other ship - not a large one - were in port so it wasn't crowded at all.

I'm so jealous! We were supposed to go through last year but the canal closed for many months, so our itinerary had to change. We still had a lovely cruise.

We've gotten pre cruise "upgrades" spontaneously from Windstar twice since COVID. Both times we asked them to undo it because it was from an original suite to a Star and we prefer the original living area by the window layout.

We are in Italy now. It's lovely and feels very safe.

A lot of it comes down to numbers. The probability that one passenger of 2000 or more on a mainstream line ship interested in live posting or writing a review is a lot higher than passenger on a 140 to 300 passenger ship. At full capacity, all 6 Windstar ships combined carry about 1500 passengers. That's less than the capacity of one ship for most mainstream lines. I don't think we are individually on average less communicative. There are just a lot fewer of us.

I know from attending the cocktail making demonstrations on board that the normal pour for the main spirit in a cocktail is normally 1.5 ounce. I haven't asked about straight spirit pours.

They usually have a captains welcome reception on the evening of the first full day - i.e. the day after boarding. Usually wine is served without charge at that. After your first Windstar cruise you will be Yacht Club members and there is a Yacht Club cocktail party. They have wine passed at that, but will also serve you a cocktail without charge if you ask for one. Most alcoholic drinks are between $9 and $14, beer and the cocktail of the day are less than that. The beverage package is $65/day. So breakeven is over 5 drinks a day - how much over depends on your preferred drinks. We are way under that so don't get the package.

4.0 is very minor for an earthquake and there have been o reports of damage or injury. There could be a risk that the earthquake swarm is a precursor to volcanic activity. The article I read said there isn't any sign in magma rising so its probably okay.