Toofarfromthesea

What cruise line? On some MSC itineraries that is the norm.

I've been looking into Azamara for the first time. I get that for a lot of people the showers are fine, but I'm a big guy and there's no way they would work for me. And it's a shame because every other aspect of Azamara seems outstanding. The only possibility for me would be getting access to the gym shower at a reasonable cost to shower every other, or every third day, and use disposable shower cloths in between. I've never used them before so I might buy a pack and try them at home. I'll have plenty of time to experiment since I am looking at late 2024, early 2025. Also, I don't do any strenuous activities so I don't get sweated up much. We'll have to see. But I do feel like there is kind of a conspiracy of silence about the showers. I watched about 10 YouTube videos on Azamara and only 2 even showed the showers, let alone noted them as a potential concern.

So I popped up onto the Azamara website, and there's a 12/9/24 Caribbean itinerary that looks intriguing. It's several hundred more than the Yacht Club itinerary I've been looking at but that is more than justified because it is 11 days vs. 7. But if I do take a cruise it would be part of my dipping my toe back in plan, which means I'd be taking the train to Miami. If I'm spending 2 days on a train each way maybe it makes sense to take a longer cruise. Just like back in the day if I flew to Europe I wanted to stay at least a couple of weeks. So thanks for the heads up. I'm off to start educating myself about Azamara since I've never really looked into them before. Cheers!

I've looked before, but I'll look again.

For me it's no different than any kind of VIP treatment that is paid for. For example, when my family visited the Sistine Chapel I paid extra and we, along with other people who had paid the extra, were allowed in an hour before the general public was admitted. And I have no problem sitting close to the stage at a show because I paid $250 per seat when someone who paid $30 is near the back in the balcony. And I also don't see the objection to the ship within a ship vs. everyone else and cruising on a Regents 7 Seas while other people cruise on Carnival. The purported class distinction is still there, it's just out of sight, because the Regents' passengers don't have to see the Carnival passengers. But there are certainly a lot of people who have the same view as you. For me it is only old class system when you are not allowed to have something because of who you are, who your parents were, and what you do, when you are able and willing to pay for it. I think Americans and Brits generally just look at the whole class thing differently. Possibly because of the UK's past of a very strong class system and the US's lack of same. In any case, if your reluctance about MSC is allowable jumping of the queue, it is not mandatory. It is your choice whether you ask a butler to escort you.

You might have a look at the MSC Yacht Club. Although MSC has large ships with lots of bells and whistles, the Yacht Club is an upscale experience in a ship within a ship. It has its own lounge, upscale restaurant, and pool deck with a grill. I've been looking at sailing solo for the first time and I haven't seen much in the way of breaks for solo cruisers. However their prices are way below those smaller luxury line ships. And while the food and service don't meet the standard of those luxury lines, they are head and shoulders better than anything in their price class. In addition to the private areas you get a drinks package, wifi package, priority embarcation, priority disembarkation, and priority everything in between. Plus you get butler service and your butler can escort you anywhere there are lines and take you to the front of the line, including excursion lines. You get the privacy and uncrowdedness of the Yacht club while still having the option of sampling the wider offerings of the ship. And the price is way more reasonable than you would guess. For example I was looking at a 7-day Caribbean cruise in October of 2024 and for an interior Yacht Club cabin, even with the 100% single supplement, it was around 3500. A balcony was about 5500. Not cheap, but not outlandish, compared to smaller luxury cruise lines and upscale ship within a ship offerings on other consumer lines. Good luck with your search and when you find what you think will fit you, have a great time. Cheers!

The first time I went on a cruise I mentioned that I was going to a friend of mine who was in the jewelry business for over 30 years. He told me not to buy any jewelry because any time a customer did so and brought it to him to be appraised it virtually never appraised to as much as the customer had paid. Take it for what it's worth.

You can bring it into the US on a plane, so I don't see why you couldn't bring it in on a cruise ship or if the cruise line matters. You might go over to the Celebrity forum and ask if the ship you'll be sailing on has a duty free shop and if they have olive oil from France or Spain. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/16-celebrity-cruises/

In general I think it is better to get reviews about "specialty" things from a more focused place. For example if I want info and reviews about smokers I am going to go to one or more smoking sites, not Consumer Reports. Trustpilot can be a very good website but less than ideal for cruise reviews.

And it was not just formal nights, dress code in the MDR in general has been a frequent bone of contention, leading to long acrimonious threads.

I was, and continue to be, amused when using a paper towel to protect yourself from the evil bathroom handle came into vogue.

I agree with this and I think I mentioned it in the OP. I want a sense of crowdedness and I want to see what the energy is like.

Thanks for mentioning your channel. I just watched your video on the Norway fjords since I had taken a similar cruise on MSC. I liked your video. You should make more.

In another thread the topic of the various people who create and post YouTube videos came up and I thought it deserved its own topic. So, if/when you go on YouTube to look at cruise videos, what are you looking for, what is important to you and what do you disregard? For me I'm looking to see how the ship looks. I like ship tour videos that show the public spaces, restaurants - main dining and specialty - other included or pay extra food venues, theaters and other entertainment spaces, etc. I don't really care about seeing the future cruises desk, the art gallery, or the shops. I also like fairly detailed reviews of the various cabin types on offer, if possible. Sometimes videos are shot when places are empty, and that is not nearly as helpful to me as seeing those spaces 'live' so I can see how crowded it gets and what the energy is. When it comes to food and dining I like to see what the various venues are like and I like to see what the food looks like. I also appreciate seeing the menu to get a sense of the variety and emphases of the food is. I don't really care much about the opinion of the 'influencer' about the food because tastes and opinion vary wildly. A real foody may rave about the nuance and sophistication of a dish while I might think it overcomplicated and excessively 'fancy'. I would sum up the general principle as being much more interested in the objective thing than the subjective opinion of the reviewer. On the ports, it really depends. My future cruises are likely to just be Caribbean cruises which I look at as floating all-inclusives, so the ports don't matter much to me as I'll probably stay on the ship. But on cruises to Alaska, the Med, or, say, the Baltic where I would be getting off the ship I would view what is shown in the video as simply the starting point for more intensive and extensive research, which may include looking for videos of particular cities and excursions. So, under the general principles of it not being a one-size-fits-all world, and de gustibus non est disputandum, what do YOU look for in YouTube Cruise videos?

My most expensive cruise was 7 days in the Western Mediterranean on MSC Divina in the Yacht Club. What made it so expensive was that we paid for 3 deluxe suites because we gifted their cruises to my 2 daughters and my son-in-law, and included 3 days, pre-cruise, in Rome. We also went pretty heavy on private tours both in Rome and the ports. It was absolutely worth the money because we had a fabulous time and created memories for a lifetime. And got to see the Sistine Chapel an hour before it was opened up to the general public and the inner underground working of the Colosseum. My daughter and sin-in-law, who are Catholic, even got to attend a public audience with the Pope. We then took a half day hired car from Rome to the port through the Italian countryside with a lovely stop for lunch. t the ports we did a private food tour in Valencia, a Segue tour in Cagliari, and a boat charter for a sunset cruise in Palma de Majorca. My other expensive cruise was my wife and I for 14 days on the American Queen steamboat from Minneapolis to New Orleans. It was our first river cruise and one of the things we really appreciated was the fleet of buses that traveled parallel to us and served as hop on hop off tour buses at each port. While generally the entertainment was a little limited, we found a couple of guys we really liked a met a bunch of Australians that we hung out with. Aussies know how to party and we were kind of adopted into their group and that made it special. It's a measure of the high cost of doing cruises in America that the cost of these two cruises were in the same ballpark, costwise.

Just because we can measure things in tinier quantities doesn't all of a sudden make them bigger risks.

One data point won't tell you much, and it was 6 or 7 years ago, but on my first cruise, which was on Celebrity in the Caribbean I recall a lot of 70s and 80s music, FWIW.

I'm hoping that traveling midweek in October will greatly lessen the kid issue. We'll see. I haven't seen that happening in the videos I've watch but that can be deceptive.

Thanks. I got a lot of my initial knowledge about Amtrak from YouTube videos on the Grounded Life Travel channel. It brought me up to speed on the basics very quickly.

Thanks for the heads up on Emma. I found and watched several of her videos and I really enjoyed them. She is so positive and upbeat and determined to have a good time, which is the kind of cruiser that I am. And she understands that if you are paying less your expectation should be less. As opposed to the Tips for Travelers guy who tries to blow up every little imperfection on a cruise to a major issue. I can see how he appeals to some people, but he is not my cup of tea. If I had a chance to sit down and talk, over a drink, with either of them, hands down it would be Emma. Now that you've proven to be such a discerning selector of cruise YouTube channels I'm off to find this fellow Doug from Cruise News. Is the name of his channel on YouTube Cruise Radio? Cheers!

But which cruise lines do that? I'm only personally familiar with a few CLs and none of them do that. And I don't recall any chatter on CC about CLs requiring use of a TA.

He could (and probably should) have done his rebooking with a different TA. And I agree that OP should name the CL.

I suspect it's because some actually are and it's not always obvious.

Oooops, meant to say Anglophile. Too late to edit original.

I think that when someone says it is 100% the TA's fault there is an implication, intended or not, that there is some liability there. I don't think anyone would disagree that it is a much better business practice to send out reminders but I, and apparently many others, think that a less than ideal business practice doesn't give rise to a violated obligation or implied liability.