catgirl411

The more I read Live Reports, the more I realize that everyone looks for something different from their cruise experience. Some people want to lie in the sun and drink, some want to party all night, some want to gamble, some want to go on excursions, some love trivia and game shows, some love music and production shows, some love good food…etc, etc. you just have find what fits for you. And that probably has little to do with the relative age of the crowd.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again…every one of the 25+ cruises I’ve been on has had something wonderful about it. Most times the wonderful far outweighs the not as good. We’ve cruised NCL, Royal Caribbean, Windstar, HAL but in recent years have settled on X, Princess and Oceania. The passenger component really seems to depend on the length of the cruise, the itinerary and the port of embarkation in my experience. Our next three cruises are a TA, South America and Portuguese/Canaries all on X. Really looking forward to them. And we are young at hearts in our late 60s, early 70s.

I’m on a CC roll call where a regular poster uses a lilac fancy handwriting font. Talk about hard to read! So far no one (me included) has had the heart to ask them to change it.

OMG, this electric kettle discussion is so funny. As a Canadian, I had no idea that Americans don’t use them. The only time we boil water in a pot on a stove is to cook something in water, like pasta or veggies. We use the kettle for everything else. It is faster but it also has a spout which makes it easy to pour.

Thanks for your wonderful reports. I will miss reading almost daily about your exploits. I suspect it will take you a while to get used to life on land again!

Just curious, is the daily drink count for the two of you or just you?

Sounds wonderful! We are booked on Reflection for a 14 day TA in Oct/Nov so it wouldn’t have worked for us anyways and there’s no way our 4 cats and our budget would have handled 52 days away or even 2 legs but what a trip! Enjoy!

Thanks for all of your wonderful upbeat reports. I’m intrigued by the “famous Edge sailing” from Rome to Sydney. I can’t find it on the website. When is it?

Really enjoyed your posts. Thanks for reporting on your whole B2B. What is next for you and Mr?

I saw a video where the guy suggested you do a second smaller bundle on top of the other one for the overnight stuff.

I think it is worth it to them. Not a lot different between buying a Ford or a BMW. It’s all about choices and perceived value. If cheaper was the only criteria for selecting something, wouldn’t we all select something other than Celebrity….say Carnival or MSC? Or would we be spending our dollars on cruising at all?

And I am actually much happier with smaller, well prepared and presented portions and for me Oceania meets that criteria (I haven’t been on VV)

It really is a matter of personal preference. One of the things we like about O is that it seems less likely to attract large groups. There are more couples which is nice if you are also travelling as a couple. It seems easier to meet people for casual chat. People travelling in large groups (often families) create their own mini-cruise which is great for them but not for others. The last Princess cruise we were on had a multi-generational family of 26, celebrating an anniversary. Lovely people but when they arrived en mass to Crooners each night it was difficult for others to enjoy the music. It became their party and the rest of us were crashing it.

Agree…in Dec we had some real clunkers in the MDr on Princess(inedible short rib for eg). The buffet was quite repetitive as well.

And there’s the rub…it is more expensive for sure. That’s why we do more Celebrity than Oceania.but the better comparator is probably Aqua Class or even the Retreat..

Better quality ingredients, better preparation, better selection, perhaps more adventurous in some ways (Red Ginger is amazing). MDRs in Princess and Celebrity sometimes feel like wedding or convention dinners. O dining is more like restaurant dining. But of course dining is an individual preference. We don’t view prime rib and lobster tails as our measure of good food but lots of people do.

Pretty much all the food everywhere on Riviera is great. As a general standard, way better than Princess or Celebrity.

My biggest beef with the onboard spas is the constant up selling. Their services are very nice generally but they always want to sell you products. My local spa at home doesn’t do that and it makes for a more relaxed experience.

It’s not foolproof but we always keep our valuables in the room safe. Then you know where everything is supposed to be.

We’ve been on over 25 cruises in the last 30 yrs on a variety of cruises lines (Oceania, Celebrity, Princess, HAL Royal, NCL, Windstar and a Scenic river cruise). Everyone of them has been enjoyable in its own way. Over the 30 years our tastes and budgets have changed. We started with an inside cabin on the old Norway. It was amazing because it was our first ever cruise and we fell in love with cruising. Now we always get at least a balcony and have sometimes been lucky enough to get a suite (thanks Covid FCCs!). Yes, there have been some other cruisers that were annoying but more often there have been nice interesting people from all over. It is pretty easy to avoid those who don’t appeal to you and do your own thing. Our current preferences and budget have us settling on Oceania, Celebrity and Princess. They fit us right now. I’m 66 and DH is 71. We like good food, good entertainment and interesting itineraries but also love days at sea. Cruising,like any kind of travel is a personal choice.

Actually we did it in December 2022…2020 was a typo. Did you really see lots of kids? We didn’t…there was a large extended family of 26 that had a lot of teens and college age kids but other than the fact that they seemed to dominate Crooners some nights, they were okay. Mind you we don’t spend much time on the pool deck and tend to eat later so maybe we just didn’t cross paths with them.

And we are happy to share if people are interested!

As Canadians, we try to stay well away from any topics that appear to lead to the minefield of US politics. The conversations with fellow passengers are always more interesting (and safer) when we talk about past cruise experiences (unless you encounter one of the chronically unhappy cruisers).

I hear you! Btw it was actually December 2022 so a recent experience.