Jridou

Which category? We’ve done Cat 4 & 5 and the staterooms are TEENY with closets to match.

Magens Bay is in St Thomas. You may have better luck on that forum.

we cruised with star clipper 4 years ago and enjoyed the cruise except for the evenings. most of the activity was out at the bar area but our cruise consisted of more smokers than non-smokers. consequently, you were forced to breathe in smoke all evening. is this the norm or did we just happen to have a heavy smoker ratio week. your input would be appreciated. if this hasn't changed, we will probably opt for windstar instead.

 

steve

We've done 2 European itineraries and both were filled with smokers. If that's a serious issue for you, I would suggest picking a non-smoking line rather than leaving it to chance.

Drinks were very reasonably priced: I want to say that a bottle of the house wine was about $24 last summer.

My kids, who have never gotten sick on a cruise ship, all got seasick one night on our Royal Clipper. It was crazy choppy; the nurse (who was also the beverage server at dinner) was handing out some kind of dramamine to everyone.

It was only a few hours out of our 10 day cruise, and it certainly didn't change their minds that it was the best vacation we ever took ~ so much that we're doing another one next summer. HTH.

No it was, but when I had no takers, I pre-paid for a smaller transport for 5. See you next week on board!

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I booked one already for 5, let me see if it's changeable. Amy

Boy this board is slow ;-) Anyone on this sailing? We're a family of 5, kids are excellent travelers and unanimously picked this sailing over Carnival, Princess and MSC ships with similar itineraries.

We'll be doing 3 days in Venice pre-sail (in an apartment in Carnaggio) and 3 days post sail in Rome near the Vatican. We're hoping to do some independent touring and adventures in port -with the exception of Pompeii, that looks like enough of a hassle to just do the ship's excursion.

Also I'm booking a private transfer from Civitavecchia (by the time we pay for 5 train tickets, we may as well) and once you pay for 5, you can fit 8, so if there's a couple of a family of 3 who'd like to split that with us (your share would be around 45 Euros) let me know!

Lol, I *WISH* my kids slept til 7! We went on a cruise when my daughter was 2 when she got up every morning at 4 am! The only thing open was the front desk, and we'd visit with the women who worked the night shift.

We'd basically kill 3 hours looking at art, wandering thru the closed casino and then hitting the lido deck for breakfast at 6.

Anyway, that was probably totally unhelpful but it did bring back some funny memories. Now my daughter is 13 and I take great joy when I wake her up at 10!

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Here's my blogo of the star flyer trip & a small taster for you.

 

 

http://hasbeen.travellerspoint.com/227/

 

 

http://hasbeen.travellerspoint.com/228/

Your photography is gorgeous ! Thanks for sharing it!

I have the Explorer card, and even if you do check-in online and say that you're checking baggage, United has it in its records that you're an Explorer card holder and are entitled to one free checked bag (under 50 lbs.) You shouldn't get charged.

In my experience you only get this bag credit if you PAID for that ticket with the Explorer card. Just having the card doesn't do anything. Even using the card we had some issues at a smaller airport (Durango, CO) and had to pay at the counter, but then United credited us back the $25 plus 5000 miles for the inconvenience.

We're booked on the August 13th Venice-Rome so I hope you'll come back after your cruise & tell us all about it!

How was it? We're doing the Royal Clipper in August and I'm eager for a review!

 

By the way, my MIL thinks that the Captain stands at the MDR entrance every night just to greet our family and sometimes he comes to our table to say hello. She even calls him "Captain" whenever she sees him.

 

:D

OMG. This.

This one had my scratching my head, it's too bad there's no way to respond to a review:

"Deck 2 is comprised of the Manhattan Restaurant which costs additional $$ - The menu consists of the exact same food you find on the Lido deck – There may be a couple items added to the menu but 90% of what you see is on the menu for an additional cost is what you can get for free at the anytime dining. There were countless occasions where we seen other passengers Dressed for a romantic night dinner in the Lido Restaurant and countless times we heard “Why pay extra when we can get the same thing free”. This deck is also home to 3 lounges – the casino and the Pinnacle Restaurant which again is dining for an additional fee, with the same food offered on the Lido Deck. Don’t waste your money "

Did this person actually go to the dining room and think it cost extra? Did someone tell them that so they ate in the Lido 3 meals a day, all week thinking that was their only option with anytime dining? What a colossal misunderstanding!

I guess you'll need to do both ;)

Why don't you fly into Florence 2 days early and relax there & get over your jet lag and then take the train to Venice for your cruise. Then you can enjoy a post-cruise stay in Venice.

You do not get to make the reservation, they assign it to you. Whether the time or date they assign can be changed has yet to be determined since it just started.

When we went into our stateroom we found a card that informed us that we had been assigned the first night at 9:30 PM, however we already had reservations for the Pinnacle for that night. We were able to change the Explore4, but our choices were pretty limited, only a few nights left, after 9PM, even for a party of 2.

Honestly we weren't overly impressed by the Pinnacle anyway. Service was very mediocre, and they didn't have a bunch of things from the new menu yet (the brussel sprouts or the fries with truffle aioli) The table next to us received the truffles at the end of the meal ~ with a bite taken out of each one!

IAD-IST-TLV and then reverse for the return. Overall a very good flight, several excellent meals, snacks, liquor, excellent IFE. My only complaint was it was very difficult to book seats. We had to call several times; 30 days out for the IAD-IST legs and 7 days out for the IST-TLV legs, and even then, they ended up changing aircrafts and we got totally different seats.

We did the Coral Princess a few years back, from Vancouver to Anchorage. My kids were 3, 7 and 10 and I also brought my 80 year old Mother in law. We had a fantastic time, honestly it's so port intensive we barely used the kids club but my kids did enjoy it the few times they went. We got 2 mini suites next door to each other, my MIL shared one with my 2 oldest and there was plenty of room for 3 in each cabin.

I thought Princess was very family friendly & the itinerary was fantastic.

HTH.