runchadrun

My husband and I are looking at taking a Danube river cruise from Brand G Vacations next year for our 25th anniversary.  The ship is the Amadeus Imperial, which launches next month so obviously there are no reviews yet, though their Silver II has the same deck plan and there are very few reviews of it.  We've done many mainstream ocean cruises before but this would be our first river cruise.  Have any of you traveled with Brand G before?  Can you give any insight on what to expect?  We will be 50 and 51 by the time the cruise rolls around and we are definitely not party people.  We've avoided LGBT-only cruises so far because we aren't keen on the Atlantis lifestyle. 

Thanks!

2 hours ago, knutsonl said:

Are you all in the same cabin?  I was told that you had to be in the same cabin in order to share. 

For each device you have to register with the cabin number and date of birth of the person who paid for the package.  They won't have a way to know that you're actually located in a different cabin as long as you have the above info.

I can't send a DM.  Can you drop me an email at my username at gmail dot com?  I'll give you my contact info so we can all meet on board.

Cool!  I'll send you a DM.

If I order multiple cases for an 11-day cruise on the Regal, will they bring all of the cases at once or can I have individual cases brought when I need them?  It's my first time on Regal (indeed, any Princess ship) and I'm concerned about storage.

My husband and I along with two other couples will be on the Regal Princess departing Copenhagen on 7/15/19.  It's the first time on Princess for all of us (we usually sail on Royal Caribbean).  Looking forward to meeting other couples on board. 
 

Longtime RCCL cruiser, first time Princess cruiser here.

I'm putting together a cruise for 3 couples on the Regal for next July and we would like to have adjacent cabins, each booked separately. We were able to get 2 adjacent cabins through our favorite online travel agency, but the third cabin doesn't show up with them even though it shows up as available on princess.com. This seems to be the case with 3 different OTAs (I assume they all use the same backend reservation system). All 3 cabins are the same category (BE on deck 11).

I told my friend that he should just book that directly through Princess and then transfer it to the OTA to get the additional OBC, which is a significant amount for this cruise. I'd rather have him avoid that hassle, though.

I'm wondering if this is normal for Princess, that some cabins, either particular ones or a particular overall quantity, are available only through them?

We are planning a cruise on the Regal Princess out of Copenhagen for summer 2019. This will be our first time in that part of the world and first time on Princess. (We typically sail on Royal Caribbean but this itinerary looked better to us.) We have it narrowed down to three different dates: late June, mid July, and early August. Are there any suggestions as to the best month to go?

Our last big trip took us on a cruise in and out of Venice, with a week on land in Rome and Venice beforehand. We started planning that 15 months in advance and took advantage of that time to do everything possible to accumulate enough frequent flyer miles for roundtrip business class flights.

Bumping this up since we leave in about 3 months. We will be a group of 4 couples.

My husband and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary by spending a week in Italy and then taking the Vision from Venice to Greece and Croatia. (Our anniversary is actually in April but we are powerless to alter holiday and cruise line schedules.)

We will be accompanied on the cruise by two other couples. It would be great to meet other singles or couples on the cruise for evening drinks.

I just got off the Amsterdam yesterday and will be posting a review later this week. (Summary: Front Office staff needs serious customer service training but everyone else was great.) There was some kind of grease dripping at the entrance to the MDR near the podium on the left which I almost slipped on a couple times. I saw a few plumbing repairs going on in the hallways in the cabin areas. The also had contractors working on touching up the wood paneling in the elevator lobbies and stairwells. They repainted my mother's balcony floor and revarnished the railing while we were about to enter Tracy Arm, filling up her cabin with fumes on the one day we wanted to use the balcony.

I boarded the Amsterdam today and here is a picture of the Explorers Lounge.

My mother has a BC veranda guarantee but it hasn't been assigned yet.

An update: Today (May 27) she got her assignment for our May 31 sailing on the Amsterdam. She got bumped up from a BC to an A, coincidentally exactly 4 decks above my C (which began as an E guarantee).

On May 21 I booked an Alaska cruise on the Amsterdam for the May 31 departure. At some point this morning, May 25 (which is also a holiday), my cabin was assigned and my category E outside guarantee became a class C cabin on deck 2 right next to the central elevators. A 2-category bump isn't bad for a first-time HAL customer booking a last minute trip at half price!

My mother has a BC veranda guarantee but it hasn't been assigned yet.

How are you notified of your cabin assignment? An email? Or by logging in to your account? I booked my first-ever GTY cabin yesterday for a cruise that sails in 9 days and I'm not sure how the notification process works.

I just booked the Amsterdam to Alaska out of Seattle on May 31. Since it leaves in 10 days I got an excellent last-minute deal. This is my first time on HAL (I usually sail Royal and have also sailed NCL and Carnival) so I'm looking forward to something a bit more upscale and on a smaller ship.

I'm taking my mother for her 70th birthday, which is later this summer. She prefers Celebrity and I think she will like this. We've both sailed to Alaska but this will be our first time going to Sitka and Victoria.

Any suggestions that an almost-70-year-old can do while aboard to keep her busy? I can make my own fun but I want to make sure she has something to do. I was looking for copies of the daily newsletter and I couldn't find any.

So I just booked a last-minute cruise for my mother's 70th birthday on the Amsterdam in and out of Seattle on May 31. She's sailing solo (her husband is too ill to travel) and so will I (my husband can't get the time off), each in our own staterooms to protect my sanity! We got a GREAT last-minute guarantee rate. This will be my (and her) first time on Holland America. The hubby and I usually sail on Royal Caribbean and she usually sails on Celebrity.

Anyway, if there is any other family on board it would be great to meet you.

Thanks for all the feedback. For a variety of reasons I won't be able to join her. I've looked at the HAL itineraries and they include Sitka and Victoria, which I know she hasn't been to so those might interest her.

I'll also talk to her about sailing on the Infinity out of Vancouver instead of the Solstice out of Seattle. I sailed the Inside Passage on RCL's Rhapsody 2 years ago and loved being able to watch the scenery go by.

I'll suggest HAL to her. It might be more up her demographic alley, though she's quite fond of Celebrity.

My mother, who is turning 70 this summer, wants to take an Alaska cruise but is unable to find friends or family who can go with her. Her husband is in long-term care and is unable to travel.

She has sailed several times before, including to Alaska, and Celebrity is her line of choice. She is looking at the August 21 sailing out of Seattle on the Solstice but she isn't sure if she wants to do it as a solo traveler. I haven't sailed on Celebrity so I don't know what, if any, activities and programs might be available for solo seniors, or seniors in general. She doesn't have an easy time making new friends outside her age cohort so it would really help if she was mingling with people her own age.

Can someone shed some light on whether she might have enough things to do?

The Star Bar staff told me last week that during dry dock they are switching places with Moderno. That makes a lot of sense, consolidating Moderno and Cagney's on deck 13 and moving a bar into the Atrium, where there isn't one currently.

We are also frequent RCI cruisers going on our first NCL cruise on the Star in 2 weeks. Any major good or bad differences you can share? We figured going in that it would be difficult to match the Windjammer.

One of the main differences is the physical layout of the Windjammer, which is one big room, as opposed to the Market Cafe on the Star, where it's broken up into 2 sides with virtually the same food on either side.

Each section of the Market Cafe has one queue, as opposed to the Windjammer where each little station has a queue. The omlette/pasta stations are in the middle of the queues so they get stuck when someone is waiting.

We found that the Windjammer had a much better variety and quality of food. (Of course this is subjective.) For example, every day for breakfast the Market Cafe had the same potatoes while the Windjammer would have different kinds of potatoes each day. That's just one example. When we would get desserts in the Windjammer, we would come back with a plate of 3 or 4 different things and snarf them all down. I couldn't finish any of the Market Cafe desserts--they were spongy and the "chocolate" items seemed to have no chocolate at all in them.

We just got back from 7 days on the Star this morning. We are usually Royal Caribbean passengers and this was our first time on NCL. I have to agree that the buffet on Star is terrible. The selection varied little from day to day and the quality was poor. There was an emphasis on Indian food and most of that I couldn't identify. I don't think I had a single edible dessert. One morning one of the sides was out of coffee and I complained to the manager but he was indifferent. I understand that there are physical limitations that affect the layout but that doesn't mean that the food has to be so bad.

Do a search on google play for "NCL iconcierge" and it should show up. Will not be able to do anything with it until you are on a ship that has it active. Still trying to find out if Star is one of them. I have searched CC and one list shows the Star and a couple others do not. Hoping the OP can tell is.

I just got off of the Star this morning and can confirm that iconcierge is NOT available on the Star. It's going into drydock in March so hopefully it will get some technological upgrades then.

Just look for the drunk sextet on deck 10. :-)