CruiserFromMaine

We’re all different types of travelers. I’d prefer an app to always have that info handy. I carry my phone for picture taking primarily but also maps on land, and the marine tracker app if I want to look up a fancy yacht or check the weather. My wife carries her phone since she has an aging father and she wants to be reachable. We’d both prefer an app to the paper, but Regent could have paper be the default with an opt out, or vice versa with an opt in for paper.

I think the very pronounced loyalty to OC was possible since there were only two ships, that weren’t all that different. There were no Whisper or Dawn type of questions to be had. And much easier to get to know the crew since they were on only two ships (OK, three with the Endeavor). On other lines, the crew you see on Whisper you might never see on the Dawn. I’m very interested to see how Crystal incorporates several new ships into their portfolio.

Glad you’re back home! That’s a terrible saga, but I hope it ends up being a good story after the pain wears off! And good to ask Delta first, your insurance might want to see your request denied from them first.

Ugh, sorry Lois! Hope you make it home soon!

They told me it was random, for whatever that is worth. We just flew back from Turkey, and got there via a flight from Romania, and didn’t get the 4S. Keeps us on our toes, I guess. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

On round trip tickets, too. I had it happen to me in Vienna on a flight back home. According to the security staff there, TSA wanted Austrian security to do a check on me. If you can’t check in on-line, that could signal a problem. Go to the airport extra early.

Hi @Lois R! Somehow I missed this whole thread till just now! Glad you had a good cruise! We’ll be on the Dawn in Norway next June.

We’ve been on the Silver Whisper, Spirit and Muse and prefer the larger ships over the Whisper. We haven’t been on the newer SSea ships but have a cruise booked on the Dawn next June. We had one cruise on Crystal in January of 2020. We really liked it and booked an open booking on board, which fortunately was refunded. Our Crystal cruise was the first leg of the world cruise, so the enrichment may have been better than usual but it was excellent. Entertainment was too. Food was a tie with SSea. Service better on SSea (lots of tipping going on the get good seats in Waterside, but that’s not the only reason) and rooms much better on SSea. All in my opinion, of course.

I echo many of the sentiments above. We’ve been on Regent (once), Oceania (once) and Celebrity (eight or so). Celebrity pricing for Aqua class and suites is very high. Celebrity has good cruises, with lots of live music and very good entertainment. But if you want upscale, really take a look at Regent. Oceania has great food too, but on their older ships, many of the cabins are small with hard-to-explain-how-small bathrooms. Entertainment is better on Regent than Oceania but better yet on Celebrity. Think hard about what you want and what’s important to you then take a cruise!

Most of the River cruise lines have a hardware, rather than app, solution for hearing tour guides and it works very well. We’ve had apps on other lines and I find it much carrying the Daily Bugle or whatever the daily program is called. So I take a picture of it and use that as a self-made app. I also get pictures of the all-aboard time and port agent address and phone number.

@lprp @PortolanI’m following along—we’ll be on the Splendor around Iceland next summer. Thanks for posting!

@A Tucson Guy thanks for your reporting on this cruise! I’m particularly glad you got to try the “new” La Dame and I’m glad you enjoyed it.

@boblerm following along, thanks for your thread! We’re doing a similar itinerary next summer, also on on Splendor. Interestingly, when we on Splendor for a B2B in January, there was an in-person muster for each segment, although we got to skip the second one.

@WNcruiser Another late comer here, but thanks for your great posts!

We live on Portland Harbor, in South Portland, and I got a nice photo of the Zaandam this morning. You’ve got a nice summer day to visit!

I will also add that on our (two) Regent cruises, the early-cruise wine tasting of the included wines was not listed in the chronological list of daily events but as a special off in the margin. We missed it the first cruise. But still lived, obviously…

@gnome12 I think we’re on the same cruise, sailing June 15th. In Flåm, we are booked now on the Flåm Railway tour, your option 1. But thinking about switching to your option 3. We like trains, so that’s our bias. We booked your option 1 in Geiranger. Certainly interested in others’ thoughts on Flåm.

I noticed that too, same cruise. I’m not too worried yet, I suspect they’ll change again. It’s almost a year away.

And therein lies one of the problems with Silversea’s approach. I can in fact book 5 nights in La Dame and block someone else out from booking, then cancel four or even all five reservations once on board at no penalty to me, but others have been shut out and then need to scramble to find an opening after embarking. I much prefer the system Regent uses where you get one reservation at each specialty restaurant per cruise prior to boarding and then you can perhaps get others while on board; it reduces or even eliminates this game.

I just saw this from Barbara Muckerman, on another social media site. It will alleviate some concerns raised here. “I also need to add that all reservations made with historical pricing on Nova will be honored of course, the change is only for new reservations”

After reading the posts here and elsewhere on social media, I agree the Nova rollout was handled poorly (or suboptimally). In fact, if SS is really giving La Dame and Kaiseki a makeover, they should have rolled them out a new restaurants. I think that is better than the confusion over Nova La Dame vs. Dawn La Dame. Maybe called it La Champagne? (Too soon?) Certainly other lines are not universal in their restaurant offerings across their fleets. I think this whole discussion would have been different but then of course there would be self-appointed prognosticators who would claim Nova La Dame was just the camel’s nose in the tent and soon to be rolled out fleet-wide. It’s expensive and needs to be better than what we’re used to in La Dame at that price point but I’m waiting to learn what it’s really like.

The price of La Dame is high on the newer ships, but I recall a wine lunch on Regent that was in the $160pp range and the champagne lunch was even more, over $200pp. La Dame has always been optional and if they spiff up the offerings maybe it’ll be enough of a special event to justify the cost; hard to tell from the email how much spiffing there will be. If it’s just the same La Dame with a much higher price, it’s not worth it especially considering I’m giving up a meal in Atlantide, La Terazza, pool grill or Silver Note. I’ll miss La Dame, though.I’m not going to assume right now, though, that all ships will raise the price and make no changes to La Dame. Kaiseki is less important to me but I’ll miss it a little if it’s the same thing just more expensive.

I won’t be booking La Dame or Kaiseki at those prices. I’ll wait for the free offer when nobody reserves either one. I’ve said before that I wish SS would go to a reservation system like Regent where you get one specialty reservation per restaurant per cruise, or maybe more on a longer cruise. It would remove the phenomenon of people reserving every night then canceling all but one and blocking out others who really want to go.

I don’t recall that they sold food or drinks. I also don’t recall whether there is a toilet but I bet there is. You can call them to find out for sure. https://www.cascobaylines.com

You can just walk up. I don’t think they take reservations.