Fletcher

Back-to-Back cruises on Aranui 5 to the Marquesas and the Australs. March 2024, if we survive. Next cruise, though, is to Oman, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the Silver Cloud.

The short answer is neither. Both ships you are considering carry c2000pax and that is way too big for these islands. Look for a ship with less than 500pax and that way you will have a far more enjoyable and immersive experience. I've made three trips around PNG, Solomons, Vanuatu etc and always on small ships with about 100pax and equipped for zodiac landings. (btw, hardly anyone on this Forum knows about Melanesia. Tahiti is the main topic here.)

Venture is currently closing in on the Falklands.

Port Stanley can be iffy for bigger ships which would include Quest but possibly not Venture. Also, Venture is scheduled to visit several outer islands which should be perfectly OK and are much more interesting than Stanley.

Well, all change on this trip. Just had an email advising that Saudi has vetoed several intended landings so the Cloud will now spend five days in Jeddah and not go to all the interesting ports north. Count me out.

Is there a technical problem with the Venture? Citing broken stablisers, people on Facebook report the ship has turned back to Ushuaia and won't be going to South Georgia for the Holiday voyage. The ship appears to be at anchor in the bay at Ushuaia.

She replied to me personally on Facebook a few weeks ago which I thought was impressive.

India has now dropped its policy towards UK citizens who may now apply for the e-visa. Canadians remain unchanged.

The Falklands often get visited by very large cruise ships which anchor in the outer bay and send tenders ashore, weather permitting. So it's well worth checking Cruise Timetables to see if you will be alone or not. On our ship, Island Sky, we went alongside and just walked off the ship. Not sure, but the Cloud might be too big to do that.

My Falklands photos are here -wish I could get back there one day. https://www.flickr.com/photos/up70mm/albums/72157629953566910

You're obviously on one of SS's expedition ships. That will take you to outer islands in the Falklands - New Island and Saunders, for instance, where the penguin colonies are spectacular. They have rockhoppers there which are rare on South Georgia. If you sit down albatrosses literally walk over you. And from the clifftops you can see the penguins do amazing dives and landings. It's different from South Georgia but just as spectacular. If you go to these islands there is no need in my view to stray beyond Port Stanley which provides an extremely pleasant wander around. British people often like to tour the battle sites like Bluff Cove.

We too you. We have just noted that we get on board in Muscat on the penultimate day of Ramadan and that our first week in Oman will be during the Festival of Eid. Hope this might be interesting rather than inconvenient. I'm relieved we won't be in Saudi at that time.

I read your post on Facebook and noted you are in Bali. My wife suggests - as a last resort - you contact the Australian consulate in Bali and hope they may help, if only to offer you access to a computer. You may not be able to board the ship in Dubai without an Indian visa but it's theoretically possible for you to apply for the visa using the computers on board the ship. At least Australians qualify for the eVisa. Britons and Canadians do not and that makes it even more complicated. Personally I refuse to have anything to do with India right now

Hello Clarky. I used the link provided by Wes above and got this reply - "My sincere apologies for the delay in getting our shore excursion programs online for this incredible voyage. Rest assured we are working diligently with our operators to get tours online as quickly as possible. The visit to Lac Assal and Al Ula will be available to book as soon as we have the final details from our operator. Again, my apologies for this delay we anticipate having online in the next few weeks and will communicate respectively." I took this to mean that everyone is waitlisted for now and in a few weeks the bookings will be confirmed once they have sorted out the land arrangements. This really is new territory for cruises. I think also they wanted to know the likely numbers of sacrificial lambs. Al Ula has quite large hotel capacity and this will be in low season (ie, hot). I'll be tackling them over visas sometime early next year.

All sorted, mainly thanks to @WesW for the link. Situation clarified instantly and we are aboard for the Saudi expedition. I think this is a one-off itinerary and we are very excited about it.

This is one reason I tend to go with Seabourn's flight programme on this sort of cruise. To somewhere easy like the Med I probably wouldn't but the uncertainty of this cruise makes going with Seabourn air a no-brainer.

I called Seabourn the other day. They said Barbados-Manaus will (currently) be the Pursuit's inaugural voyage which is interesting considering cruise lines usually choose less challenging itineraries to begin with. However, I really fancy this cruise as it visits the three Guianas. Or does it? If you look on the website the map shows all those ports of calls but the printed itinerary doesn't. Guyana and Surinam are missing. Seabourn says this is because those two countries currently have a ban in force on cruise ships. I seem to remember some months back I got a lavish brochure for the Pursuit and Venture which listed all sorts of mouth-watering trips across Micronesia and Polynesia but these appear now to have been dropped. I think this is a fluid situation.

Our neighbour's dog is called Fudge.

Good heavens, I wonder where that was . . .

Many thanks for that Wes. We have also been eyeing up your CapeTown-Mahe trip. Since independence from France many years back, The Comoros are very rarely visited by cruise ships, apart from Ponant I think. Aldabra is a special place which we visited on our very first oceanic cruise, on a small ship called Island Sky. It changed our lives forever. In fact, if Silversea linked your cruise directly to ours to Saudi I might well have gone for it. But the Cloud sails empty from Mahe to Muscat. Thanks for the link to the Silversea exec. My cruise consultant is working on it but if she comes up empty I'll go for the nuclear option.

This will not happen in Saudi Arabia!!!

Surely not everyone books their cruise a year or so in advance. We very rarely do that. But current experience shows that Silversea want you to do just that. Otherwise you might book a cruise, pay a deposit, go on to MySilversea and then find that all the excursions you fancy are already sold out. So you cancel your cruise. This is nuts. Surely Silversea can find a way so that you can assess the situation before you make a booking.

Thanks for the replies. It's an overnighter in Al Ula in Saudi Arabia. There are others on the trip I really want to see but this one seems very special.

I am intending to book a Silver Cloud expedition cruise mainly for one reason - to visit a specific site on an excursion. It is remote and otherwise difficult to get to. That excursion is showing as Waitlist on MySilversea. What exactly does this mean? Has the excursion sold out four months in advance and that I can only add my name to the Waitlist and hope someone drops out? My personal cruise consultant says not to worry but I do worry about spending lots of money and missing the one thing I really want to see. Any comments and help will be gratefully received.

@hoya68 Sad to hear this. South Georgia coming up tomorrow . . . terrible if you are confined to barracks. Great scenery though from the ship.