janecambridge

Yes we have seen a reduction in choices the last few days. e.g. A lot of tinned fruit. Instead of berries. Less cheese choice. etc. garnishes on meals are poor. Frozen bananas??

We all wonder that. The air con in many places is poor..

No LHT28, culinary classes are paid for (unless you have a large obc) and artist loft is free. But yes, I believe it should be limited.

Well we wondered if this would impact any other ships? Today scheduled 09.00hrs and ETA is 10.00hrs. Not bad!! It is a blow at times for private tour users. Especially when two days running we tendered instead of docking! The first day was over 2 hours late plus the extra of tendering. Mutiny on the ship. But seriously it leaves such little time for the crew to exit the ship and relax or do necessary shopping .

On. Marina now and we just completed our first culinary class onboard ever. A great experience. Sad to say that some people have booked many classes and others cannot book one. This happened in the Artists loft too. Some people booking lots of free classes so others have no way of getting access. Maybe they should limit to one of each per person??

December 18th cruise from Miami. This cruise has been consistently late in leaving ports and arriving in others. We ran aground at one point. We have just been given this note which seems to cover the continual and inconvenient lateness.

Apologies. I was referring to The grill.

You will manage somehow. Whilst travelling down the Amazon, the self use laundrettes were closed!

On Marina now and it’s open until 4pm. Some days the terrace has stayed open until 2.30 due to tours returning around 1.30-2pm

Thank you. We are going in March with a few days land tours first. On Star Clipper and doing Panama. Grateful for your input.

Would love to hear regular reports on this trip if possible please? We have a sailing this year too, to Costa Rica.

Strange how diners vary. We love Jacques and it used be our least favourite. Polo is good and Toscana is a bit chaotic but good food. Red Ginger- 2 sittings and not going back. Hubby had crispy ginger chicken and full of fat laid on a couple lettuce leaves. I had Asian greens with satay and it was kos lettuce. We mentioned we didn’t want the beans to start and got a grilling of questions as to why not. Husband ordered broccoli which came with shiitake mushrooms. He asked to not have mushrooms. It arrived with mushrooms and again a grilling as to why he didn’t want them. It feels very disorganised there when we go in at 7.30pm. Non crispy non ginger chicken:

I think so!

Yesterday the staff gave us a British autumn fayre on the pool deck. They worked so hard and we had lots of stalls if games. Each stall ran by a different department. Raffle tickets were given out for a grand draw at the end. We came first and won a small silver plate. It was beautifully wrapped and I have to say we thought it may be another cheese board!

Great meal in Toscana last night- redeemed themselves. Trouble in Red Ginger, extremely busy. They seem to opening specialist restaurants alot each day to those that haven’t booked. By the time we get there at 7.30pm, they are very busy and over 90 minutes in red ginger with just the appetiser. Another good lunch in MDR and very quiet.

All the restaurants cater very well for non meat and non fish eaters. Don’t worry!

Rogerb, a huge improvement. Hope you enjoyed it

We are on Oceania now. Christmas Eve was carols. Christmas Day was goose in the GDR. Santa came Christmas morning with gifts for the children. We had a gift left on our bed Christmas Eve. Specialities don’t have special meals over the 2 days. You can’t get good old roast potatoes anywhere. We actually ordered them and got wedges! Christmas Eve is staff party night and so things were pretty bad in the terrace for breakfast, Christmas Day! Nice to see people dressed up. Marina lounge had a Christmas film showing. We brought gifts for some staff of which they were very grateful. Not super exciting I’m afraid, but the shifts have to carry on as clockwork for the staff . They did very well overall .

We love ours and will try very hard to make the weight limit with it packed . We have been in the artists loft a few times doing similar work (well not as good as that of course).

As everyone has said, we hit a sand bar. Considering we have been asked to conserve water usage in various ways, it was a bit disconcerting to see so much being discharged into the river to help us off the sand bar!

We are on Marina and we had one delivered to us last night along with recipe cards and Christmas card.Only our 4th cruise.Beautiful but heavy.

We boarded in Miami Dec. 18th. So far we have been really happy with everything except two meals. Toscana- a pasta dish with shellfish was very watery, very few shellfish and clumps of undercooked pasta. Then Red Ginger- Bay scallops, they were sitting in oil with no flavour along with flavourless noodles. But the rest of the meals everywhere have been very good. Staff happy and seem very organised this time. Suite is immaculate and well stocked with anything we want. Plenty of empty sun beds.

We were told that $7 per person from the top suites gratuities goes to the butler. Had 2 butlers on OceaniaPenthouse one was brilliant, OC not so much.Extra tips accordingly. Never had gratuities paid for us.Pay it ourselves and although we Brits have reputation of not tipping (another members opinion), we actually do.Very happy with the service all over the ships.

Am I reading this right? No wrapped gifts from Uk...

'Worth noting that for the UK at least biz class is not an included perk for international travel' Correct!