worldtraveller99

Thank you Pontac for the information! All sounds good. I am sad that people go to Bordeaux and aren't interested in wine. Oh well!

Thank you very much NJPA79

Thank you so much Pontac, that was really interesting. Please may I ask - when you said you selected Bordeaux wines from the wine list with your dinners, did you pay extra for those? I am very suspicious now of "all wines included" cruises, having just returned from a Silversea ocean cruise where the "recommended " wines being poured were a Valpolicella, tasteless Edelzwicker blend etc, all retailing about £8 a bottle - which is entry-level blandness in wine terms now). If one (eg me) does not have the eyesight for using a tiny mobile phone for daily Programmes, menus etc, would they print a copy for you if you had asked?

Thank you NJPA79. What do you think of the ship, food and drink, excursions etc please?

PS We spent a week in Amsterdam some years ago. The Rijksmuseum took us 3 hours, but we love art galleries. Re Zaanse Schans Plan your visit - Zaans Museum at the Zaanse Schans we took the train I think. Definitely easy to book entry online and just get the train (and probably a lot cheaper).

Hi gggold18 - we are travelling with Tauck for the Christmas Market cruise in November. I will be really interested please if you can give us a review / tell us whether you made it down the Rhine, on your return?

Just to pick up on OwenSmith's report re the Amadeus Imperial's poor food and drink. We travelled with Amadeus on our Danube Christmas Market cruise a few years ago, because it is one of the cheaper river cruise lines. This is how tour companies - eg Great Rail Journeys work, so they are able to make a profit while not charging you too much. Actually we liked the food, but I am a simple soul re food. But the (included) wines were undrinkable. All of our table rebelled when they gave us a horrible Romanian wine, and they had to find for us a reasonable German wine, which was ok. So I think you are allowed to ask for something better?

Your Regent reviews sound much worse RetiredandTravel! At least we only had 1 tender port, and personally I liked our entertainment people. I guess what we are paying for is fewer people, so less queueing, and probably slightly larger and smarter cabins? I will certainly ask for tender or not information if / when we cruise again.

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Thank you tiggertom! Probably not £20 but certainly around £15 a bottle retail. There are great styles of wine you can get for that. Less than £10 a bottle they can taste very similar and light.

Which ship would you be on in the Greek Islands momofthr3?

That is terribly short notice momofthre3 - I hope they have given you a full refund? I am glad we let them book the flights for us. If that happened to us we would give up and just book a hotel to drive to in England.

I hope you both have a lovely time - I look forward to your reviews?

Thank you Observer! I didn't find the children intrusive dawntrdr, mostly they were a Brazilian family who were charming and rather cute. Thank you for the Celebrity list Accessor, that sounds good!

I'm not saying the decor wasn't lovely because it was. And as you say I have 0 to compare it with re the size of the veranda suite. I just don't think an £8 or a £7 wine counts as premium, when those are what we in the UK call entry-level wines. And we didn't happen to see much of our butler (still not sure whether I was expecting too much there). But we did have a great time!

PS Let's not argue on the luxury level! Here is SS's landing page - definitly says "ultra-luxury". Leader in Luxury Cruising | Silversea

We enjoyed the cruise very much. I just didn't think ultra-luxury was right, when the nicest included wine costs only £12 a bottle! And they were trying to force Valpolicella (included, costs £7 a bottle in the UK) on everyone as the standard wine in La Terrazza in the evening. The Thai beer (included) in Indochine was thin too. If I had paid more thousands than I did I would have expected at least £15 for each included bottle to make the cruise ultra-luxury. In Indochine I think I asked (remember - 20 questions to find an included wine!) do you have an Alsace Gewürztraminer? Oh yes he said - and brought a really cheap and tasteless Edelzwicker - a cheap blend made in the presence of some Gewurztraminer grapes! (sells at £8 a bottle in the UK). Otherwise, apart from the butler who obviously thought other people would tip him more (too right there) so ignored us, everyone was lovely!

My review of our recent Alaska cruise on the Silver Muse has been published. What do you think? Silversea Silver Muse Cruise Ship: Review, Photos & Departure Ports on Cruise Critic

Our 4th jab (2nd booster) will only be available to those over 50 and probably around October 2022. So cruise lines cannot ask for it, or they will lose half their customers (from the UK at least).

Thank you, I shall keep looking!

Does anyone know any long range forecasts for it to rain again? We don't go till the Christmas Markets at the end of November.

Well this is our very first ocean cruise, so I sincerely trust that we will like the food! I am not fussy - a nice piece of meat & 2 veg does it for me! Though I do like good gelato?

I am very surprised that SS doesn't provide real maple syrup, unless you ask for it? I certainly shall! Did you get it ok when you did?

I am interested that the ship cared about something called VERIFLY? Neither BA nor our cruise line has mentioned it. Hopefully we will be fine with paper ArriveCan receipts, test results and vaccination certificates?

Thank you Ozzie26. I keep checking our "Manage Your Booking" on BA and also Alaska Airways. One of the latter flights did get cancelled and they moved us (without telling us) to a connecting flight with 30 minutes (!) changeover time! I don't think we would have made the 2nd gate, let alone our bags. So I changed that to a flight 4 hours later (sob - we arrive at Seattle around 5 in the morning!) as there was nothing in between. Your photo is very relaxing, I know it will be worth it when we get there.