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On 10/7/2018 at 10:30 AM, elklemi said:

I will be sailing out of Bridgetown end of March so will miss you but took my first Star Clipper cruise last year and enjoyed it so much I have two booked for 2019 especially since they now have no single supplement which makes this all possible. I really enjoyed my last one and being on a small sailing ship is a great experience and being able to go to small islands was great, and the food was very good. I especially enjoyed Bequia in the Grenadines and hope you get to experience this spot of paradise, enjoy your trip.

Thanks Elkemi,

You are right about Bequia -we've been there last Winter on our Windstar cruise, which also sailed out of Bridgetown.

Sorry - meant Feb 16, 2019.:o:o:o:o

This will be our first experience on the Star Clipper. We've been on Windsurf (sister ship to Star Clipper) 3 times and loved the experience. Have heard only good things about the Clipper ships. Will now be able to compare the experience. Absolutely love the intimate ambience compared to the much larger Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, etc. Anybody else going to be on this sailing?

https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=603123

On which night did they have the deck BBQ - which island ?

Just off our two week cruise. It was without a doubt our best cruise yet. We thoroughly enjoyed the Windsurf experience. Amazing service from top notch, professional, and friendly staff. Met some lovely people. Very gay friendly. Wonderful itinerary and great weather.

 

 

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We are on the same itinerary leaving on the 13th. At which ports did you have the Deck BBQ on both weeks? That is really a highlight of these cruises. Was the Beach BBQ held on St. Lucia on both ends of your B2B? Really looking forward to being on Windsurf again.

Taxis seemed to be nonexistent when we were there last week.

 

 

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We are on the same B2B leaving on Jan 13 from Bridgetown. Assume you were also on that itinerary on Windsurf. Stopping in Anse Mitan on the 14th and 25th. What did you end up doing there, if you can provide any recommendations.

The recent email I received from John Delaney for the “friends and family” fares are significantly less than early booking. And also significantly less than what is advertised on the website for sale. For this season, especially in the Caribbean, booking early would not be advised, unless of course your flight differential would an issue.

 

 

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We are yacht club members, having sailed Windstar before. Have never received an e-mail from John Delaney re 'friends and family' fares. Is that because we book thru a travel agent? But Windstar has our information. What gives?

I am curious about this as well, as we are on this itinerary Feb 18th.

That doesn't sound good.We are doing a B2B on Feb 4 with St Barths each week. It is one of our favorite ports with Windstar. Where did you hear that? She is in Phillipsburg now, a day ahead and should leave today. Checking on Port webcam to see if she leaves. Maybe more rudder problems?

I see that you were on the Windsurf back in 2001. That was the last time we were on Windsurf - it was the Feb 18th Barbados itinerary. Is that the same one you were on? We have not sailed on Windstar since then. Really looking forward to the sailing ship experience again.

That doesn't sound good.We are doing a B2B on Feb 4 with St Barths each week. It is one of our favorite ports with Windstar. Where did you hear that? She is in Phillipsburg now, a day ahead and should leave today. Checking on Port webcam to see if she leaves. Maybe more rudder problems?

The reason Windsurf was a day early to Philipsburg was exactly because they skipped St. Barths - presumably because of bad weather in St. Barths. Don't know more than that, although the same thing happened on one of the December cruises. Will have to see if she leaves on time later tonite.

From what I have read recently, it appears that, for whatever reasons, the Windsurf has not been stopping in St. Barts on cruises where that port is part of the itinerary. No one seems to know why and I have seen cc comments about the seas being too rough (for lack of a better explanation). The Jan 7th 7 night cruise came back to St. Maarten a day early and I believe that happened on one of the December trips as well (except at the front end of the cruise as they seem to flip the order of the ports every other trip). Does anyone have any thoughts / comments?

Strange. Wind Surf Just arriving at St-Maarten (10AM) instead of 6AM.

 

Anybody heard of operationnal issue with Wind Surf??

 

Must be some very anxious passengers that have early flight out of SXM this morning

 

http://www.portstmaartenwebcam.com/

I saw the arrival in St. Maarten this morning as well. However, unless I've missed something, they were supposed to be in St. Barths today and not due to arrive into Philipsburg until 6 AM tomorrow morning - the 14th. So what happened to the stop in St. Barths?

We arrived in Aguas Calientes on the train around 9 as I recall (cause we left really early). We had our first tour of the ruins that morning, then took a break for lunch. While we were at lunch the Celebrity group arrived. We had a second trip to the ruins in the afternoon, which was leisurely, since we did not have to take the train back that day (the Celebrity group did). Spent the night in Aguas Calientes at a decent hotel, got up the next morning and returned to MP (our plan was to hike up Huayna Picchu but was too wet). Took the afternoon train back to Cuzco. I guess we had a total of about 8 hours or so at the ruins, which is enough. The nice thing was not having to rush due to limited timing.

 

I can't say that it is always that way, but for us the whole process was seamless, took a minimum of planning time and was very rewarding. We never even considered the Celebrity add-on (and it has increased a lot since we passed on it, now adding about $11,000 to an already expensive trip). We loved the experience but no way it is worth $25,000 for a 15 day trip.

Thanks for this information. Really appreciate it. Do you remember the name of the hotel in Aquas Calientes? Not sure if this site permits any of that kind of information - apologize in advance if I'm breaking any rules.

Looked at the site above. The one thing I noticed about the Celebrity itinerary is that you spend less than a day where you are actually in MP. Is that really enough? Did you spend more than a day when you did it? I see that we take the Vistadome from the Tamba del Inca hotel train station, have lunch at the Sanctuary Lodge in MP and after some time exploring, head back to Cuzco on the Orient Express. We have 1 1/2 years to research and plan so I really want to do my homework. I don't think we'll be back to this part of the world so want to get it right! No do-overs. Really appreciate any advice you are able to give, seeing that you have done it. If you prefer to do it by e-mail, my address is botarasales@rogers.com

We are going on this trip in January (leaving the 8th) and have also added the Machu Picchu portion. We're eager to hear about the choices of activities and more about the entire experience. Thanks for posting and keep it up!

We are booked for Nov 2017 and would be very interested in your thoughts, especially about the post cruise Machu Piccu portion.

We never, ever book cruise line packages. Generally a horrendous waste of money for a tiny bit of convenience.

 

Except the Xpedition trip. Yes, there is a premium, but minor in the big picture to have everything handled from Quito through the cruise and back. Great hotel in Quito, chartered flight, etc. Everything handled.

 

And yes, definitely do Machu Picchu on your own. We did it for less than 1/3 that Celebrity wanted and spent lots more time at the ruins, wonderful accommodations in Aguas Calientes (instead of having to shuttle back to Cusco immediately) and the option of spending the morning of the next day at the ruins.

If you wouldn't mind e-mailing me some information about who we can contact (if it's allowed), that would be a great help. My e-mail address is botarasales@rogers.com We have a year and a half to do our planning so lots of time to research various options.

We just booked the Nov 2017 Inner Loop itinerary with the Machu Piccu extension at the end, while onboard a Celebrity Cruise in February. You are right - very little inventory left, even with almost 2 years out. After reading some of the posts, will look into doing the MP portion outside of Celebrity. Seems that in November will miss out on seeing the boobies mating dance but we still should be able to see them at some point. Looking forward to viewing your pictures that you were kind enough to post. Agree that it is more of an expedition than a cruise, onboard a yacht, with a small group of like-minded travelers. Very much looking forward to the adventure. It has been on DW's bucket list for quite some time.

Thanks for everyone's help. Much appreciated. Found what I wanted. Interested to hear what other guests thought of the Feb 12th Equinox sailing.

Much appreciated. I'm going to try what you suggested.

Tried to do that but the Roll Call for the Feb 12th cruise is not there any longer. Does it go somewhere else once the cruise is over?

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I'll ask anyways. Just returned from the Feb 12th sailing on Equinox and wanted to visit the Roll Call for this cruise to see what people had posted relating to this particular cruise. Is there another site I should be going to in order to see comments from other guests who were on this cruise?

Yes they will refund you, but it will go onto your credit card. A better way of doing things if you want to get USD back in cash is to ask for a cash account when you check in. I bought just in time to get the $30.60 rate and will pop all remaining cash into my USD bank account on my return as if we plan on going anywhere I will have USD on tap. I'm sorry now that I didn't buy more. However at 34.40 you are still ahead of the game as it works out at CAD 1.37 and yesterday if you bought USD in Canada it cost CAD1.44 and the way things are going it could be CAD1.50 by the time you sail. I'm going to watch the rate carefully and might still buy more as we travel a fair amount. It's going to be quite a while before our dollar rebounds so it is a pretty safe bet if you have a little cash to spare.Better than a savings account where interest rates are almost non existent.

So, if I understand you correctly, we can change from a credit card to a cash account when we check in and then pay off our account in cash using the OBC. Can we also convert the OBC to cash during the cruise at the Guest Services desk in order to have cash for the casino, for example? Also, do you know if there is a $ limit that Celebrity will allow you to purchase OBC's on their site? I think you can purchase up to 9 OBC ($25 each) at one time.

Yes, the cdn $ keeps dropping and no short term relief in site. At $34.40 it is still a great deal. Just so I understand, if you buy the OBC's and don't use them up by the end of the cruise, you can pay off your account with these credits, and any remaining balance they will give you in U.S. ? Thanks for the help.

:)About the 20% off coupon for the specialty restaurants, could you tell me how to search for this on google?