Cruises on your Wish-List

[grapau27]

9 hours ago, Britboys said:

Inspired by Andy's threads about favourite cruise and most recent cruise, I thought it would be interesting to see what cruises are on people's wish-lists.  Doesn't have to be one that is currently on offer by P&O or an exotic one - just an itinerary that you would love to do.  Again, this is to be a positive post, so no responses about never cruising again please.  For the sake of this thread we are assuming cruising will resume in the near future, with a good choice of lines, ships and destinations!

We would like to fly to Sydney and have 3 nights there then cruise all around Australia with a couple of nights in Adelaide staying at Pauline's cousins house before flying to Dubai for a couple of nights then flying back to Newcastle.

[glittergal1]

10 hours ago, Presto2 said:

We have 2 land holidays booked and don't think they will happen. Trying to work out how to get our money back as they are offering Future holiday credit for both (both paid) but there is a time limit and we can't see how we can fit the holidays in to our work schedule

This is the issue we had with FCC from our cancelled P&O cruise,  (50% refund 50% fcc) We simply hadnt got any holiday left from work over the next 2 years so we had no choice but to cancel one of our already booked cruises with P&O for 2021 and then book a NEW cruise for 2021 so we could use the fcc . ridiculous really as P&O would not shift on their stance to allow us  to use in on an existing booking or extend the use of it beyond March 2022.  I will not be taking any more FCC I will only accept Full £ money refund so holding out for our May and JUly cruises to be cancelled by P&O . 

[Twogreynomads]

19 hours ago, Britboys said:

Inspired by Andy's threads about favourite cruise and most recent cruise, I thought it would be interesting to see what cruises are on people's wish-lists.  Doesn't have to be one that is currently on offer by P&O or an exotic one - just an itinerary that you would love to do.  Again, this is to be a positive post, so no responses about never cruising again please.  For the sake of this thread we are assuming cruising will resume in the near future, with a good choice of lines, ships and destinations!

As the op said this is a positive thread about cruises you would like to go on as there are plenty of threads about fcc and whether cruises will ever restart.

We would love a cruise visiting new places in Norway as well as some of our all time favourites like olden.

Lets keep this a happy positive thread

[AndyMichelle]

51 minutes ago, Twogreynomads said:

As the op said this is a positive thread about cruises you would like to go on as there are plenty of threads about fcc and whether cruises will ever restart.

We would love a cruise visiting new places in Norway as well as some of our all time favourites like olden.

Lets keep this a happy positive thread

Yep, we have done the Fjords a couple of times but really itching to go back. 

Andy 

[pete14]

5 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

Yep, we have done the Fjords a couple of times but really itching to go back. 

Andy 

Norway is undoubtably a beautiful country and the fjords are best seen and appreciated from the water.

[Son of Anarchy]

Would also like to fly to Australia, spend a couple of weeks sailing in the Whitsunday Islands, then join a cruise ship for the return legs of a worldie back to the UK.  If PandO still do the thing where you put your cruise luggage on the ship prior to it's departure for the worldie, we could fly with just our yottie and deck stuff.  All the formal gear would be waiting for us on board!

[AndyMichelle]

13 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Norway is undoubtably a beautiful country and the fjords are best seen and appreciated from the water.

Norway seems to have a calmness not found in many other places. 

It's probably only because the ships get into smaller ports, but our overriding memories, apart from the beauty, is the chilled out feel of places like Olden, Alesund and Stavenger. 

Andy 

[DamianG]

Great topic, thanks Andrew.

 

We've taken Christmas Markets cruises 3 times and always wished that we could take a cruise to Norway earlier in the year when it was "proper snowy." Then just after we adopted our son P&O started offering these cruises (on adult only ships) and we have loved looking at passenger's pictures of the snow and Northern Lights.

So that would be the top of our list.

Some other ambitions would be:

Transatlantic including a sail into New York and various Canadian ports.

Sail into Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Transit Suez canal.

Transit Kiel canal (we once passed through it on a NCL cruise but stupidly got off at the start to go on an excursion then got back on at the end).

Monaco Grand Prix.

As you can guess I love the sail-in as much a anything.

There's plenty of repeat cruises I'd love to do as well, Christmas Markets, North Cape, Caribbean.....

Edited April 18, 2020 by DamianG

[DamianG]

1 hour ago, AndyMichelle said:

Norway seems to have a calmness not found in many other places. 

It's probably only because the ships get into smaller ports, but our overriding memories, apart from the beauty, is the chilled out feel of places like Olden, Alesund and Stavenger. 

Andy 

 

If you ever get the chance to go on a North Cape cruise I think that you will really appreciate the "calmness" - here's a few photos from the sail-in to Honningsvaag in 2009 when the water was like glass. There's also a midnight sun photo, maybe not the best technically but a lovely memory for us.

[terrierjohn]

We no longer fly so all our cruises are from Southampton, and as Pauline is in a wheelchair and cannot navigate coach steps, then our sightseeing is mainly along a promenade with stops at sidewalk cafes.

Now our requirement is solely for somewhere warm and sunny, with easy access for a wheelchair, and we are not really bothered about new ports since we have done most, except for small tender ports, which like coaches are no use to us.

So as soon as we can cruise again we will be off, hoping its our Sept Azura cruise, if not then Iona in February.

[pete14]

1 hour ago, AndyMichelle said:

Norway seems to have a calmness not found in many other places. 

It's probably only because the ships get into smaller ports, but our overriding memories, apart from the beauty, is the chilled out feel of places like Olden, Alesund and Stavenger. 

Andy 

A few summers ago, we were in Alta near to Tromso. Not a great port to look at but I ended up at the prehistoric rock carvings museum a couple of miles from the centre of town. There is a small visitor centre / museum but also a walk of around a kilometre on paths with a ‘decking type’ walkway with large rocks which in prehistoric times had had pictures carved onto them. These were easily visible because the lines had been very carefully picked out in colour. There were literally hundreds of carvings on either side of the path. There weren’t many visitors and the P&O trip was only a short stop at the visitor centre / museum. In many other countries, it would be heaving with visitors (and extortionately expensive) but it was a haven of quiet which was presumably a blessing for the wildlife and a very pleasant and fascinating way of spending an hour. No good in winter because of frost and snow but great in summer. I would love to go back but summer cruises that go that far North are getting scarce. 

[Britboys]

12 minutes ago, DamianG said:

Great topic, thanks Andrew.

 

We've taken Christmas Markets cruises 3 times and always wished that we could take a cruise to Norway earlier in the year when it was "proper snowy." Then just after we adopted our son P&O started offering these cruises (on adult only ships) and we have loved looking at passenger's pictures of the snow and Northern Lights.

So that would be the top of our list.

Some other ambitions would be:

Transatlantic including a sail into New York and various Canadian ports.

Sail into Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Transit Suez canal.

Transit Kiel canal (we once passed through it on a NCL cruise but stupidly got off at the start to go on an excursion then got back on at the end).

Monaco Grand Prix.

As you can guess I love the sail-in as much a anything.

There's plenty of repeat cruises I'd love to do as well, Christmas Markets, North Cape, Caribbean.....

I have a cruise booked with Fred Olsen next year that does a double transit of the Keil Canal with a visit to Keil in Keil Week - their annual water festival.  I've also been lucky enough to have done a Panama Canal Transit.  I suppose I should put the Suez on my wish list too!

[Presto2]

2 hours ago, Twogreynomads said:

As the op said this is a positive thread about cruises you would like to go on as there are plenty of threads about fcc and whether cruises will ever restart.

We would love a cruise visiting new places in Norway as well as some of our all time favourites like olden.

Lets keep this a happy positive thread

 

Sorry, probably my fault. I just clicked on a response to a post and was in a different thread than I thought --- that's my excuse anyway :-)

Seriously, sorry folks. I started a positive one about P&O once and it is really frustrating if it wanders .

[Presto2]

We had always wanted to do a Nile Cruise but sadly we missed the safest time to go by dithering about it all. That is the 'one that got away' for us. We did do a Holy Land and Italy cruise once on Celebrity Silhouette when she was new. We had a 3 day stay in Israel as part of it and absolutely loved the place. Would love to return. At the minute the cruises to Israel don't go in August so that is one for when we retire.

[DamianG]

4 minutes ago, Britboys said:

I have a cruise booked with Fred Olsen next year that does a double transit of the Keil Canal with a visit to Keil in Keil Week - their annual water festival.  I've also been lucky enough to have done a Panama Canal Transit.  I suppose I should put the Suez on my wish list too!

 

We were lucky enough to sail through the Panama Canal as well. We were on Oceana and fortunately not too many people were aware of the forward observation places through the "secret door" (I think it is on the front end of deck C and possibly deck A as well). Because of this we had a great vantage point and it wasn't overcrowded unlike the promenade deck. I thought I might get bored after an hour or 2 but the whole day passed in no time.

[tring]

On 4/17/2020 at 12:45 PM, Britboys said:

I'll start the ball rolling.  On my list are -

 

Norway right up to the North Cape - probably with Fred Olsen as they are Norwegian.

The Amazon River.

South America.

Greenland.

 

They are some good choices IMO.  We did The Amazon on Minerva II as our first cruise in 2006.  We spent two weeks in the river with trips included as that is what Swan offered.  I would say though that you do need to do a lot of trips and look for a cruise with as many stops as possible, as it is those experiences that makes the cruise, with not a lot to see otherwise, though sailing the river was a good experience as well.

 

We did Greenland with Fred, visiting Qaqortoq, Nanortalik and Nasarsuaq (which allowed us to take a great boat ride to sail around grounded ice bergs) as well as a transit of Prins Christiansund.  We were lucky with the weather and made all those venues, but that can vary.

 

Going as far as North Cape can be interesting, but coupling it with Spitzbergen makes the cruise more than twice as appealing IMO, so well worth considering.  Spitzbergen is just so unspoilt and calm, though ports are becoming more restricted all the time.  We would love to return and do an expedition cruise there, but they are so expensive that I doubt we ever will now.

 

We have always tended to target more unusual destinations rather than standard cruise destinations (our Med Port visits are fairly thinly spread) and I think our concentration on special destinations will feature even more strongly in the future.  A trip round South America is something we had been considering in recent years and is one we may well do.

 

We have a North American Eastern Seaboard booked on Aurora for September 2021, so really hope that will  go ahead as planned.  We did the St Lawrence as far as Montreal and back (with Fred from Liverpool) a few years ago and really loved that with some small unspoilt places visited, but again a cruise when you need to consider doing the trips in some ports, but not all.  The Aurora one sounds fine on a bigger ship though as a lot of the ports are cities where she can easily dock.

 

Happy dreams (and hopefully realisation of them) everyone.

Edited April 18, 2020 by tring

[Jennizor]

The cruises on my wish list are the three we already have booked. First one, the Baltic - this is booked for June for my 70th and our 20th wedding anniversary (same day) - not going to happen. Second one - Iona next February to the Canaries - been to the Canaries lots of times but as we love the bigger ships, just wanted to try Iona. Third one - Eastern Med on Azura (my favourite ship). My husband wants to go to Croatia so this fitted the bill, also a few places we have not been before. Hey ho, something to look forward to. 

[ollienbertsmum]

On 4/17/2020 at 6:08 PM, Cathygh said:

Oh my favourite topic

Tour of Japan - Kyoto & Tokyo & cruise

Terracotta Warriors & China cruise

Panama Canal east to west

South America  inc Iguazza Falls

Niagara & New York & TA back

Iceland, Greenland, Canada

Something that includes Petra

Las Vegas, LA & West Coast/Mexico

Thailand/ Vietnam

Nile cruise

Danube

Douro River

British Isles

 

and whatever I can get in between.....

Cathy

 

Cathy, my favourite topic too.  

 

My wishlist is longer than yours but some of the places I feel work better as land tours.  This includes the Asian countries that are so much cheaper and I am sure better as you can have more interesting trips out when you are not having to keep your eye on your watch when you DIY.   

 

My main wishlist cruise is my upcoming Iona cruise.  Not cancelled by P and O yet but we won’t be going.  We cannot risk the flights being cancelled potential cancelled ports - and as a healthcare worker we still have all annual leave cancelled anyway.  I decided that a cruise to Norway needed to be at the top of my wishlist after the cruise to ALaska when I was blown away by the scenery.  

 

So I will then have to work out if I should follow my own advice about land tours when it comes to working out how I get to the Fjords.   I was anticipating that much of the pleasure of the cruise would be sitting on my balcony watching the scenery.  This, added to the high cost of food and drink in Norway made me think that a cruise might be one of the better ways  of visiting that beautiful country.  

 

 

I need to be planning a trip.   A postponed two night stay in Benalmadena is not enough for me to be getting on with.  So inspired by this thread I think i need to work out - land tour or cruise as a better way to visit the Fjords???      Although I booked on the potentially beautiful Iona,  for DH and I the ship is not the important part of the trip - we see the ship as a (very enjoyable) form of transport.  We have to fly to Southampton so we do not save on the costs of flights.    Costing might be hard just now as websites are on hold, but I will be planning.  That is what I need.  

[ollienbertsmum]

23 hours ago, AndyMichelle said:

Norway seems to have a calmness not found in many other places. 

It's probably only because the ships get into smaller ports, but our overriding memories, apart from the beauty, is the chilled out feel of places like Olden, Alesund and Stavenger. 

Andy 

 

I should have read further through the thread before commenting.   You are all adding to my itch to get to Norway.  Sounds like I may still need to do it on a cruise.  Hurtigruten is getting my serious consideration, but need to do the research.  

[Cathygh]

2 hours ago, ollienbertsmum said:

 

Cathy, my favourite topic too.  

 

My wishlist is longer than yours but some of the places I feel work better as land tours.  This includes the Asian countries that are so much cheaper and I am sure better as you can have more interesting trips out when you are not having to keep your eye on your watch when you DIY.   

 

My main wishlist cruise is my upcoming Iona cruise.  Not cancelled by P and O yet but we won’t be going.  We cannot risk the flights being cancelled potential cancelled ports - and as a healthcare worker we still have all annual leave cancelled anyway.  I decided that a cruise to Norway needed to be at the top of my wishlist after the cruise to ALaska when I was blown away by the scenery.  

 

So I will then have to work out if I should follow my own advice about land tours when it comes to working out how I get to the Fjords.   I was anticipating that much of the pleasure of the cruise would be sitting on my balcony watching the scenery.  This, added to the high cost of food and drink in Norway made me think that a cruise might be one of the better ways  of visiting that beautiful country.  

 

 

I need to be planning a trip.   A postponed two night stay in Benalmadena is not enough for me to be getting on with.  So inspired by this thread I think i need to work out - land tour or cruise as a better way to visit the Fjords???      Although I booked on the potentially beautiful Iona,  for DH and I the ship is not the important part of the trip - we see the ship as a (very enjoyable) form of transport.  We have to fly to Southampton so we do not save on the costs of flights.    Costing might be hard just now as websites are on hold, but I will be planning.  That is what I need.  

I did look at a land trip to the fjords some years ago. Cruising with P&O turned out to be the cheaper option as buying meals in Norway is very expensive. Plus you have great sail ins & outs.

I have switched from land trips to cruising ( or combined)for now as  land trips can be quite exhausting and you have all that packing and unpacking to do every few days and find somewhere to eat in the evening. With cruising you go back to the same room every night and dinner is there for you and sea days for a rest While I am working I don't think we'll do any land tours unless combined with a cruise. But  then if my business doesn't survive the lock down I won't be going anywhere.

I missed something on my list- sail to Italy & return on the Venice Simplon Express. Sadly the DH won't entertain sitting in a train for 2 days. I guess I can't have every thing

Cathy

[Twogreynomads]

One day !

[Francisdrake]

I'd like to somehow combine a West coast & East coast USA cruise for an American tour.

 

In reality i'll probably have to do them at seperate times   

Others that take my fancy are

• Alaska & Canada
• Iceland & Northern Lights
• San Francisco to Sydney

In reality though i'll be booking onto wherever opens up first.

[ollienbertsmum]

4 hours ago, Cathygh said:

I did look at a land trip to the fjords some years ago. Cruising with P&O turned out to be the cheaper option as buying meals in Norway is very expensive. Plus you have great sail ins & outs.

I have switched from land trips to cruising ( or combined)for now as  land trips can be quite exhausting and you have all that packing and unpacking to do every few days and find somewhere to eat in the evening. With cruising you go back to the same room every night and dinner is there for you and sea days for a rest While I am working I don't think we'll do any land tours unless combined with a cruise. But  then if my business doesn't survive the lock down I won't be going anywhere.

I missed something on my list- sail to Italy & return on the Venice Simplon Express. Sadly the DH won't entertain sitting in a train for 2 days. I guess I can't have every thing

Cathy

 

Thanks for your thoughts Cathy.  Cost is an issue.  It might be one of the few places where a cruise does work out such good value.  Especially that days ‘at sea’ are actually scenic cruises.    I agree about the packing/unpacking issue - and since I am the driver in the family which means me not drinking AND I have a phobia of driving hairpin bends which might be hard to avoid in Norway, we will be stuck with public transport.    I think it will all depend on the position of world travel in the early Spring of next year.  My DH ordinarily would not want to sit in a train for 2 days, but when he said that the Fjords were out of the question (days before the UK lockdown) he sort of gave me carte blanche for next year.  I think I may well get to use it!!  

 

Hurtigruten may well be an option.  My thoughts are that it has the benefits of a cruise ship but 1/10th the number of passengers compared to Iona.  For me the larger ships must present larger risks in terms of infection.  

 

How about doing some of a train journey from Venice.  Do your cruise but fly back from  Milan (another new destination on my list since the Andrea Bocelli concert) having spent a couple of nights in Como at the end of the cruise.  Do that part of the journey by train.    I have been to Lugano.  It was beautiful.  I would go to Como at the drop of a hat.  

 

Keep planning.  The occasional virtual walk is fun too!!

[Britboys]

22 hours ago, tring said:

 

They are some good choices IMO.  We did The Amazon on Minerva II as our first cruise in 2006.  We spent two weeks in the river with trips included as that is what Swan offered.  I would say though that you do need to do a lot of trips and look for a cruise with as many stops as possible, as it is those experiences that makes the cruise, with not a lot to see otherwise, though sailing the river was a good experience as well.

 

We did Greenland with Fred, visiting Qaqortoq, Nanortalik and Nasarsuaq (which allowed us to take a great boat ride to sail around grounded ice bergs) as well as a transit of Prins Christiansund.  We were lucky with the weather and made all those venues, but that can vary.

 

Going as far as North Cape can be interesting, but coupling it with Spitzbergen makes the cruise more than twice as appealing IMO, so well worth considering.  Spitzbergen is just so unspoilt and calm, though ports are becoming more restricted all the time.  We would love to return and do an expedition cruise there, but they are so expensive that I doubt we ever will now.

 

We have always tended to target more unusual destinations rather than standard cruise destinations (our Med Port visits are fairly thinly spread) and I think our concentration on special destinations will feature even more strongly in the future.  A trip round South America is something we had been considering in recent years and is one we may well do.

 

We have a North American Eastern Seaboard booked on Aurora for September 2021, so really hope that will  go ahead as planned.  We did the St Lawrence as far as Montreal and back (with Fred from Liverpool) a few years ago and really loved that with some small unspoilt places visited, but again a cruise when you need to consider doing the trips in some ports, but not all.  The Aurora one sounds fine on a bigger ship though as a lot of the ports are cities where she can easily dock.

 

Happy dreams (and hopefully realisation of them) everyone.

Yes, I should have said Spitzbergen really - that's what I had in mind.  Fred Olsen seem to get there at least once a year and CMV have one trip next year.

[Cathygh]

3 hours ago, ollienbertsmum said:

 

Thanks for your thoughts Cathy.  Cost is an issue.  It might be one of the few places where a cruise does work out such good value.  Especially that days ‘at sea’ are actually scenic cruises.    I agree about the packing/unpacking issue - and since I am the driver in the family which means me not drinking AND I have a phobia of driving hairpin bends which might be hard to avoid in Norway, we will be stuck with public transport.    I think it will all depend on the position of world travel in the early Spring of next year.  My DH ordinarily would not want to sit in a train for 2 days, but when he said that the Fjords were out of the question (days before the UK lockdown) he sort of gave me carte blanche for next year.  I think I may well get to use it!!  

 

Hurtigruten may well be an option.  My thoughts are that it has the benefits of a cruise ship but 1/10th the number of passengers compared to Iona.  For me the larger ships must present larger risks in terms of infection.  

 

How about doing some of a train journey from Venice.  Do your cruise but fly back from  Milan (another new destination on my list since the Andrea Bocelli concert) having spent a couple of nights in Como at the end of the cruise.  Do that part of the journey by train.    I have been to Lugano.  It was beautiful.  I would go to Como at the drop of a hat.  

 

Keep planning.  The occasional virtual walk is fun too!!

Hi

Hurtigruten seems like a good option- goes to lots of different ports too, although I am not sure how pricey they are. 

I am fortunate to have been to the Italian Lakes a few times, Maggiore is my favourite. I've given up Italian holidays for cruising for now, apart from this inkling to do the Orient express. I like the idea of being spoiled. BTW Milan Cathedral is fantastic. There are lots of designer shops as you can imagine. The opera house is fab, we did a tour which included the museum. We also visited the cemetery on the tour. It sounds a bit random but included tombs of various musicians eg Verdi and the Campari family tomb which is a full size sculpture of the Last Supper. 

Lots to think about

Cathy