Looking for recommended ships for TA

[rjp50]

We are considering doing a TA in spring of 2025.  We are concerned about boredom and think that we may be better off on either a very large ship with a lot of entertainment venues (such as RCI's Oasis class ships) or a moderate ship which may have fewer venues but fully utilize the ones they have.  Ideally, the route should end in Amsterdam, but anywhere in Europe would do.  Any suggestions?

[Hlitner]

I think you might want to look at some cruise data bases.  There are no Oasis Class ships heading to Europe in the Spring or 2025.  HAL has some ships that do end in Rotterdam (easy to grab a train from Rotterdam to Amsterdam) and Viking has a longer 35 day (and more expensive) cruise that does claim to end in Amsterdam.  I say "claim" because new restrictions limit the ships that can go all the way to Amsterdam.   In fact, their city council wants to close their cruise terminal and ban all cruise ships.

 

If RCI is your priority they do have two larger ships (not Oasis Class) going to Europe (the Odyssey to Civitavecchia and the Independence to Southampton.  

[TheOldBear]

Cunard's Queen Mary 2 was purpose built for transatlantic crossings - and makes several each season. For 2025 the schedule shows eastbound sailings in March, May and June [and later in the year until the next world cruse].

QM2 voyage M515A is sold as a round trip from NY stopping at Southampton and Amsterdam - there may be a variant that disembarks near Amsterdam [often several segment choices are available - say the M515 eastbound crossing + M516 Rotterdam 'short break']

[CGTNORMANDIE]

The Celebrity Eclipse is sailing Fort Lauderdale to Southampton on March 22, 2025 and The Holland America Niew Statendam will sail from FLL to Rotterdam on April 5th.  You will enjoy a number of activities onboard these gorgeous ships…especially the food and socializing.  You will not be bored.  The beauty of five or more consecutive days at sea is the ability to unplug completely.

Edited February 20 by CGTNORMANDIE

[crazycatlady82]

The NCL Aqua will be doing a TA and their inaugural sailing in March 2025. Not much is known about the ship at this point but should have a lot of the bells and whistles. 

[rjp50]

On 2/20/2024 at 4:40 AM, CGTNORMANDIE said:

The Celebrity Eclipse is sailing Fort Lauderdale to Southampton on March 22, 2025 and The Holland America Niew Statendam will sail from FLL to Rotterdam on April 5th.  You will enjoy a number of activities onboard these gorgeous ships…especially the food and socializing.  You will not be bored.  The beauty of five or more consecutive days at sea is the ability to unplug completely.

Thanks.  We have done a fair amount of Celebrity cruises and enjoy them.  However, we find that their sea days can be a bit low key with not a whole lot of entertainment going on during the day.  This is perfect when there are just a few sea days interspersed with port days, as it's nice to just relax after several active port days.  However, unless they up their game on TA cruises with 6 or so sea days in a row, I am worried that that they won't provide enough for our liking (we are not into dance classes and crew/passenger competitions.)

 

I wonder if HAL is any different in that perspective.  Having the endpoint in Rotterdam is a major plus since the point of going to Europe in the spring is to go to the Keukenhof Gardens for their spring bulb display.

[rjp50]

4 hours ago, crazycatlady82 said:

The NCL Aqua will be doing a TA and their inaugural sailing in March 2025. Not much is known about the ship at this point but should have a lot of the bells and whistles. 

Thanks. However, having seen the recent canceled cruises for the Sun Princess on their inaugural cruises I am a bit skittish about building a 3 or 4 week European trip around an inaugural cruise that has a reasonable chance of being canceled, leaving us high and dry.  If it were not for that, I may be interested in something like this.

[Ex-Airbalancer]

Did a 8 straight day seadays last November on the Celebrity Constrellation, always found enough to keep me happy 

But I don’t need the ship to keep me entertained 

[Mick B]

Hi,

If you want to do RCI then the Independence is probably your best bet. Wish I was doing that TA in 2025 but I am actually doing the 12 night Canaries cruise from Southampton that follows the TA. 

The Indy is a great ship and has more than enough to do without being over the top. 

She is big enough too to manage rough seas and smaller enough to be homely and easy to get around without having to walk miles.

 

Hope this helps.

Mick.

 

[Hlitner]

On 2/21/2024 at 11:28 AM, rjp50 said:

Thanks.  We have done a fair amount of Celebrity cruises and enjoy them.  However, we find that their sea days can be a bit low key with not a whole lot of entertainment going on during the day.  This is perfect when there are just a few sea days interspersed with port days, as it's nice to just relax after several active port days.  However, unless they up their game on TA cruises with 6 or so sea days in a row, I am worried that that they won't provide enough for our liking (we are not into dance classes and crew/passenger competitions.)

 

I wonder if HAL is any different in that perspective.  Having the endpoint in Rotterdam is a major plus since the point of going to Europe in the spring is to go to the Keukenhof Gardens for their spring bulb display.

Entertainment/activities is not HAL's strong suit.  They operate their ships with very few Cruise Director Staff (on one of our cruises they had only 2 1/2 people in that department...the 1/2 having to split her time with another task).  The big event on HAL is trivia (usually a team trivia variation) which is quite popular.  

 

The best entertainment we have had on sea days was on the Queen Mary 2.  Several years ago when we did a crossing they had their own onboard Shakespeare company doing shortened plays during the day, they have a planetarium show, lectures, etc.

 

DW and I have been asked what we do on seadays (we love seadays) and we spend much of those long lazy days socializing with other cruisers, reading, and going to some lectures.

 

Hank

[CGTNORMANDIE]

Royal Caribbean has a high activity level onboard.  A definite difference when compared to Celebrity.

[Ex-Airbalancer]

23 minutes ago, CGTNORMANDIE said:

Royal Caribbean has a high activity level onboard.  A definite difference when compared to Celebrity.

Done 2 TAs on RCL , the entertainment was terrible on both TA with RCL 

 

[PORT ROYAL]

On 2/19/2024 at 4:31 AM, rjp50 said:

We are considering doing a TA in spring of 2025.  We are concerned about boredom and think that we may be better off on either a very large ship with a lot of entertainment venues (such as RCI's Oasis class ships) or a moderate ship which may have fewer venues but fully utilize the ones they have.  Ideally, the route should end in Amsterdam, but anywhere in Europe would do.  Any suggestions?

As a previous poster stated…

 

“There are many ways to cross the Atlantic, but QM2 is the only way…..”

 

Enough said😊

 

 

Edited February 24 by PORT ROYAL
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