Quick drive by - are they still stopping with the gang warfare?
I would be interested in Caribbean, also the french islands too.
Lets talk cruises
- Thread starter area51_for_psx
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I would be interested in Caribbean, also the french islands too.
Associate
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- 19 Nov 2021
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- Portsmouth
Not all cruises are like that - P&O there's no gratuities (though I'm sure it's all baked into the price)
Could fly to somewhere like Barcelona and do a 7 day cruise round the Med. My parents have done it a few times and really enjoyed it.
My wife doesn’t like flying so we go on 2 week cruises from Southampton to the Med.
First cruise in August on the Sky Princess doing the Norwegian Fjords, looking forward to it and hoping no major seasickness issues for us. Have went for the Premium package just for hassle free experience on board. Weather in August could be interesting.
Isn't this one of the 'cruise islands'? Basically a cruise owned theme park so nothing to do with Haiti itself? Same with Perfect Day or whatever it's called in the Bahamas.
Labadee is a peninsula on Haiti, whereas CocoCay is a whole island.
Soldato
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We are doing our first cruise the last couple of weeks of August with the children. P&O Iona and the Norweigien Fjords, that destination is one of the only ones I would have considered for a cruise. Looking forward to see if it is great or my worst nightmare 
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What kind of spends have people typically budgeted for on cruises? We're off to the Caribbean with NCL in a few months - we've got the "free at sea" package which covers most menu drinks below a certain amount (I think $15) plus all normal eating and two "special" dining nights. We've already paid our service gratuity upfront, and also paid for one organised excursion during one of the island stops. Other than that, I'm really not sure how much we should be looking to have available to spend etc.
It's a 9 night cruise, with only two days "at sea", though after the last night, we disembark at 7am then have to hang around Miami/Miami airport until our evening flight home.
It's a 9 night cruise, with only two days "at sea", though after the last night, we disembark at 7am then have to hang around Miami/Miami airport until our evening flight home.
I'm a bit late to the thread, but let me take you back a few years.
It's 2019 and I've just went on a lads trip to Morocco and while over there we did quad biking, I somehow manage to break both wrists when my quad bike breaks stopped working and crashed into another quad bike. The only thing I can do is stay at home and watch movies, during this time I ended up watching Titanic for the first time and instantly fell in love with the idea of going on a ship to do a Transatlantic crossing to experience something similar...other than the sinking.
Anyway, since then I've completed 2 transatlantics on the Queen Mary 2 and for next year we've booked ourselves onto the Queen Anne to visit the Norwegian Fjords.
Honestly if I was going across to New York I wouldn't even think about flying, it would be the Queen Mary 2 all the way, crossings and cruises are the way forward for us now.
It's 2019 and I've just went on a lads trip to Morocco and while over there we did quad biking, I somehow manage to break both wrists when my quad bike breaks stopped working and crashed into another quad bike. The only thing I can do is stay at home and watch movies, during this time I ended up watching Titanic for the first time and instantly fell in love with the idea of going on a ship to do a Transatlantic crossing to experience something similar...other than the sinking.
Anyway, since then I've completed 2 transatlantics on the Queen Mary 2 and for next year we've booked ourselves onto the Queen Anne to visit the Norwegian Fjords.
Honestly if I was going across to New York I wouldn't even think about flying, it would be the Queen Mary 2 all the way, crossings and cruises are the way forward for us now.
How did that go?
The mrs will be going with her mum and the two options are southhamption-nordics or fly-cruise the med with Italy.
Gratuities are not mandatory, when I was looking at cruises 1tip I found was to tell them at check in to remove them - and be firm as they are not mandatory.
Then tip as you wish per se.
You Don't Have to Pay Gratuities on THESE 10 Cruise Lines - Emma Cruises
On most cruise lines, an automatic gratuity is added to your onboard account to cover staff tips. Increasingly, cruise lines are including gratuities in the cruise fare. I’ve cruised with a number of lines that include gratuities, and I much prefer this. In this post, we will look at the cruise...
emmacruises.com
Just out of principle I remove gratuities, we were on the QM2 quite recently and other than a handful of staff the service was horrendous.
Why choose the QM2 if service was horrible? Many better brands out there.
To be honest I worded that very poorly. This was my second time on the ship, the first time was brilliant and the staff excellent, the second time the service was very poor at the start and then it got better after day 2/3.
The ship otherwise was brilliant and truly iconic.
We do like to cruise with Royal Caribbean, and we are booked in for their new Icon class ship (Star of the Seas) in April 2026 from Port Canaveral.
7-day itinerary covering Coco Bay (their private island), St Marteen, and St Thomas.
Then we immediately finish off the cruise with a 6-week vacation in Orlando.
We always, always, always take off the gratuity. One quick visit to Guest Services in the middle/end of one of the sea days, and they sort it out.
The rumor is that guest services tell your Cabin Steward if you do this and your service gets impacted....not sure if its true...so I try and do it as late as possible.
They add $18.50 per day per person if I remember correctly so for a family of four, looking at over $500 for the trip! We normally leave cash in an envelope in our room on our last day.
7-day itinerary covering Coco Bay (their private island), St Marteen, and St Thomas.
Then we immediately finish off the cruise with a 6-week vacation in Orlando.
We always, always, always take off the gratuity. One quick visit to Guest Services in the middle/end of one of the sea days, and they sort it out.
The rumor is that guest services tell your Cabin Steward if you do this and your service gets impacted....not sure if its true...so I try and do it as late as possible.
They add $18.50 per day per person if I remember correctly so for a family of four, looking at over $500 for the trip! We normally leave cash in an envelope in our room on our last day.
We've had the option (with NCL) to pre-pay our service gratuity. I assume this is what you're talking about here?
Yes, sorry if it wasn't clear, service gratuity.
RC also has the option of pre-paying. If you don't they add it to your sailing account automatically when you complete the boarding process.
Personally love cruises, we did a 12-day cruise last year with RC (Italy, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus) and thoroughly enjoyed it.
However, 12 days did feel a little too long......7 days seems to be the sweet spot for us as a family.
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