Thanks!!
My niece’s husband makes those ferries! (He’s a welder and supervisor)
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We are looking to go with friends on a cruise next year and I am hoping folks here have some ideas.
What we want: 6-8 night cruise, with minimal sea days. Interesting ports - no Caribbean itineraries. Preferably in May 2025.
We were thinking somewhere in Europe - but a few of us have been to most mediterranean ports. Most interesting itineraries that include spain/portugal or the canary islands seem to be at least 10, if not 12 days long.
Alternatives seem to be Greek Isles or Norwegian Fjords. Failing that - a Viking river cruise on the Danube or the Rhine.
Has anyone been on one of these? Any feedback? How’s May for these options?
In 2012 we did a Western Med cruise on Norwegian, starting/ending in Barcelona. It was fine for our purposes, first “sampler” trip to Europe. But some of the ports were very far from our touring, long/pricey shore excursions.
Unless you just love those massive ships for some reason, I’d suggest some YouTube browsing on different voyages - look up small ship cruising: SeaDream less than 100 passengers, giant yacht), Windstar Cruises (both sail @ less than 200 and yacht @ less than 300), Viking Ocean at 900 but all suites with balconies. YouTube channel with lots of passenger cruise reviews, also travel agents but individual travelers can give you a better perspective. They go everywhere around the globe but maybe not the month you want to go. Europe in the summer is HOT - March/April or Oct/November is less people and cooler. Edit: to say my husband and I are going on the Viking Grand European River Cruise in October 2025 for our 40th anniversary. My brother has only done SeaDream yacht trips around the Mediterranea (think dropping the back of the boat and sea do in the Med).
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When I visited my studying-abroad daughter in France in 2019, I did a river cruise with Road Scholar. I was almost the youngest participant; those younger than I were the ones traveling with a parent. I really enjoyed the program itself, the “life long learner” vibe, the flexibility to pick and choose group activities and choose your own pace, and the great tour guides. It was funny to look at the safeguards they have to build into the boats - a multi-step button system to open the doors from the lobby so that drunken people can’t stumble out unwittingly and fall in the river - and to think how great it was to be with a group for whom that really wasn’t needed! OTOH, I feel as if the Road Scholar staff (not the ones on the tour with you, but the ones setting everything up) get a little too comfortable with being paternalistic toward their clientele - every question seemed to elicit a “There, there, don’t worry, Grandma” attitude, when in fact my questions turned out to have been very good ones that they should, in fact, have taken seriously. For example, I didn’t like the timing of their outbound group flights, so I got my own and booked an extra night at the destination to have more recovery/adjustment time. The next morning, the group flight showed up at the crack of dawn, and the hotel lobby was festooned with exhausted senior travelers slumped in uncomfortable chairs for the entire day until their rooms became available in the late afternoon. If I’d believed the “There, there, don’t you worry, we take care of everything” attitude, I’d have been slumped among them.
My mother did more than 50 Elderhostel trips in her day, so I felt a certain attachment, and I would consider traveling with them again, but I definitely wouldn’t be too trusting, and wouldn’t hesitate to second-guess anything that seemed poorly thought out.
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We did the Viking Grand European River Cruise last May. If you want the least sea days, a river cruise will be perfect. New city everyday.
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Agree, we’ve done 2 European river cruises. You may have a casual ‘sea morning’ or’ sea afternoon’, but they’re kinda nice, as you are on the go so much, having a couple of hours to chill is appreciated.
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Has anyone done a Celebrity cruise around the Galapagos? I had dinner with a couple last weekend and they highly recommended it. Looks pretty pricey, but I’m hoping they have deals. I was thinking if we did the Galapagos we would do a smaller boat, but they had wonderful things to say about the Celebrity cruise.
We will be going in a few months. We have friends who went to the Galapagos on the Celebrity Flora and loved it. Feel free to PM me if you’d like to discuss.
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I’ve seen a couple of good YouTube videos on Galapagos expeditions - could be one of them was Celebrity as they do have some small ships for those trips. Videos are helpful to get idea of ships and ports.
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Has anyone sailed the Queen Mary 2?
Read a review of a cruise on the Flora to the Galapagos. Amazing pictures, the author had a fabulous time. It is expensive - about 10K per person, but all inclusive. And the ships are small - much smaller than the typical Celebrity ships and only have suites.
I did read though that the Flora has been sold by Celebrity - so they will likely be using a different ship for this itinerary soon.
Galapagos is on our wish-list…
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I do not think the Flora has been sold – however, Celebrity’s two smaller Galapagos ships will be renovated and become part of the Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic line.
I hope this is the case as we have a trip booked on the Flora. FWIW the Flora is the largest sized ship permitted in the Galapagos (100 people I believe).
Our family did an eastbound crossing on the QM2 in 2013. We enjoyed it, but of course it’s been 11 years so I’m not up to date on it.
Thanks!
I live in SoCal and have stayed in the Queen Mary hotel (the original Queen Mary) several times as a local getaway and think an ocean crossing or a New England/Canada cruise on the QM2 would be a lot of fun. But I’ve never cruises before so not really sure!
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