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Looking to book in a cruise for next years family holiday. I've been on a couple in the past off the top of my head it was the celebrity and It went round the red Sea, stopped in Jordan. Got to see the red rose city, valley of the King's and the pyramids and they were fantastic.

Looking to take one in around Europe and wondered if anyone has any suggestions or recommendations? Not fussed on destinations but something suitable for families as I have an 11 year old son.

Thanks

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Each to their own but I could not think of a worse holiday. I like my space. I work at sea we employ catering from the cruse ships. They are paid next to nothing for 5 to 6 month trips so go out their way to get tips. When you go to port there are 50 plus coaches waiting to take you to town , you can't jump on any bus. When you go back to the ship you are searched in the name of security.  If you bought a bottle of alcohol  it will be taken off you. So if it's a pay bar it's expensive.  You more often than not have to share a dinning table with strangers. There are obviously people who love it just not me. 

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I went on one about a year ago with MSC Cruise. Started and ended in Genoa, with stops in Roma, Palermo, Cagliari, Palma, Valencia and Marseille. Cracking time. Would highly recommend. Plenty to keep the kid amused onboard too!

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Each to their own but I could not think of a worse holiday. I like my space. I work at sea we employ catering from the cruse ships. They are paid next to nothing for 5 to 6 month trips so go out their way to get tips. When you go to port there are 50 plus coaches waiting to take you to town , you can't jump on any bus. When you go back to the ship you are searched in the name of security.  If you bought a bottle of alcohol  it will be taken off you. So if it's a pay bar it's expensive.  You more often than not have to share a dinning table with strangers. There are obviously people who love it just not me. 


My first one was when I was 21 and I loved every second of it and the staff couldn't have been more helpful. It was called the red Sea magic. I loved all the excursions that it had to offer and a great way to meet me new people. Granted at the captains dinner I did have a 60 year old posh woman teach me to eat soup correctly because I reminded her of her grandson [emoji23][emoji23] we went all inclusive and it was only and extra £149 pp which was a good deal and as it was a British ship it was all branded spirits and lagers with the only exception being bottled water. We had a whole night at sea and I used it as a perfect excuse to be at the casino, I won more than the holiday cost lol.

Just want my son to experience different types of holidays and take in places he may not see otherwise.
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  • 2 months later...

We went on a Baltics cruise in 2015 with Royal Caribbean, Brilliance of the Seas. It was fantastic. 

Left from Southampton, stopped at Copenhagen, Tallinn, stayed overnight in St Petersburg, onto Helsinki, Stockholm and Skagen then back to Southampton. We went with our two teenagers and everyone loved it. 

The only place I wouldn't rush back to would be Helsinki, but the weather that day was horrendous, so we maybe didn't have the best experience there. 

I wold highly recommend it, but if you go with RC, see if you can get a drinks package included because their drinks are extortionate.

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11 hours ago, Weesiecodal said:

I wold highly recommend it, but if you go with RC, see if you can get a drinks package included because their drinks are extortionate.

We had a 'select' package that was part of the cruise offer, for beer and wine up to $10.  It essentially included all their beers and my missus could get Prosecco and other sparkling wine too (although there were much more expensive options).

My other half ordered a vodka+orange once, which wasn't included in the plan and cost her $12.

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20 minutes ago, bunglebonce said:

 

My other half ordered a vodka+orange once, which wasn't included in the plan and cost her $12.

I bought my son his first legal drink on board this year and it was  almost $11. That also add18% gratuity whether you like it or not. If you can get a package included when you book, it's well worth it, but I have a suspicion that they might be doing away with those

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  • 2 years later...

Heading off on cruise in October for a week.

Barcelona, Ajaccio, Genoa, La Spezia, Civitaveccia, Cannes, Palma and finish back at Barcelona.

Anybody recommend anything interesting to get up to in any of the places? I’ll probably do Rome when we are in Civitaveccia.

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18 minutes ago, Mitch said:

Heading off on cruise in October for a week.

Barcelona, Ajaccio, Genoa, La Spezia, Civitaveccia, Cannes, Palma and finish back at Barcelona.

Anybody recommend anything interesting to get up to in any of the places? I’ll probably do Rome when we are in Civitaveccia.

Just check if its fancy dress friendly

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13 hours ago, Mitch said:

Heading off on cruise in October for a week.

Barcelona, Ajaccio, Genoa, La Spezia, Civitaveccia, Cannes, Palma and finish back at Barcelona.

Anybody recommend anything interesting to get up to in any of the places? I’ll probably do Rome when we are in Civitaveccia.

 

Barcelona is obviously a tourist hot-spot that many posters on here will have been to, and will have their own recommendations. I will offer up a couple of wee things. La Rambla is bookended by Place de Catalunya at one end, and the waterfront at the other. Next to Place de Catalunya is a big department store - El Corte Ingles. On the very top floor is an excellent cafe / buffet style restaurant. Great place for lunch. Anything from a coffee and pastry to a full meal. Wrap-around picture windows offer great views of the city.

Down at the waterfront end, a new shopping complex hosts an excellent Barca’ shop, and is worth a stroll around. The Illy coffee shop on the ground floor does a nice cappucino and is ideal for a break from all the walking around.

In regard to cruises, me and the missus’ have done a lot of them. Favourites have been Australia to New Zealand on Celebrity, and two trans-Atlantic cruises, one on the Carnival Vista, then did it again on the Carnival Horizon. Carnival build their ships in Europe, so do one-off Atlantic crossings on ships which are brand-new, so everything is shiny, there’s hardly any kids, but they sell out so there’s a good atmosphere. The six days at sea in the middle of the cruise I thought might be a bit samey, but turned out they were great. Loved doing the Atlantic crossing so much that we are booked again, on their latest new ship, the Carnival Mardi Gras in 2020.

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53 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

Next to Place de Catalunya is a big department store - El Corte Ingles. On the very top floor is an excellent cafe / buffet style restaurant. Great place for lunch. Anything from a coffee and pastry to a full meal. Wrap-around picture windows offer great views of the city.

 

I would second that. El Corte Inglés is all over Spain and Portugal. I think the best one we were in was in Lisbon where they had some extra wee food franchises as well, including a tapas restaurant. However some of them don't have any food at all.

Like a lot of people, me and Mrs Mantis have never fancied a cruise but everybody raves about them once they've been. We've got a big anniversary this year so we're doing a Hurtigruten trip in October, to Norway, one of those Northern Lights Classic things. Thing is, it's not really a cruise as Hurtigruten is more like Calmac 😂

But we're starting from Bergen as we don't fancy 2-3 days at sea which all the British-based ones do. Looked at the likes of Fred Olsen for the Baltic cruises, but a lot of them leave from Southampton or Liverpool which seems to defeat the purpose for me, while the Rosyth ones have a very limited choice.

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33 minutes ago, The Mantis said:

Thing is, it's not really a cruise as Hurtigruten is more like Calmac 😂

My folks did it and loved it. You get crowds of schoolkids coming on to head off to school at the next stop, and the like. Bit of real life rather than everyone on holiday. I've been looking for any trips starting at Invergordon which is a major stop for Northern cruises, but nothing found as yet,

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  • 1 month later...
On 19/11/2016 at 14:14, Demented Zebra said:

Each to their own but I could not think of a worse holiday. I like my space. I work at sea we employ catering from the cruse ships. They are paid next to nothing for 5 to 6 month trips so go out their way to get tips. When you go to port there are 50 plus coaches waiting to take you to town , you can't jump on any bus. When you go back to the ship you are searched in the name of security.  If you bought a bottle of alcohol  it will be taken off you. So if it's a pay bar it's expensive.  You more often than not have to share a dinning table with strangers. There are obviously people who love it just not me. 

Jesus Christ that sounds bad but was that normal for that year as I've just had my first cruise, and yeah, its my first and not normally the type of holiday that would interest me.
it was fantastic / amazing,.

I took a Mediterranean cruise with the MSC Seaview it can take about 5500, I got a good deal with a big room, all inclusive drinking and food package. Out of the 7 nights there was one night where you felt a slight sway but all in all in the bedroom you would not think you were at sea.  We stopped off a shores to go and explore, think we used the schedule coaches twice, the rest of the times we just did our own thing and explore the local city or town. We took one of the ships tours which was of Vatican City and so glad we did, it was well worth it and if we did it ourselves it would have been a nightmare. bringing drink and food back on was never a problem and we were allowed to take as much drink with us on our tours when we left the cruise ship, water and juice and as much food, sandwiches, fruit etc.... You never share a restaurant unless you pick the restaurant where they do seat you at a table next to other unknown guests but its by choice and was only at 1 restaurant.

 

Would I do it again, hell yeah
Would I happily recommend going on a cruise, hell yeah
I suppose the experience of the ship as amazing so picking the right ship and cruise package does matter, we just struck it lucky as it all fell into place 

We started at Barcelona, Went to Ajaccio, Genoa, La Spezia, Civitavecchia, Cannes, Palma de Mallorca, and then back to Barcelona, 

It was amazing

Edited by Bestsinceslicebread
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Detested the thought of cruising but 11 yrs ago cruised Alaska while we were in Vancouver and absolutely loved it.  Since then have done over 20 and currently doing 3 per year.  Do not mock it until you try it but unfortunately for experienced cruisers they can see that standards are falling as cruise lines fight each other for bookings. Great way to see places waking up in a different port each day.  You do not have to do ship tours there are many sites where you can hire local guides at a fraction of the ship cost.

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1 hour ago, Moonglum25 said:

Detested the thought of cruising but 11 yrs ago cruised Alaska while we were in Vancouver and absolutely loved it.  Since then have done over 20 and currently doing 3 per year.  Do not mock it until you try it but unfortunately for experienced cruisers they can see that standards are falling as cruise lines fight each other for bookings. Great way to see places waking up in a different port each day.  You do not have to do ship tours there are many sites where you can hire local guides at a fraction of the ship cost.

Thing that put me off cruises was seeing 7 coachloads arriving at Skara Brae in Orkney from a ship. Turned from a peaceful place to wander about with no queues to absolute bedlam. I'd imagine it would be the same whenever your ship stops somewhere fairly small.

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30 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Thing that put me off cruises was seeing 7 coachloads arriving at Skara Brae in Orkney from a ship. Turned from a peaceful place to wander about with no queues to absolute bedlam. I'd imagine it would be the same whenever your ship stops somewhere fairly small.

Maybe not possible there, but what you do is. Watch where all the organised trips go, then head in the opposite direction.

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I posted a while back that, like many others have said, me & the Mrs never fancied cruising, until we tried it out of Miami on a short trip to the Caribbean. Was fantastic, so we kept doing it. Alaska was amazing, as was Australia to New Zealand. To get to cruise out of Sydney harbour and see Melbourne, Hobart, The New Zealand sounds, Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Napier, Bay of Islands, and Auckland - how else would we have been able to do all of that? Sure, you only get one day in each place, but with advance planning, you can get to see the things that really interest you in each place. In Melbourne for example, we got to explore the city centre, see the MCG and all the sports stadiums, walk the Yarra riverwalk, and many other things. 

The increase in popularity of cruising can see multiple ships arrive in the one place, and yes, it can get a bit mental, but you just need to take a deep breath and even in busy ports, we have managed fine. You simply cannot complain about it being busy - it’s busy because others are simply wanting to do what you are doing. If you aren’t prepared for a bit of queuing, being herded around a port a bit, then don’t go on a cruise. It will be busy, accept it and chill out.

The locals, in certain places, are the ones being affected. Venice being a prime example. Cruising isn’t the sole area where some places are getting mobbed though. What about Skye now complaining that there’s too much tourism? Edinburgh? London? Over recent years, Las Vegas has just gone crazy, and it was crazy enough to start with. Not many cruise ships dock at Fremont Street!

Like Las Vegas, cruising is either a love it or hate it experience. Our experience is that once onboard, everyone chills out. You are all literally ‘in the same boat’, and there’s a finite amount of bars, restaurants and whatever, so everyone just seems to be in no rush, and happy to just sit and read a book, look out to sea or sit nursing a beer before popping up in a new place the next day.

We currently have a trans-Atlantic cruise booked, and a Hawaii one booked. Can’t wait. I thought I would absolutely hate cruising, before I did one.

Edited by pozbaird
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