WeCruiseToo

It’s nice to see a different (and somewhat more realistic) side to this story. How much you wanna bet this side of the story sees a lot less coverage in the press than the much more negative things we’ve heard before?

Our longest time aboard ship so far has been ten nights to the Mexican Riviera, but we have done an eleven night Alaska cruise-tour. If you count pre- and post-cruise hotel stays and long international flights, our second river cruise through France was a full two week trip. That’s really as much time as we can afford to take away from work at any one stretch right now, but someday I’m sure we’ll take a much longer cruise!

No way we could go for that long either! I was more looking at the 14-day options.

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Sounds good Michelle, but we’ve already got a few things planned for this year. Have a great cruise!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Thanks Howard. Would you recommend any of the MSC ships you’ve sailed on over the others?

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Welcome to CruiseCrazies! We all love cruising and this is a great place for help planning your next trip and talking about past adventures!

Wow, lots of wonderful itineraries here! Of course we want to sail all of them, but if I had to pick just one I’d go with Scandinavia and Russia! If you could pick only one, what would it be?

Our 20th wedding anniversary is next year. The traditional gift for 20 years is china, but we don’t have any interest in dishes. Maybe we should think about a cruise that includes China… It might make for a good story! Anyone have any stories about cruising in Asia?

We always travel with our passports. Even just flying within the US it seems like you get through security a little quicker with a passport. Many of our friends assume our passports have tons of stamps because we’ve been so many places. We have to explain that you don’t get a stamp at each port on a cruise, so we’ve only got a few stamps in ours. Any of you frequent travelers ever have to add pages because you’ve filled your passport? Are there any stamps in your passport that you’re particularly “proud” of?

Hi Carol. The cruise lines would never take you to a port where you have to stay on the ship – they’ll change the itinerary before stopping somewhere unsafe. That being said, there are ports (like Belize) where you really should take an organized shore excursion, be it ship sponsored or third party. Cozumel is definitely not one of those ports – we’ve been there ten times so far. Our favorite place to go is Paradise Beach: pool, beach, facilities, food, drinks, free WiFi – all top-notch! We haven’t been to Montego Bay yet but we’ve been to other ports in Jamaica five times without any real issues. Yeah, some of the vendors can be pushy. Smile and say “no thanks” – be polite but firm – they’ll move on to someone else in no time. And, no matter where you travel, you should always be aware of your surroundings but never let that detract from enjoying your vacation!

We don’t make a whole lot of repeat visits to the specialty restaurants but we do like to give them a try (never more than one or two per cruise though). We highly recommend Qsine – it’s a dining experience that’s both delicious and fun – but you really need to be in a small group to enjoy it fully (a couple won’t get to try enough different dishes). Also, Bistro on Five is highly underrated – I think the $5.00 just guarantees they aren’t too crowded all day long.

Wow – everyone has some great trips coming up! Happy cruising!