Help advice on Cruising

premiertravel

FH Brit I own property in florida and have been on the carnival 4 nighters never again they are party cruises, and I have spoken in length to carnival and they admit that the 4 nighters are for the US market and are called party cruises and the US demand shorter cruises as they do not get long holidays. Would not recommend it for OAP's!

FH_Brit

Premiertravel - we haver been on many (6 in 2009) and your problem is perhaps Carnival. Try using Royal Carribean (we always use theirs as we get the upgrades for loyalty).

RC still have Formal Nights, and everything - not saying there are not young partygoers but it deffinately is not a youngster party boat and perhaps a lot less than Carnival.

FH_Brit

Anyone interested - I'll give you my Travel Agent's e-mail - she will be glad to help you guys if you want to do a Florida/US starting cruise.

Just drop me a Private Message.

If you drop my name she may do you a deal - maybe but it's worth a try!

premiertravel

Chrissy Celebrity are lovely ships they are classed as white glove service and have some new ships.
Royal Carribean lots of families due to the amenities onboard.
Costa and MCS find majority are Italians and that had caused a problem with the UK market.

Holland American are the same great service but do not sail from the Uk they did a couple last year and were looking into it.

Crystal cruises they are offering some great onboard spends of $1000 upwards per cabin.

We have allocation of cabins on certain Fred Olsen cruises so have been given prferential rates that are not available to other agents but the ships are normally for the older people. Majority of people are retired. But good service very spacious cabins and was give a tip by the rep on the cabins and allocation.

You do have to think also about the cabn you want ie outside, balcony etc.

chrissy21_2

Thanks everyone its a real minefield trying to pick the right one.

Seems that cruises are popular this year.

I think if we didn't have the OAP's with us we would defo go for the US cruises but travelling to Southampton has its appeal. The prices for the US one's seem really good though.

I really want a good cabin pref balcony or similar but don't want a party cruise maybe I need to rethink my budget?

forumfan_2

I have travelled on P&O almost every year since 2001 and have enjoyed every ship I have been on. You really need to establish what you want out of a cruise and P&O seem to tick most of the boxes for us.

They also have a number of ships that are child free so this may be ideal since you have two OAPs with you

You could probably get a 11-14 cruise for £1500 p/p (I'm assuming that you only want 2 people per cabin) but it would be a fairly basic cabin - you would need to spend approx £1800 p/p for a balcony

I find that booking with a travel agent tends to work out cheaper than booking directly through P&O