Considering 1st Time Cruise

Looking to try something different, but we are totally out of the loop when it comes to cruises. Our usual standards are first quality everything--food, wine, fellow travelers and accomodations. If money were not totally an object (were it not, a charter would be an option) is there a line out of the US where we could do less than a full week--even a long weekend--where would you steer us? I assume that a no-kids policy is not a reality, but a line with few to none would be a plus. Can this be done?

I'm not sure about length of cruise or itineraries but if you are looking for cruise luxury you can look at Seabourn or Radisson Seven Seas.

Generally luxury cruises tend to be on the longer side, so you might have trouble finding something quick. Seaborn is a good option if you like small ships. Radisson and Crytal are the 2 big luxury cruise lines. All 3 lines have poor kids facilities so you tend to see less kids onboard.

I did a quick search, and I found a 4 night cruise out of Florida:

http://www.rssc.com/voyage/details.jsp?code=VOY061130

Cheers

Seabourn for 4 days, $1595.

http://www.seabourn.com/PlanYourCrui...Region=8&Club=

Or do a week for $2298.

http://www.seabourn.com/PlanYourCrui...Region=8&Club=

Thanks, looks like the right time at a decent price.

I agree about Radisson and Crystal as well as Seabourn and Silversea. (Been on the first two several times.)

Good food is a relative term. The top cruise lines have very good food, but it would probably be only about a 20-22 in Zagat. Not bad at all, but not the French Laundry either. The service and decor is closer to 30 on these lines.

We definitely prefer the smaller ships due to shorter lines, particularly for getting on and off the ship. The worst sitaution we had was on one of the 6 star lines, Costa Rica to LA, where we picked up a bunch of locals in Acapulco, and thus immigation in the US took forever. We barely caught our flight.

If you've never cruised, you might also be satisfied with a 5 star line like HAL (which offers several short cruises out of Seattle). It's kinda like flying, the first time I flew coach, it was OK, but once you get in F, you don't want to go back. Our first cruise was a 3 star, and that was fine, and we've gradually worked our way up to 6 stars, and won't be going back.

Check CruiseCritic.com, and get a room with a private balcony.

I highly recomment Radisson (now called Regent). Our first cruise was on Radisson in Tahiti. We are going on another longer Regent cruise this summer from Dover to Monte Carlo.

I would recommend visiting www.luxurycruisetalk.com
You'll get some great info on the high end lines.

Enjoy!

I'm a neophyte also. But I finally took the plunge and booked us a transatlantic passage on the QM2 for next summer. Although often people tell me they like the different ports of call, I think I'd prefer to be on the boat and enjoy the amenities. It'll get us to Europe and we can go from there.

So I'll have to report in about 14 months!

Just remember Cunard is a very traditional liner, which means very formal. Formal night mean tux (black or white) for man , woman in ball gown. Informal night mean suit & tie for man, woman in pant suit or dresses. Dress code are enforced on ship starting dinner time. We went on QE2 3yrs ago for a 10days Cannary Island cruise. Husband said he will not go on another cruise again if he has to wear suit/tie for dinner for more than 2 nights of his vacation (we had 3 formal & 4 informals). Next year, we went to Tahiti the with RSSC, casual all the way.

I heard the transaltantic crossing is even worst (3nts formal and the rest informal) because they expect you have time to dressed up

You can also get good deals on transatlantic cruises because

i) flight arrangements get expensive
ii) little / no port days
iii) 10+ straight days on a ship

Cheers

We took our first cruise this year, it was a charter on HAL, and we really enjoyed it. It was a blues cruise, with a number of well known and lesser known musicians on board, so the entertainment was fabulous. There were very few children on board, again because of the nature of the cruise.

the site is: www.bluescruise.com


The cruise is more informal than a typical HAL cruise (no formal nights). The food was wonderful, as was the service. We particularly enjoyed our daily room service breakfast in bed.

I definitely recommend the balcony type cabin, we spent lots of time hanging out on the balcony and really enjoyed it. We toured a suite, and were not sure that it would be worth the additional money. And of course there are those who take the interior windowless cabin because they don't spend any time there anyway.

ms. birdstrike and I did a repositioning cruise on the Dawn Princess, SFO to YVR, for just the reason you suggest. Short cruise, two nights, few children.

Turns out Princess is a middle-of-the-road line, but acceptable. I doubt that any ship with 900+ pax could really compare to a good land-based restaurant for food, but it was OK. The shops, casino, formal nights, and nightclubs were a bust for us. The entertainment was, well, entertaining.

Cost was something like $300/pp for two nights.

I'm sure there were fellow travellers who would have made fascinating partners, but how would we find them out of many hundreds of people?

We used up the ship in about four hours then settled in to the balcony to read and whalewatch. There was a surprising amount of wildlife that I'll bet 99% of the ship never saw.

So, mega-ships? Never again. Our next cruise is aboard the 70 passenger Sea Lion on Alaska's Inside Passage.

I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time on that boat @:-)