Woody14

I could not imagine any cruise company wanting to take people through the Suez at the moment with all going on there.

generally speaking when you arrive in ports it will take about 30 minutes to get cleared and set up for you to get off the ship. Back on board time is also generally 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Out of curiosity what line have you sailed on that lists the time you will get off and back on with the itinerary? I ask as every cruise line I have sailed it is always the port arrival and departure times.

I am definitely in the no sing group. Generally it is just family I travel with but I am hoping to expand that but so far I have not found the right people to travel with. What the right people look like .... I am still trying to figure out. Ironically I am doing a cruise out of Rome this summer and after the trip we are spending a couple of weeks after the cruise touring part of euroupe which includes a bit of Germany/Austria time and my family has booked a sound of music tour.

no to karaoke for my crowd but sing along ABBA or Sound of Music and there is no holding them back. They are more the large group singers than the solo stuff that karaoke would bring.

The bigger ships are going to have to. With that size limit it will only be the smaller boutique cruises hitting Bar Harbor

Oooh! you are asking a loaded question. Me personally I am not really in to the theme nights so much, but the rest of my family who I travel with are more in to them. their favorites are silent disco and white night. If there is a sing along ABBA night they are in to that too.

try this website https://www.saintgregtravel.com/ he has one of the best lists of the comings and goings on carnival. he has all the shows, cruise directors, piano bar schedules so likely he would have the theme night parties too.

What are your thoughts on best cruise length? I am in the camp of 10-12 days although I have never tried longer than 12.

Would I, very interested. Budget might come in to play on that one. So far the longest cruise I have done is 12 days (really like the 10-12 day range)

Unfortunately for me I am married to a school teacher (who still has a few more years to work) so therefor we can really only travel at a few select times of year. This limits us in a few ways as well as impacts the budget. I would be very interested in a North America to Europe or Australia cruise but they go while school is in session. We are doing something out of the ordinary in we are doing a European Cruise in May but this took 2 years of planning to get the leave from work et all. As for cruise lines. Celebrity is our favourite but is not always budget friendly. Our past cruises have been on Celebrity, Carnival and Royal. The May one is also on Royal. For budget I enjoy MSC as well. As noted previously it is destinations that make the big decisions for us mostly. I generally try to get at least 1 new place on each cruise, must admit this is getting tougher now that I have been to about 50 different ports. There are still a few places left so we can probably do once a year until my wife retires from teaching and then try a few of the off peak times and places.

I am pretty much moving (maybe have moved) in the direction of an annual cruiser. Started cruising in the mid 90's and the first 4 were 5 years apart, then it moved to 2-3 yrs apart and now it is every year (last year actually more than 1). I enjoy cruising a lot but I don't really like going to the same places over and over again so it can be challenging to get the right cruise in the limited budget I am working with. It does not help being on the west coast of Canada so unless I am going to Alaska (done 2x) or Mexico out of LA (also done 2X), there are significant costs for flights to factor in. This years cruise is to Europe and man were the flights is expensive this year.

with the smart elevator you push the button outside the elevator and there are no buttons inside. so it pretty much deters the kids pushing the buttons thing. The big challange for many is that the just get in expecting to push a button and since they can't it causes them grief. they have to go to wherever the elevator is going and then get out go to the panel select where they want to go then wait for the elevator that it tells them to wait for which will go where they want.

I am not sure the 'Dutch way' is always the cheap one but it is definitely value oriented. That said it would not be the Scotsman cheap which several of the people I know of that are Scottish seem to be proud of that part of their heritage.

This is not a new policy there have been hours where it is open to kids since my first cruise on Celebrity in the 1990's

generally drinking ages vary by region you are sailing and cruiseline (to an extent). Sailing out of the US it is 21 but if you are sailing out of Europe, Australia or South America the age is different.