Adelle, Royal Olympic are doing a 55-day cruise next year starting in Los Angeles adn ending in Ft. Lauderdale on their new Explorer. The information will come out in June they told me. Orient Lines also have an itinerary as well as Norwegian. (both shorter trips)

We sailed the Ryndam from San Diego to Rio last fall. Nice shipk, good, (but after 32 days got monotonous--lots of repeat menus), seems they have cut back on staff--log waits for your dinner in dining room, ) and the shore excursions were pretty hectic, long waits in lounge to announce your number, waits for the proper bus, wait to get lunch, see sights, etc. just too many people to handle. And we never really did get to mix with any locals, probably due to increase security concerns. Excursions, with one or two exceptions,were over expensive by our judgement...lots of feeling of being 'herded' about. However, the ship was very nice, rooms were nice (we had an outside room with balcony which was fine for us). Casino slots paid very, very little--only a few 'die hards' came every evening. Personally, I have had a better time on Princess--I liked the Royal..We sailed here up the coast of Norway two years ago. I didn't notice any actual 'decay' altho the ship was older. Guess I could say I prefer Princess, for these and other reasons.