choices of cruise selections
 

My spouse and I are recently retired. We love cruising. We've been on eight as of now. We have booked one for this fall(Carnival);four next year-Royal Caribb,Carnival;Celebrity -Solstice.I have two questions(a)Do most folks pick the itinerary, then cruise line or do they pick the cruise line and then where they want to go(b)Using travel agents- or go direct to Cruise line.?

We pick a location. Did like large ship cruising so stick with Star Clipper or OAT small boats or a River Boat.

Generally we pick by itinerary then cruise line. Advantage of a TA is incentives they will give you that the cruise line will not.

We pick by both price and ship. We've been cruising for 20 years, 50++ cruises so have been to just about every port. There are some ports we are tired of - Cozumel, all of Jamacia and even Cayman. We much perfer the Southern or Easter Caribean. Best prices so far was $299, 7 days, deck 9, BALCONY and Princess, 10 days, deck 9, inside (who cares?) for $449!

We definitely cruise for the itinerary, buy there are certainly some lines we prefer over others.

There are only cruise lines that we would cruise on (of the affordable ones that is) and they are HAL, Princess and Celebrity. After 50 cruises and trying the others (Carnival, NCL and Royal Caribbean) these three are our favourites. We then look for the itinerary we want and go with one of them.

bonniejas, you said
"We've been cruising for 20 years, 50++ cruises so have been to just about every port."

but then you go on to say your favorite is southern or eastern Caribbean ??? With 50+ cruises I'd love to hear about some of your other favorite ports that are NOT in the Caribbean. Did you like the South African ports such as Cape Town or Asian ports (mostly interested in Dubai in UAE or Shanghai) ?? I'd love to hear about your other favorite ports that are NOT in the Caribbean. I want to branch out to other parts of the world other than Caribbean or Mediterranean (we've also been around Australia and New Zealand).

Have you gone on an around the World Cruise ?

I'm doing in this order:

1) pick where we want to go

2) pick out the dates that don't interfere with my work

3) check all itineraries, prices, length, to narrow down the choices

4) see which cabins are available - important for me

This almost automatically solves the problem of choosing the cruise line :) I am not loyal to any line.

HTBug: Its a violation of Fodors policy to post ads for you own business.
To the OP:
1. Itinerary
Then its a toss up as to ship and cruiseline. I haven't done NCL nor plan to. After that, all things being equal then I would go with the ship that appeals to me the most.

1. We select a geographical location and length of cruise (length of time is always fixed based on amount of time we can get away).

2. We look at the various itineraries within that region, narrowing them down based on ports visited, the length of time in each port, and the exact schedule in port (if 2 ships are in port for the same # of hours, but one is in from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the other is in from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., we'd tend toward the latter since we don't get up that early!).

3. If the itinerary that best fits the above is on a cruise line and ship that seems like we would like (I do research on cruisecritic.com), and is in our budget, then our selection is made.

Of course if we suddently see a fantastic "deal" that fits most of our criteria, we might choose that instead. :-)

Carole

Clarification on #2 above re: port times... we select based on which specific cruise stays the MOST hours in the ports (very important to us since we always have some type of (non-ship sponsored) excursion), but try to find one that doesn't get in too early. It's tough trying to get my husband and our teens up too early while on vacation!

We generally opt to cruise the Caribbean as we prefer land trips overall and cruise primarily for the onboard experience.

Since the ship is the reason we cruise, it is the first consideration.

Hello kfusto. How are you? Can I ask a question? We cruised on the AOS recently and loved the ship. All went well but curiously we had no chilled water in our BR sink. I was told by an engineer that the ship had no H2O chillers so what you get in your cabin will more or less reflect the temperature of the sea water. I followed up with the staff alot and this is the answer they came up with as well. All the folks on board I asked about this said the same thing too, no cold H2O in the cabin sinks. There was ample hot H2O for showers. Is this true of all cruise lines? I just don't remember this ever happening B4 or is it peculiar to this ship? Thanks, Larry :-)

To Jacketwatch:

I am not violating any rules as this isn't my business. It's an agent I've used several times and I'm pretty sure this is a travel forum for suggestions and advice to fellow travelers. My agent is super and has put together some great trips for me including cruises. That is why I suggested the link to help a fellow cruiser. There are links all over this forum that is where I got the idea to even place a link.

Sorry but it seems so. Your first posts ALL link to the same site. JM2C.

I hardly get off at ports. I don't use a cruise ship to do my traveling. The ship is the destination. For that reason, I like Royal Caribbean's big ships and the million amenities. Also, I like walking the deck and you get a great workout on the big new ships (as well as an amazing gym)
Only time I get off the ship is to swim in the ocean.

Then I think you should like the new RC Oasis. I sure do. :-)

OOOO we will be on it in Jan 2010. We loved the Freedom last year and booked the Independance for Jan 2009.

Good for you. :-) We just booked a Panama Canal full transit today on the Island Princess. Its amazing how a cruise 9 mos. away is so full already.

Hi Jacketwatch. Enjoy the cruise. I am really dating myself if I tell you that we did our first Panama canal cruise LA to San Juan Puerto Rico in 1976 on the original Island Princess (it was the love boat then). The day of the transit it is really worth going early to get a good table outside on the lido deck and kind of hang out there. and oh yes - go cubbies!!!!