windjammer; amazing grace
 

anyone took a cruise with amazing grace. I will be glad to get an opinion.

Check out the Windjammer bulletin board at this site. Plenty of info there.

http://www.jammerbabe.com

Cruised on the Amazing Grace in March/2003 (13 days - Trinidad to the Bahamas). The pros are that the ship is small and visits islands the larger ships don't and there are less than 100 passengers. The cons are that the ship is old (I think it was built in the 1950's), most cabins are small, and the food/service was not very good. The only thing that saved this cruise for us was the fact we booked Burke's Berth (owner's suite). Loved the idea of sailing on a small ship and will do it again......just not on the Amazing Grace.

Went on the phantom twice. That`s the ship that sunk in a hurricane. Only the crew was on board, and all were lost. Those windjammer ships are self insured. (meaning no insurance) There is a book written about it, too. As I recall, the Amazing Grace is the supply ship, and that would be the last one I would go on.

Many times you can go on a nice cruise line like Star Clipper for about the same price. It might depend on your dates. I would look into them and bypass Windjammer. I had someone on them once and you could either turn the hot water on in the shower or the cold water. Not both at the same time. It is really like camping at sea. Unless of course that is what you are looking for.

Windjammer is not for everyone. I'm leaving Saturday for my 16th and 17th weeks sailing with them so I obviously love it. It is not a luxury line and it's best for all of the other passengers if that is well known before you get on board. Nothing worse than sailing with someone who is upset because they thought they were going to get 13 meals a day, ice sculptures and latte on the Lido deck. If you like sailing, being close to the water, lazy days wandering around a small, uncrowded island (because the big cruise ships can't get in) or just swimming off the side of the ship, T shirts and shorts at dinner and no seating plan, no schedule other than when the ship will sail, and having to walk over to the bar to get your own drink, consider Windjammer. The Amazing Grace is not a sailing ship but a motorized vessel used to supply the other ships in the fleet. A different experience but no doubt still true to the Windjammer tone of laid back and casual.

Sign me up - pegoode's description sounds terrific :)

The book Pat refers to is "The Ship and the Storm" by Jim Carrier. It's available from Amazon and well worth reading--quite fair in its assessment of the Windjammer fleet in general, as well as the unfortunate loss of the Fantome.

Amazing Grace is the sailing fleet's supply ship. Small and laid back, it attracts older passengers who are more interested in floating from island to island in a casual atmosphere than in midnight buffets and jackpot bingo.

For what some would say is a better experience on a small vessel, I suggest looking into Cruise West's Caribbean sailings (Cruise West purchased two of Clipper Cruise Line's small "coastal steamers" not long ago).

Hope that helps.

Linda Coffman
Author, Fodor's The Complete Guide to Caribbean Cruises

FYI-the Grace is out of commission at this time for "extensive repairs". Not sure if she is coming back or not. The ships are currently being supplied by containers instead of the Grace.

I did some research into Cruise West, and it looks like a good line too - just catering to different people. Cruise West looks like mainly the 50+ crowd.