Cruising costs

I know, but the dressing up was, as was fighting through the crowds to get to the restaurant

I suppose it depends what you call dressing up? Wearing a lounge suit once or twice during a cruise I didn't find a particular hardship as until I retired that was my normal work dress for 46 years!!! The ladies usually love the idea of dressing up.  Bigger trouble was find a suit that still fitted

As I think I mentioned before our last cruise was on the Britannia which has a passenger capacity of 4324 and I can honestly say that at no point on the cruise did I find it crowded anywhere. The crew do go to some lengths to make sure everything is organised well.

We would like to try a River Cruise but for us it's not as convenient as, say, leaving from Southampton as we don't fly or do coaches so it would mean a long overland journey to get to the departure point. I suppose with more direct rail services from London it might become a possibility in the future. One of my son's use the new London to Marseille route about a week ago for work.

David

I call dressing up wearing a suit and tie David. When working my ties lived in my drawer and, a I hate a tie, were worn for public enquiries, exhibitions, meetings etc. Never generally in the office nor on site. Latest suit bought 6 or more years ago. Worn to one wedding and one funeral. 

OH has always had to "dress" for work, either uniforms or suits, since retiring he has only worn suits for wedding, funerals and cruises. The choice is yours you don't have to dress up, choose your cruise company and destination with care and you should enjoy it. For what it is worth spend some time with a travel agent asking as many questions as you can, you don't have to book through them but they have lots of knowledge, check out forums there are lots out there. 

We have never had to fight our way through crowds, not even in the self service restaurant which is usually the busiest place, certainly on an American ship.

I've looked at river cruises but by comparison they seem to be be very expensive, we did the Nile cruise 21 years ago and while the itinerary was fabulous and the crew very friendly and fun sadly the food was not up to much, maybe things have changed now. The Danube would be my choice if I was to do a river cruise.

The DCOS wants to go cruising, so I guess that we will do so before long, but I really hate the look of those floating blocks of flats that you see today.

I would prefer something more the size of the old P&O liners of the 50's and 60's.  The idea of something anywhere near 4,000 passengers puts me off immediately.

There was a programme on TV recently featuring smaller ships specialising in visiting less commercial destinations where the smaller size & draft of those ships allowed them to get in places that bigger cruise ships could not.  That more my idea of proper cruising, not the blocks of flats style.

TF

Have you looked at the cruises which leave from Bristol TF? Much smaller ships, I would like to join one of those in the future. I see the Marco Polo is one of the ships.

Yes True, I have noted them and they do look good. Strangely enough they featured very favourably in the TV series that I made note of above. The Marco Polo is over 40 years old now, yet still has a very good reliability record. The programme suggested that as it was Russian `built the machinery was a bit "agricultural" but as a result was easily repaired by the ships own engineers and as a result kept a very good record serviceability.

I quite fancy St Petersburg, and Norwegian Fiords. 

TF

Quite a few of the smaller ships have been converted, we travelled on a refurbished north sea ferry. Very nice conversion. I wouldn't go on the Matthew....

My grandparents sailed to Shetland and Fair Isle on the Balmoral, interesting to see it in Bristol harbour.

 I would prefer something more the size of the old P&O liners of the 50's and 60's. The idea of something anywhere near 4,000 passengers puts me off immediately.

I really don't think you need to worry. Bigger ships, more space for passengers to spread out also likely better facilities onboard. P&O do have some smaller ships in their fleet and even have adults only ships!!!

David

smaller can be very nice....we went on the Adonia (the smallest P&O ship) a few years ago, it carries only 710 guests.....very intimate, great cruise.

also done the really large boats, liked that too....we like cruising