Day 2 – The Nicest People and a Few Obscure Observations

No photos in this blog.  I'll tell you why tomorrow. 

Well, I’ve me the nicest people.  Let’s start with Pam, my roommate.  Pam, her husband Peter, and I met four years ago, sailing through the Panama Canal on a Princess cruise.  They hail from New Zealand -the land of wooly sheep - so they speak with a funny accent and use some expressions we yanks aren’t accustomed to, but those are minor hurdles.  Pam, Peter and I became friends in Cartagena, Colombia and hung about a bit in several ports after that.  Towards  the end of the 16 night sailing it was discovered that Peter’s family was a “bunch of crazy Irishmen”.  His mother’s maiden name was Brady and her family was originally from County Cork, Ireland.  Here’s the thing: MY mother’s maiden was Brady and HER family originally hailed from County Cork, Ireland.  So Peter and I started calling each other cousin. You meet the darndest people on cruise ships.

Long story short, we’ve kept in touch and Pam has come along on this sailing with me.  She’s a great roommate;  adventurous, well-traveled, independent and actually a good influence on me, except when it comes to chocolate desserts.  We each go off and do our own thing, but get together for things we’re both interested in .  She tells me I talk in my sleep, but I’ve been told that many times, unfortunately nobody will tell me what I say. 

I had the honor of sitting  next to a very nice young man on the plane who is in the Air Force but for security reasons could not tell me what he did.  We had a great talk (about non-classified issues) and I thanked him for all he did for our country.  

The counter supervisor at Delta, Angela, deserves a gold star for calming my nerves as much as possible during the non-existing passport incident.  Bless her for keeping her head while I was losing mine.  Apparently it’s a daily occurrence in her line of business.

Our table mates are interesting also, one couple is from  the north of England, and the other is from Australia (I’ve always liked Australians in general).

A few observations:

• Who knew the ship would be so bloody full of Brits?  As an American I guess I just didn’t think about a sailing from Southampton being loaded with Englishmen.  Of course it makes sense, but I just hadn’t considered it.
  
• The carpets on the port side corridors are blue (blue, left, port – all have four letters), and starboard side corridors have red carpeting.  In flower arrangements the top flower points toward the bow of the ship - helps you orient yourself, when you can’t see out a window.  Clever, huh?
  
• The average passenger age on this sailing is 75+.  As many of you know, I live with my 92 year old mother in her retirement village.  This was to be a bit of a break, but I’m afraid it backfired.  I’m the young blood around here and the disco is hardly cranking.
  
• There are a lot less tattoos than I see on Carnival ships.  Or maybe they’ve just faded over time and into the wrinkles.
  
• The hoi-poloi don’t mix with the riff raff. You need to insert your card key in the elevator to go up to the Princess Grill or Queens Grill level suites (which also have their own dining rooms & lounge).  The class systems still exists on Cunard.
  
• Being on deck one I expected to be issued a pair of oars with my card key, but am told I won’t actually have to help row.  Good thing or we’d probably miss a few ports.
  
• Most of the hangars in the closet are “perma hangars” – the kind you slide into a little device on the clothes rod so that people won’t steal the hangars.  I was a little disappointed by this, on the mass market cruise lines I expect it,  I had thought that a 5-star line wouldn’t need to go there.   Makes me want to steal one of the two regular hangers just for spite.  (But I won’t.)  Maybe this only applies in steerage class.  I’ll have to ask around.  Maybe top drawer passengers get real hangars.
  
• Almost the only people gambling in the casino are the few Americans on board.  I’m told that Brits don’t gamble.  (Who knew?)  As usual, I lost – but only $10 so I’ll just consider it a contribution.
  
• No denim in public areas after 6 PM.  Refreshing, but makes for more stuff to pack.
  
• And that’s all I’ve got for today.  There hasn’t been a single belly flop contest or sexy legs or hairy chest contest.  No pool volleyball.  There was, however, a paddle tennis competition, a watercolour art class, and shuffleboard tournament.  Not to mention a ballroom dance class. How genteel.
  
• The view from my treadmill this afternoon was much nicer than at home.

No weird souvenirs yet … this is CUNARD after all. I’m sure I find something soon.

Keep Calm & Sail On.

Missing Sailor!!

Day 1 – Rookie Mistakes

I am by no means the first person to show up at an airline counter without a passport. In fact, it turns out that airline personnel are quite accustomed to this.  I am, however, supposed to know better – but we all make mistakes.  Having the passport case is of no consequence when it’s missing its main component.  Sky miles cards, a vaccination record and some old Bahamian and Hungarian currency are nice, but they won’t get you through customs.  

Rather than being in its rightful place, said document  was in the copy machine where I left it around midnight last night.  

All my paperwork -  tickets, boarding pass, insurance confirmation, itinerary, passport – everything was together in one large, brightly colored envelope, just like I advise my clients to do.  But in a fit  of additional caution last night I decided to make another copy of the passport to put in my suitcase.  In addition to the one in my purse, the one in my carry-on and the one in my desk drawer.   This is not a decision you should make at midnight, when you’re tired, stressed and getting frantic about wrapping up all you need to do before leaving.

The word that escaped me at the check-in counter when I discovered my mistake was supposed to have been eliminated from my vocabulary after an incident at a Harvard club party back in the late 70’s.  Guess it was more deeply rooted than I thought.  

So this is where I was yesterday afternoon:

• Running late for the airport because of a last minute issue with credit card payments for an international client.

•  Trying to book  another client on a 2014 European sailing before promotional pricing expired –in between catching the shuttle from the parking lot and waiting in line to check my luggage.
  
  
• Changing voice mail and e-mail messages to advise that I would be out of town until mid-June.
  
• Standing in front of the Delta counter with an empty passport holder and a shell shocked look of paralysis on my face.

God bless my neighbor Jan, who rescued the passport from my copy machine and drove it to the airport while I counted down the minutes ‘til boarding.  I owe him this “vacation”.

After the adrenaline rush, the fear sweat, the shaking hands  and the self-recrimination I thought I would crash (physically) once I was safely on the plane and on my way.  I’d forgotten just how uncomfortable airline seats are – they defy sleep.

And so I arrived in London – tired, dazed and still harboring concerns about tasks not yet completed.   Things like setting up accounts at a new bank, sending out proper confirmations,  adding insurance to a booking , sending the May newsletter &mailing a congratulations card to a new high school graduate (the card is in my purse, addressed & stamped, but there were no mailboxes on Concourse F in Atlanta).  Lawson, I am going to send it from the ship – might be late, but it was well intended and will probably have a German postmark.

Starting writing the blog on the motor coach from London to Southampton, but spent too much time talking to a lovely couple from Missouri.

The ship is beautiful, the weather in Southampton (the English one, not the New York one) is clear, sunny and warm, to everyone’s great delight and surprise, and the sail-away was stunning.  So picture perfect it was like stepping out of a painting.  The only thing missing is Sailor. 

Hope he is getting lots of walks and lots of treats.

As they say on the Queen Victoria … Keep Calm and Sail On.  Guess I’ll have to buy the T-shirt.

·          

 

When Can You Trust an Online Review?

Hi again, yup it’s me, Sailor.  I just had to write about a review I came across this week.

A client called my Dorothy and asked about going on a Sound of Music cruise that sailed the Danube. My Dorothy & I started to do some digging and found a fair bit of information about Uniworld River Cruises’ “Sound of Music” themed sailings* and also about a river cruise boat named  the MS Sound of Music.  

One of the reviews for the MS Sound of Music was from a passenger who claimed she had just returned from a Danube cruise aboard the MS Sound of Music from Budapest to Amsterdam.  She detailed problems with having the ship meet her dietary requirements, then complained about the passenger mix on board (too many Austrians).  And then …

“One other problem which I encountered was that if the water levels were high, the ship could not go under some of the canal bridges. We were held up for 18 hours at one port. Although efforts were made to bus us to ports en route, we were still late in reaching Amsterdam and we only had rushed and poorly timed tours at Koblenz and Cologne as well as having our activities in Amsterdam curtailed. This was something the ship could not avoid but I can see there being many disappointed river cruisers where the water levels are really high.” (Emphasis added).

Here’s the problem, the Danube doesn’t go to Amsterdam, that would be the Rhine.  Koblenz & Cologne are also located on the Rhine.  Although the author may have had a pre-or post-cruise land extension in Amsterdam, that would not have affected tours to Koblenz and Cologne.  Or perhaps she was actually on a Danube/Main/Rhine river cruise … who knows?

And this is the nature of reviews – you don’t know who wrote them and how accurate they are.  Was that glowing review done by an employee of the company being reviewed?  Was the lousy review written by a competitor?  Here are my (Sailor’s) recommendations: 

• Check the professional reviews like Fodor’s, Frommer’s, etc. – these are written with a more practiced eye.  I especially like Frommer’s because the writers  do not advise the cruise line that they will be on board – thus no special treatment. Other reviewers may be on board courtesy of the cruise line, which will naturally wine & dine them and provide an idyllic experience.

• Look at the whole body of reviews -  if there are a great many of them select a few at random from different pages.  If I am looking at a resort that has over a thousand reviews, usually the general consensus is pretty reliable.

• Check details: recently a client did not want to book a very good resort because one review claimed the bathrooms were open to the bedrooms, no doors.  Now that would be awkward (at least!) for her family trip.  Many of the other reviews from families claimed they loved the resort, everyone had a great time, etc.  But this one review put her off.  This made my nose twitch.  If the bathrooms were contiguous with the bedrooms wouldn’t other family reviewers mention that?  I took up the scent, dug a little deeper and found photos of the rooms taken by guests ... showing doors to the bathrooms.

Getting down to the meat of the matter (yummm, meat!), read reviews with a grain of salt.  Check them with a travel professional you trust. Then go and have a great vacation!

Keep your nose to the wind and all four paws on deck!

*The "Sound of Music" theme cruise simply includes a concert in Vienna by Elisabeth von Trapp, a descendent of the von Trapp family while the ship is visiting Vienna, other than that it is the same as all of Uniworld's other "Enchanting" Danube itineraries.  As of this writing all departures are sold out.

Dorothy Flannery is president of Top Sail Journeys, Sailor C. Flannery is Director of Public Relations and all around dogsbody.  If you would like to learn more about European river cruises, check out their sites at http://cruisethedanube.com and http://cruisetherhine.com or for special event cruises go to http://eventcruises.co. 

Which River is Best?

Sailor again.  Just hangin’.  Taking walks, getting my tummy rubbed, snoozin’ on the couch.  Stuff like that.  Oh, my Dorothy passed the Sell River Cruises Specialist Program last week, so don’t forget to congratulate her!  She does a lot of these courses.

This morning my Dorothy decided to let me go whichever way I wanted when we took a walk.  Decisions, decisions!  Sniff the potted plant or the corner shrub?  Head for the lake or leave a “message” over at Annie’s house?  I couldn’t decide whether to take the nature walk with the boardwalk through the woods or hunt for those turtles again.

Believe it or not there’s a similarity there with river cruising.  So many options … where do you start?  Well, here’s the poop on river cruise destinations:

•  Most river cruises are a week long although you can book longer ones – 9, 10 , 12, 15 nights - even up to 24 nights!
  
•  River cruises usually start and end in fantastic cities like Amsterdam, Paris and Budapest.  You should take some time either before or after the cruise (or both) to visit these cities more thoroughly.  Usually pre- and post-cruise packages are available through the cruise lines.
•  For first time river cruisers, the Danube or the Rhine are the most popular – after you’ve cruised those you may want to branch out to more exotic river cruises like the Nile, the Yangtze, the Douro (Portugal) or even the Chobe in Africa!
• Something to keep in mind, river cruises are seasonal ( for example, European river cruises run from March through December) but rivers are finicky, if they flood in the spring you might be unable to get beneath some of the bridges (in which case you would be taken there by bus) or if there is a drought in the summer or fall you may also have to resort to buses for some sections of the cruise.  Nothing we can do about mother nature! 

The “Cliff Notes” River by River

• Rhine/Moselle/Main – Think of fairy tale castles, endless vineyards and some of the oldest and most historic cities in Germany, France & Luxembourg.
• Danube – Learn about the Austro-Hungarian Empire and countries that were behind the Iron Curtain for over 40 years.  As they say in Budapest “The communists saved us from the Nazis, but then they forgot to go home.”
•  Rhone/Saone – Passing through Provence & Burgundy, come taste the wine!  And dine in Lyon, one of the gastronomic capitals of the world. Add a pre-or post-cruise stay in Paris, the city of lights via one of France’s fast TGV trains.
• Douro – Ah Portugal! From Porto to the border of Spain the Douro twists  in lovely, winding, turning loops.  Spend some extra time in Lisbon before or after and try the port wine in a centuries old bodega.
• Seine – Enjoy the best of both urban and rural culture in France.  The Seine springs from beautiful Burgundy, flows through Paris and into the orchards and fields of Normandy.  Art and culture enthusiasts, wine lovers, history buffs and architecture admirers will enjoy their time on the Seine.

No matter where you go, there are wonderful things to see, sniff (my favorite) and do on every river cruise!  There are no wrong decisions!

Keep your nose to the wind and all four paws on deck!

Dorothy Flannery is president of Top Sail Journeys, Sailor C. Flannery is Director of Public Relations and all around dogsbody.  If you would like to learn more about European river cruises, check out their sites at http://cruisethedanube.com and http://cruisetherhine.com or for special event cruises go to http://eventcruises.co.