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Live Cruise Q&A Back From Crystal Cruises! Sunday 2 March 9am PT/ Noon ET/ 5pm UK
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Mar 28, 2025
Join me after a few weeks break for a Live Cruise Q&A now that I am just back from Crystal Cruises travelling in Asia. Sunday 2 March 9am PT/ Noon ET/ 5pm UK. I will talk Crystal Cruises, Crystal Symphony and cruising and ports in Asia - and anything else you want to talk about Get any cruise questions answered live! Join me for another of my weekly live cruise question and answer session. During the livestream I will answer cruising questions or discuss any cruising topic or news development that people ask me live. You can watch past episodes of the livestreams too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4qEAiMOHL4&list=PLs3662YkgOgq_nlVQR9WYJRNKuNyeKu7Z). Get bonus videos and dedicated livestreams by becoming a YouTube Channel Member (click "join" under any video to find out more) or become a Patreon Patron: https://www.patreon.com/TipsForTravellers You can also but my exclusive cruise T-shirts you see me wearing in the livestream and videos at these stores: https://tipsfortravellers.myspreadshop.com + http://bit.ly/TFTStore + https://tips-for-travellers.creator-spring.com #CruiseLive #cruiseQ&A #CruiseLivestream #cruisetips
View Video Transcript
0:08
[Music] welcome to the live uh lots of people
0:14
here joining already so it's great to be back uh those observant of you will notice that I have a slightly different
0:20
uh venue background this is actually my sort of Studio as it were rather than my study now if you were with me when I
0:27
first started doing live streams back during the pandemic I used to do them in here in fact this whole structure behind
0:32
me with all the ships and all that is actually something I created to do the live streams in a different venue then I
0:38
the Wi-Fi wasn't so good so I moved into study anyway we're back trying it out here hopefully I fixed the challenges
0:44
that I did have with the Wi-Fi then so um let's get into a couple of housekeeping bits and pieces and they
0:50
get stuck into the questions so for the next 60 Minutes of course I will try and answer as many questions as I possibly
0:56
can um so I'm back from Crystal Cruisers I'm benridge of course Channel's tips for travelers and uh if you have a
1:05
question please write the word question beforehand so that I can make sure that I um am seeing it as a question rather
1:12
than a chat and uh what else can I tell you uh if you're watching this afterwards by the way this is a live
1:19
stream so um you're going to only hear the stuff that I've done to answer
1:25
questions I just want to check that it's all running smoothie because I can see on my iPad I'm just seeing a blank
1:30
screen so hopefully you actually oh there we are it's popped up so you are able to see me so that's good so um
1:37
welcome to everybody let's get stuck into the questions obviously I'm back from Crystal and I'll touch on those questions first and I will come back and
1:44
talk about some of the other questions shortly as well uh so I'm going to jump
1:50
around a little bit so hopefully I don't leave out any of the questions uh that come up so someone had asked sort of an
1:57
overarching question uh which was um an
2:03
overall here we go s Vault magin how would you compare Crystal symphony's
2:09
facility with other competing ships and I think the Boker boys uh had asked a
2:14
similar question uh along the same lines now you experienced a new Crystal where do you now feel their rank among the
2:20
ultra ELC competition i' would also love to hear this s off your time and Explorer yeah because Explorer is my next trip so basically to sort of
2:28
summarize it I absolutely loved my time on Crystal Cruises now I'd
2:33
been on crystal way back in uh when was I there I was way back in what 2013 or
2:41
something like that so a very long time ago um so this was quite a quite a a big sort of change obviously it's it's you
2:48
know it's been relaunched and restaged but I absolutely thought it was fantastic I thought the I mean the ships
2:54
are obviously old ships but they've been redecorated and redone very nicely indeed
3:00
uh I was really impressed with the ships uh they have obviously reduced capacity and they've done that to make the cabins
3:06
bigger basically because the challenge I think they had versus the competition I'm back to the question around the facilities is their cabins generally
3:13
speaking were kind of smaller so that was a a challenge so they've reduced
3:18
capacity so they can make the cabins bigger it does mean you have a slight hodg podge of cabins I was actually
3:23
fortunate enough to be upgraded i' book an aquarine as upgraded to Sapphire which is a bigger cabin so of have more
3:29
of a sweet thing because you have a seating area and you have the other area and that was a beautiful cabin but there
3:35
are three different types of that you've got some that date back to 2017 uh you've got some which are a
3:40
little bit more like called classic um and then you have the more modern ones so uh you you so there's a little bit of
3:47
a hodge podge of of cabins but they definitely made the cabins bigger so that's probably one challenge they've got particularly when you got the more
3:53
entry-level cabins or solar cabins which are really good but they're pretty small the doubles I think they're called so
3:58
some of them are a little bit smaller that's where they probably fall down so I think that's why they're quite Keen of course with getting the bigger ship the
4:06
newer Ships coming in the next couple of years um so but the Dayco is beautiful the ships is beautifully maintained
4:12
wherever you look it's really fantastic uh the food is absolutely outstanding I
4:18
would actually say uh of all of the ultr luxury lines I've been on which is
4:24
Regent I've been on a couple of times silver sea I've been on a couple of times um and um so on I would say they
4:31
had the best food I think the food was absolutely magnificent in the main main dining room uh the Water side it was
4:36
really good they obviously have the noou which is fantastic uh but even in the The Buffet they have for breakfast and
4:43
lunch is really good food not massive choice I was less keen on the Italian
4:48
restaurant I actually got to go there twice I thought it was fine uh it was probably the weaker of the the
4:54
restaurants but the food is absolutely fantastic service is phenomenal and one of the things that they have which will
5:00
be interesting looking forward and I do think this is where it compares to the other lines is most of the people that
5:07
you meet on crystal have been on crystal for decades I mean the hotel uh director
5:13
has been there for 30 years obviously during the pandemic and when when bus they they left but they tell me pretty
5:20
much everybody asked they reckon that 80% of the crew and the senior management came back and it shows you us
5:27
to meet people who've worked on crystal forever they know the product they know what they're doing the service is phenomenal uh so they really shine in
5:34
that regard the other area where I think they were extremely strong and I do think that the best of all of the ultr
5:40
luxury is in the enrichment area in some ways they're almost a little bit old school in a way because they keep all
5:46
the things that sort of have been dropped by others so they had three speakers uh what I liked is they were
5:53
largely focused on the destination uh one speaker was a little bit more General but they were very focused on
5:58
the destination really in-depth stuff from the destination they had um they
6:04
then had uh cyber classes there had two different cyber speakers one that would
6:09
do stuff around some of the basics stuff you know what is AI and how to use AI
6:15
another would be very practical around photography so we talk about how you take good iPhone mobile phone pictures
6:21
and so on they then had a golf pro I believe on some trips they have more than one golf pro but they had a golf pro on which would run classes um and
6:29
also uh you know um arranged for people to play golf uh they had uh cooking uh
6:36
classes uh they had an artists program on board uh so it was just like so much
6:42
enrichment their dance class people on and so on so I thought they were very very strong in that regard um so I I
6:50
thought it was fantastic so much so that I've actually have booked another trip when I was on board to do go on the other ship the serenity which I have
6:57
been on way back and I can't really remember so I was very very impressive now where do they Stack Up in reality
7:02
you know when you come to this level that you're slightly splitting hairs in terms of where they you know which is
7:09
better and which isn't better so obviously the one of the downsides which I think they'll address over time with
7:15
Crystal is because they only have the two ships uh they have relatively limited itineries now the ships sort of
7:22
tend to keep traveling keep on the move so you can actually do sort of back toback without repeating an itinerary
7:30
uh but they obviously much more limited so even when I was looking uh ahead wanting to try the other ship you know
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there was kind of Fairly Limited in terms of where I you know where you could go where you couldn't go and that sort of stuff so I think that's probably
7:42
a negative which will be addressed over time uh but certainly I mean there's lots of loyal Crystal people that I met
7:50
um who certainly were on loads of times and they certainly weren't struggling to find ways to go so um let me think what
7:58
else was uh now someone asked the question which was uh I actually really like this and someone asked almost I
8:04
think probably as a negative but I think it's actually a positive and I'm going to tell you why so waren was saying
8:11
they're on crystal Symphony which fantastic it's great ship uh on New Year's Eve in the harbor which would be
8:17
amazing are excursions still not included how many ship board credits did you get so excursions are not included
8:23
and I actually really really really really really really like not having excursions included now obviously I
8:30
liked you know region and silver sea that have them included Seaborn don't I really like the fact that I could choose
8:37
excusions and I didn't feel that I paid for excusions that I needed to go on them so certainly we weren't in many
8:42
duplicate ports to that I'd been on before in other lines but I had been on region and we went to Nagasaki for
8:47
example and Busan uh and definitely the Excursion options in those ports were
8:53
way better on crystal than they were on the included excursions on Regent so the
8:58
excursions went crazy PR and some of them were crazy prices some of them were quite expensive but I think their
9:04
connection with abomi and Kent shows now I might been looking a bit through Rose tinted glasses were but I thought the
9:11
excusions were fantastic what I also really liked is they had Port briefings now these were on the television
9:17
although they stopped doing them towards the end which I went to query about and they were doing them busy for the next Cruise which I thought they banded us a
9:24
bit but they had some really good Port immersions which would tell you about you know all ports where it that you
9:30
couldn't walk off and get into town they had shuttle bus in some places they would have like two shuttle buses one going to the station so you could go
9:36
further field one going into town so I really like that fact um so actually I
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loved now this is maybe also me because I like to do more self touring so I love
9:47
the fact that I could you know choose excusions really good and I could invest the money where I wanted them to the
9:53
other thing which was less good is and it's a small thing is they have much
9:58
lower onboard booking discounts so on Silver SE for example I think I got 5%
10:05
on crystal it's 2 and a half% uh but they did run some very good promotions where you I could book an aquamarine and
10:10
get upgraded to Sapphire and stuff like that so you know that was perhaps less good so let me see if I'm answering
10:16
other specific questions Kelly is here great to see Kelly from Hawaii up really early I met Kelly and um her part of
10:24
Carl we had great great dinner and it was great to catch up with them so let me see if there's other specific
10:30
questions oh sorry someone asked about I got no onboard credit and I didn't get any onboard credit for my next one
10:36
although they were doing a promotion on board where I got um either
10:41
a,0 credit no $250 uh dollar credit or a
10:46
night stay before the cruise in Lisbon um so I didn't get any on onboard credit
10:53
stuff uh and someone had asked a question around uh they're going to be on crystal
10:58
Cruisin earlier October are there any key pre- Cruise activities you recommend are there any key dates to plan with
11:04
respect to dining excursions so um in terms of dining I would go in as soon as you can and tie up your dining uh
11:12
because you're only allowed unless you're in the upper suets you can only go to each of the uh uh especially the
11:18
restaurants uh so you can go to the um the noou uh the Umi Umi Uma and the odia
11:28
Italian once and you're in a higher grade if you're in a 10day or shorter Cruise beef bar you can go to as often
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as you like you have to make reservations so I would get in there early particular if you have a particular time that you want to go now
11:41
if you want to go a second time to either the uh um you your two slots if
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you want to go to either the noou or the Italian you have to pay $50 uh to go a second time but actually
11:54
the ship wasn't selling completely full and I think Crystal generally is not selling completely full like I got an
12:00
upgrade quite a few other people got upgrades they're doing that upgrade promotion because they're still kind of getting into their stride I I guess but
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I would go into as Z can to lock down dining so I did that I went in a lock down dining because I like to dine early
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um but certainly when it comes to the main restaurant no issue if you want table for two whatever anytime that's
12:18
fine uh beef bar you can only Reserve once you're on no you can reserve it
12:24
online but once you're on board if you want to go more times I would go as soon as you can in terms of excursions what I
12:29
also really liked although excursions are not included um you you you don't
12:35
have to pay until you're on board so they charge you once you're on board you have a 48 hour cancellation time period
12:41
so I tied up actually quite a lot of excursions and then I I undid them as I
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could have thought more about the ports and stuff um but I would try and book those excursions fairly early in case
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they do get sold out so there any ones that you really really really want to do so for example I was toying we gone to
13:00
Shanghai uh sort of early evening sort of like 7:00 at night you have to go
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through immigration then they were doing a night tour and I did it about should I do the night tour shouldn't I do the night tour and I did it too long and by
13:11
the time it was then fully booked uh but then put on a waiting list that then got released and then actually decided not
13:17
to do it because I was doing a full day excus the next day so I would just anyone you want I would lock up bearing in mind that you can Cel within 48 hours
13:25
for the first tour it's that day when you get on board so it's a pretty good uh um you know pretty good uh you know
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cancellation policy let me just check if there's any more Crystal questions um
13:37
because I've been talking for a while um so as boy said my next trip is exploring
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I'm really interested to see where they rank because I think based on what they said last time is they see Explorer being more like an Oceania kind of
13:51
competitor than the Ultra Luxury um Sarah travel agent Sarah's here oh s sec
13:56
in Botswana Safari very nice Sarah also Tanzania is a fabulous Safari um and
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Sarah's actually be try on crystal which is great so let's let's have a look any other Crystal questions and I will come
14:09
back um and touch on uh other questions I will come back uh I'm considering
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Celebrity Cruise sorry that I thought was a crystal question from puket Malaysia Singapore IND and barley are
14:20
there in many sites of these ports are they far from the ports uh di without knowing the specific tenies you're
14:26
calling on but many of those ports in the ten particularly you're talking about if you're going to Bangkok Vietnam Etc the ports are quite far from the
14:34
destination so it's pretty good idea to check uh and book excursions there um
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let's have a quick look if there's any more Crystal questions and I'll come back and I will do the other questions
14:47
uh Francis have you saw the question that doesn't include Seaborn don't include excursions either so it's only
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silver sea and seab uh silver sea and region that currently include excursions
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I and I've also mentioned a little bit in my region video that recently is I sort of some ways wish they would
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unravel themselves from that option because I'm not sure that the EXs are as great um so let's have a
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look any other quick questions and I will then come back and go through the
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other questions um let's let's let's go back let's go
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back and um go through questions as they come up a good old mish mash of questions I'm going to try and get
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through as many as possible so John is sending on oce visit in June final two
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stops of scaran I've never been to scaran so I can't help you there and overnight in Oslo so in Oslo uh there
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are some fantastic things to do I actually quite enjoyed going on the hop on Up of bus it goes to some amazing
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stops you go to like you know where they all Palace parties you go to Maritime Museum but there's also some quite good
15:55
excursions out into some sort of uh I can't remember the name of it because I'm actually doing it on I think I'm
16:00
doing it in porland carols group cruise I think we go to Oslo if I remember correctly and they have some which go out to some of the stately home stuff so
16:07
I would have a look uh a look at those uh Jeff is here which is great to see um
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let's have a look uh lanaa is here uh mman 547 is here great um I guess you're
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still not back in in the Seattle part hope all that's going well there um
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and LGS what do you recommend on When to book last minute or weeks out versus
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many months or your in advance as related to cost availab excursions cabination so an my personal
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recommendation is to book as far in advanced as you possibly can for a couple of reasons first of all most
16:46
cruise lines are sailing at full capacity or higher now once you get into ultral luxury tends to be less so um but
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you know if you look at all of the uh results that come from the major groups Ro cariban Carnival Norwegian in fact it
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was just Norwegian came out on average they selling at 104% across their entire
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capacity and Ro car is even higher so ships are generally selling full so the prices are generally cheapest when they
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launch so I'm doing many things where I'll book when ittin is launch because
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you like to get the cheapest price and the best offers I gave it a good example one of the most dramatic is Pont when
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they launched their um their Antarctic to the Ross sea they were selling at 30
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% off with no solar supplement for a very short period of time generally speaking now prices are going up and up
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and up so I was looking perhaps at doing something in June this year and I can see the prices are way above if i' book
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them in advance obviously if like me you're very um obsessed about cabin then
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you're know going to get the best choice of cabin so I was looking even at some stuff that's even 6 nine months out and
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the cabin choice is very limited uh the best cabins have kind of gone um so that's that's really important obviously
17:59
again um excursions the sooner you book The more you can get into booking excursions particularly because uh you
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know ships are selling so full that could be a challenge on excursions so I would you know go as early as you
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possibly can there are way fewer last minute deals than they have been
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generally speaking um but of course you know you can still sometimes get them what if you are a last minute person you
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want to book last minute what I always say to people is um follow all of the
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main lines that you like on social media and interact a little bit because you will then get the ads when they bring
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any promotions up like flash sales are quite popular you'll see that run a 48 hour sale um on a weekend particular the
18:41
end of a quarter or around some events you know Valentine's Day or Mother's Day or whatever um they you can pick up some
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good office there like you know second person 70% off stuff like that um so do
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that and also sign up for their email newsletters because that's where you'll get last minute stuff from um so Kelly
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Kelly slightly disagree with me on the thing so wasn't with the exer symphony seemed like a bus time and hard ha guide
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no audio Vox like River Cruises has I did like the commun shuttles so it's interesting because we had audiovox on
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my Shang High one but you're right it was a little bit more mixed um in terms of the the quiet boxing so they did have
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that capacity so both my Busan Excursion and my um and my Shanghai one both we
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they Ed the audio Vox system so that was quite good because you could wander off and still hear um but you right there
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were quite a lot of more panoramic ones I guess as well that may also be a
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function of the the centel stuff um and maybe because I do like to self-explore
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maybe I was probably less uh focused on that and I did in a picking a few and you WR to drop a few uh from that so
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that's I think it was a good watch sh so I'll actually look at that in more in more detail
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um just to REM right the word question so I don't miss the question so sales RPG do shows on Carnival ships need to
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be booked when on the ship now I'm not sure on the big new ones but generally speaking you don't have to the main ones
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that you have to book uh on are MSC and Norwegian you normally have to book uh
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certainly and it may be on the big new ships you have to book so if anyone knows to answer to on the big ships but
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you don't need to book for the general the general shows but if if I'm wrong on that um you because I haven't been on
20:35
like the MRA uh class if you have to book then let me know
20:41
um dtic do you have any special tricks to reducing jet lag after during all your
20:47
travels now I get asked this a couple of times because I'm relatively fortunate
20:53
that I don't really suffer from jet lag um and I think it's probably because I
20:59
maybe trained myself through all my years of you know about 15 20 years of corporate travel where I was traveling a
21:05
lot L haul and you kind of just couldn't let jet lag get you down so I will say
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though that one of the advantages that I am always will TR if I possibly can like
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99% of the time I will always try and travel business so I collect uh air
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miles or avos as I do like I will only fly one uh one
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world uh Airlines so and I have a credit card so I put everything on there so I get miles miles miles miles miles so I
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always try and use miles um so I can then um go business because that helps
21:41
because you can lie down and sleep I'm very fortunate because I can sleep on planes so actually coming back for example from Hong Kong overnight on
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Friday uh it's a 15-hour flight I slept for nearly 9 hours obviously wake up and
21:54
all that sort of stuff and you know heading to Japan I slept for seven hours so I get in the zone so the minute I get
22:00
on board the plane or whatever I move it into local time so when I was flying back for example from Hong Kong over on
22:08
on Saturday I put it straight on to UK time so I knew it was uh you know 5 O'Clock in the four o'cl in the
22:14
afternoon whatever it was so I get into that sort of Zone I also don't drink alcohol and I didn't used to drink
22:20
alcohol when it was on the plane because I always read that that does get you kind of dehydrated and that doesn't help
22:25
with that what I also try and do is exercise so normally I I will when I ever get to a place I'll either go out
22:31
and walk or I'll go to the gym and do exercise I find that really helps a lot I also use although I know a lot of
22:37
people poo poo it and don't like it and it's some controversy I would use melatonin maybe the first night or the
22:43
second night which is sort of gets you into um the the zone as it were um but I
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I basically try and work on that tie on local time so I want nap for example
22:55
like Mark when I Trav with Mark would always want to sort of nap if we go somewhere and I won't I'll only
23:01
go to bed at that particular time Joe asking the question talking about Mark when will Mark be joining me live so Mark has starting to join um on my
23:08
Patron and channel member lives so he's going to be doing those as sort of like
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that's when he's going to come on to those uh you know so I found that um
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that probably works best so we'll see how that goes through this year and then we may change that um but certainly if
23:25
I'm on a trip with Mark then he's more likely to join me uh but for general ones I do on my my Patron and member
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ones but if we want a trip together we will normally join me like we did when we were on Regent for example now the
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next trip I do with Mark is not for some time um in fact my next cruise with Mark is
23:44
quite towards the end of the year um but we doing some landbased stuff before that
23:53
um PPP PJ this is an interesting one when more and more ports limmit or even
23:58
stop cruise ships from visits do you think or have heard of any Cru to Nowhere like they were just after Co so
24:03
I haven't really seen many of those um at all what of course we're seeing more
24:09
and more particularly in the Caribbean is uh you know people Cruise Lines going
24:16
more and more to their uh private islands we see a lot of investment in private islands you know so half moon
24:22
key is being split into two on America is going to have a part Carnival who used to call on Al ke but they're
24:27
building their own part they're of course opening celebration key I think it's called so there's much more
24:32
investment in those so I haven't seen those um but we are seeing for example in the UK they do these sort of short
24:39
weekend ones where they'll go to Zea for example which is kind of industrial Port it's you they can go to Bru what is not
24:44
particularly interesting in reality BR I guess a lot of people like Brugge in in a way um but they there's some some of
24:51
those but I haven't seen any specific where they don't go anywhere now in some places that's a challenge uh because
24:59
many countries require you to call on a port so you can't for example sell at the US and and kind of just go back to a
25:05
Us Port you have to go to a foreign country to come back so they wouldn't be able to do cruises to Nowhere you
25:12
couldn't do a New York to New York not go anywhere because that isn't allowed anymore and it's quite a few countries
25:17
around the world that are the same like that so Australia is the same for example um Mike uh Michelle how is the
25:25
weather in Japan we're leaving on so it's pretty cold at the moment uh it's pretty much like so the weather in Japan
25:31
is very similar to the weather in London it was pretty chilly um you know it was you know it was bright and sunny which
25:38
was great but a little bit chilly uh so I don't know what it is I if you a Fahrenheit or Celsius but you know we're
25:44
talking about 10 11 degrees um you know in Fahrenheit so what's that about 40 50
25:51
or something like that um but obviously it starts to to warm up um more and more so make sure you wrapped in LS I
25:56
actually ended my cruise uh because it was quite cold in Japan I was in Japan for a while before it was really cold in
26:03
China and really cold in Busan and I although taken layers I didn't make enough and actually end up leaving the cruise with a cold for a couple of days
26:11
um let's have a look summer asking the question if you're on a 10-day Great Barrier Reef cruise with celebrity from
26:18
Sydney are the excursions good or would you recommend New Zealand instead so I don't know the exact Port you're calling
26:25
on but certainly I've done it and I we've gone to Brisbane and we've gone to K and Darwin
26:34
and stuff like that and there are some really fun things to do around there so I've found some pretty interesting stuff
26:41
and I've found the New Zealand ones pretty interesting as well so I think you probably find there are pretty good stuff depending on which ports that you
26:48
are which you're going to um Deana where on your pan Cru of the
26:54
nov night Saka what must the excursions you recommend or is anything to do with in Walk of the support so absolutely if
27:00
you're in a Soaker you must 100% go to Kyoto it's an all day trip uh you know
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talking about 8 hour trip it's about an hour and something to get there an hour something to go back but you absolutely must go to Kyoto make sure of course
27:12
your your tour includes uh the um Golden Temple uh golden Pavilion sorry uh and
27:20
the castle uh which is great and I've got the other one with the squeaky floorb so
27:27
I would definitely got the they include those in Kyoto in terms of walking distance at the Port there is a sort of
27:32
a mall kind of thing and with a ferris wheel stuff like that U I don't remember
27:37
anything else within walking distance uh so if You' got time in Osaka uh you can do the Osaka Castle which is great these
27:45
big um walled uh and moat and stuff that's
27:50
really interesting we also went up of the building you can go right up the top of a building in Osaka really good 360
27:57
view but the is fantastic uh to go to that would be the thing uh so Brian ask
28:03
a question if I see you on a Cru absolutely one of the things that I always encourage people to do is to always say hello to me what I found
28:09
sometimes is people Al some on disembarkation day will say oh hello we watch you or whatever we didn't want to
28:16
interrupt you absolutely interrupt me um on Symphony it was great loads and loads of people watch so yes I really like
28:22
meeting people so please do uh do do please come and say hello I really really like that um
28:29
svelt matchin recently a vlogger felt discontent as Atlas can do zodiac Landings in Antarctica probably due to
28:35
lack of mission is a common or speciic to that particular land so those of you who haven't seen the video it's it's
28:41
it's been doing the rounds a lot I can't remember the name of the channel that did it now but there was a couple um
28:46
that covered they went on an atlas uh uh cruise to Artica they were supposed to
28:52
go through the peninsula uh up to South Georgia and then on to the Forkland and
28:59
back to asire that when they got on board they told they were doing the opposite direction and then by the time
29:05
they headed down to the peninsula they they were told they weren't even heading to the peninsula at all uh because of
29:11
weather and stuff and then they were there was almost like a revolt and they
29:17
eventually agreed to sort of head down there they basically said it it's too rough to to get the zodiacs out although
29:23
there was other ships nearby I think it was a quark ship that were tendering people and doing zodiac things so a
29:31
couple of things with Atlas um it's it's worth watching the video um Atlas is very interesting people ask me a lot
29:37
about Atlas but a couple of things to note about Atlas they had two ships in service they
29:42
have taken one of them out of service in that they are now chartering it to Quark and one of quark's getting rid to one of
29:48
their ships uh which I can't remember who it's going to now WinStar I think um
29:54
uh so also Atlas did have two new builds planned but they have basically being taken over by WinStar so uh you know so
30:02
Atlas you know I would based on that experience and you know proceed with caution uh I would say if you're looking
30:09
at an atlas Cruise um I think I it's hard to say I mean definitely if You' ever watched I have
30:15
an Antarctic video out recently talking about nothing is guaranteed when you go to Antarctica it is it and you know it's
30:22
entirely weather ice dependent but it did seem there was more watching the video it did seem there was more going
30:28
on there um and you're absolutely right you know you do have to sort of the Expedition leaders have to sort of
30:34
Reserve slots because you're only allowed 200 people at uh in total at a
30:39
landing 100 at a time and some Landings you only allowed you know 200 people per day so you do have to sort of book some
30:46
of those things but in reality you could that you know can still do zodiac um rise and stuff but it feels like there's
30:53
more going on because there was two Atlas ships going out and one went to Peninsula first and they did The Landing stuff so you're right it's it could be a
31:00
mixture it could be the situation but there's something more was kind of going uh going on lady golfer disappointed
31:08
with oce yes you've had not very happy with ocean and so Crystal is I would definitely have a look at Crystal I had
31:15
a great time on crystal I mean it's obviously significantly more expensive than Oceania um you know the actually I
31:23
suppose if you're actually going if you doing more of the R Class ships the cabins won't feel actually as small
31:30
depending on what grade you get I mean they obvious have massive grades what I was very fortunate by the way when I was on crystal on symphany I've managed to
31:36
video almost every single class of ship because the ship wasn't full and they
31:41
actually the the um one of the concierge guys follows the channel and they're
31:47
YouTubers as well him and his wife YouTubers and he got me to see some of the the the other uh cabins but then
31:54
they had an open day with where I've got to video a couple more so I'll be able to show all of the cabins in the video that I do but Crystal are fantastic um
32:02
and certainly you know oan talk about being the finest food at see I mean crystal is way you know in another leak
32:08
way more expensive but I thought they were just fantastic so I definitely give them give them a try uh and the other one of course to try which I haven't
32:14
tried yet is Explorer which I do feel is going to be a big competitive f on it and everyone that I've that I know this
32:21
being on so far has really spoken very highly about the ships and they really spoken highly about the food uh so we
32:28
will we we will see how that goes um Bob
32:34
if you can get the luxury car and you have the budget absolutely do it so uh you're right so in Skagway what with a
32:42
train that when if you do it through the cruise line and they only seem to have the luxury car when they do link to the
32:48
cruise line Excursion is it's way more expensive but it's magical I think
32:53
there's 12 seats you B sofas uh it's brilliant it's crazy expensive but it's
32:58
magical so I was very disappointed when I went on the Viking trip last year
33:04
because uh it was because I was a veranda grade and the and O um Viking
33:10
release excursions based on your grade of cabin so by the time my grade was released the luxury car was completely
33:17
sold out I would absolutely spend the money to go on that I put myself in the waight list I begged them when I got on the ship but no joy so it's really good
33:24
fun I mean it's very expensive it's like $300 and something dollars versus is like 79 or something for the or $80 for
33:30
the regular thing but it's just absolutely brilliant um uh Jacob or yakob um so I haven't
33:39
really looked at the Virgin excursions to be honest I haven't cruited them in the Western Caribbean so I don't really
33:45
know but um you know certainly any Caribbean Port uh there's so many
33:50
options uh you like booking on your own or even once you get off you know taxi depending on what you want to do uh
33:57
there's loads of options so if you're you should be able to see the excursions up front but you've got if you want to
34:03
do an organized one you've got things like sh excursions group Venture Shore VOR they have phenomenal range of
34:10
excursions um often cheaper and smaller groups so definitely have a look at that
34:16
but also when you get off the ship you often find you know various booths and things as as well um so uh Caroline
34:26
asking the question what are you highlights of Japan loved Hiroshima Nara and arishima I loved everything about
34:32
Japan so um this time I I spent a lot of you know on my previous times I've been
34:39
there I've been to all the obvious places so my last trip on Regent we didn't go to Nara uh so I don't know
34:45
about Nara although I think I'm going in Nara later this year so I love Japan I love all the places so I love Tokyo so
34:53
I'd spent a couple of days in Tokyo before my last trip before I got on crystal I spent four days in Tokyo
34:58
uh including what I did was get on the uh the Shinken you the bullet train
35:04
because I wanted to do that went to ngoya and went to the Toyota Museum which was fascinating with the whole
35:10
history of Toyota in cotton and spinning and and textiles and how they evolved
35:15
into cars that was absolutely just brilliant um but I love Hiroshima and
35:21
nasaki obviously for the history I led Asaka we talk about Asaka earlier Kyoto
35:27
um but what I'm really excited about is getting some places that I know less about so I'm doing a repositioning
35:33
Cruise in August into September on Silver sea uh which caus it a couple of
35:38
ports that I haven't been to excuse me one things I did actually quite like in nagasaka because I've been to Nagasaki
35:45
twice before and I didn't want to go again to the museum I did the slope car
35:51
up the mountain which was just phenomenal view so every time I go back I discover there's more and more things
35:57
uh to see um I also like I'm turning my mind's gone blank now um or the castle
36:05
my mind's got BL and come back to me but I loved going to kind of the different Castles and things as
36:12
well oh my goodness it's really annoying me because it's one of the most famous castles of all um ppj is it true the RO
36:20
Private Island 100% safe no ping scams well you know maybe there is but generally you because they basically run
36:26
their self-contain uh they run by the cruise lines so they are you know you don't get the Hawkers
36:33
they often they'll have you know various um areas particularly depending which
36:38
when you go to like La for example they have a whole mass of big um you know vendors and Hawkers and stuff so you
36:43
don't have all that kind of normal that you may have in some of the Caribbean uh um Islands uh so it's it's pretty good
36:53
um really making the good point actually that uh um the include excursions on
36:59
Regent is they often set up that's a very good point because particularly on Regent Regent again also releases
37:05
excursions a little bit based on grade so you're right I have on some past
37:10
region trips uh things that I want to go on to have been sold out but you're
37:15
right if you have no shows or cancel so it's a little bit of Lottery you almost have to then go and say look I really want to go on this tour can I be on the
37:21
weight list because you pretty much know that people will cancel so it's a little bit frustrating that perspective um
37:27
because people sign up and then on the day they go going be bothered um so so that is that is that is a challenge what
37:32
I like about silvery too is what silvery do is with their included excursions the
37:38
minute you book no matter what cabin you got so you got the best cabin or the entry level cabin the miniature book
37:44
excursions are open so for that one I was talking about uh before um I was
37:49
able to go in and choose my excursions but and got all of them that I wanted uh when I went to on the South African one
37:57
um I left it a bit late and I was locked out of some of them so you're right that's the problem with those um let's
38:04
have a look um just remember write the word question
38:12
so don't missing your questions William asking the question but I did spot it the beef bar so the beef bar on crystal
38:18
is it's beef bar is a concept which started in monol I hadn't heard of it before in reality but then I looked on
38:24
the program that's in loads of places including in London all all around the world I really liked it I mean they have
38:30
um the menu is fairly simple it's sort of street food based sort of steak based
38:36
they did have the option you have included they have the option to upgrade if you like where you get cobay beef and
38:43
stuff which was like $400 and whatever but I just stuck with the regular sirloin or whatever and it was really
38:49
delicious um they had it really nice I think it's one of their um signatures the little bow
38:55
buns um which were just fantastic I really liked it I only went once though because I really like the waterite I
39:01
like the main restaurant they had a massive menu um and the food was
39:06
beautifully presented and stuff so I I I uh I didn't go more than once I should
39:12
have gone for lunch because they're also open for lunch and I kept forgetting that they were open for lunch Nicholas
39:17
thank me for the Disney videos good I'm GL glad that they helped um uh you know
39:23
it helped you um that's great to hear um
39:31
Kmart uh named after the store or the store's named after you or pure coincidence um
39:38
new to your channel you may have covered this previously on your channel what are your thoughts about dining with strangers on cruises or you prefer to D
39:44
alone so basically I way prefer dying alone so one of the
39:52
things I like for example when was on this Crystal cruise is there was no question around having to sh tables I
39:58
would go in and I could have a table by myself and I like that partly because I
40:03
like to be in and out um I don't want them to become a long experience because
40:09
I want to go and part with my mindset for the Channel I want to go and look at other things around the ship and uh you
40:14
know we want to go and look at some live music and video it and go to the casino go to the shows go to whatever's going
40:21
on around and about and then also do some work in the evening backup videos and stuff so I like to dine alone also
40:27
like video of my food so it's much easier if I'm doing it by myself and so I go tend to go in early um I only time
40:33
I dine with other people is if there's people that um you know like uh Kelly
40:38
car for example they they follow Channel their Patron stuff so we had dinner together so often I'll dine with people
40:46
um you know that I come to know if you like um so I'm in the minority most
40:51
people though I know love to share tables because they see there a key part of cruising is meeting other people me
40:57
personally I like to D alone so even when I'm cruising with Mark we will have a table for two and we will dine just
41:02
the two of us um and again we will only D with people if we've met them or or or
41:08
you know want to go and D with them because we come to know them for example now I know I am in the minority
41:14
so most people that a lot of people I spoke to would talk about they will always ask to share tables um because
41:21
they like to do that and they like to meet lots of people and obviously if you're going on cruise line that has fixed dining fixed tables you the same
41:27
people every night but most Cru lines of course now give you the option for Anytime dining so you can get to loads of people so that's really what I prefer
41:35
to do uh someone asked who stay safe in the UK which is quite easy to do I got a
41:41
few comments I guess people must think something's going on in the UK but I'm not sure what people think's going on but
41:47
um definitely will stay safe so um Chris you mentioned the CCTV in your latest
41:53
video as many cameras on crystal as on other ships what about the Man Overboard radar so uh yes all all cruise ships
42:00
have loads of CCTV what Chris is referring to my the video this week I'm diing into a couple of things that I
42:05
feel people don't know as much about cruise ships as they could do so if you haven't seen that it came out yesterday
42:11
so just go to the channel afterwards and have a look at that much appreciated um so yes they are covered by CCT
42:18
everywhere and I don't I believe they don't have the Man Overboard radar system there's very few ships as I talk
42:24
about in that video that actually have it Disney have it and some Carnival ships have it and very few others seem
42:30
to have it and I think in the latest stage I had it's hard to get it's only 30 ships have it and there's about 300
42:37
cruise ships around uh sopia saying thank you for the content which is great
42:43
ah Tom is normally on YouTube Sorry on Facebook is on uh you on uh sorry not on
42:50
Facebook yes so actually uh that's good to know I did see a bit of lagging there so I'll have a look at that um
42:58
big guy what do you think of Celebrity Cruise Line so I like celebrity um I
43:03
haven't been on Celebrity now for a while I'm I'm next so I didn't go on Celebrity last year went on a couple of
43:10
times year before went on La the year before that didn't go last year this year I'm back on no that's not true I'm
43:16
talking nonsense I group Cru on CBR what I saying um so I did go last year I had hosted a group cruise on celebrities
43:23
that probably tells you that I do have a good feeling about celebrity um and and I booked on Celebrity this year uh doing
43:30
a New York to Iceland via Canada and Greenland so I like celebrity now the
43:36
important thing big guy with celebrity is they have three classes of ships they have Millennium class which are their
43:42
oldest and the smaller ships they have solers class which are fairly traditional ships they're you know very
43:48
similar to the holl America ships um princess ships that kind of ship then
43:54
they've got the newest Edge class ships which are very contemporary very modern and very different concept both in terms
44:01
of the cabin Styles the dining for example so you know like celebrity um
44:06
that we were on for the group Cruise uh celebrity eclips can't what we're on now
44:12
uh you know has the big main dining room uh once you go to the edge clo ships they split you you have four different
44:18
dining rooms with slightly different concepts that you can go to the Normandy uh cyp
44:24
Cyprus uh it's called Black but they have four different sort of Concepts so you move around those they have Eden or
44:31
that they're replacing Eden with something else on their their newest ship Excel um but it's they have big
44:37
Production shows particular On The Edge class ships they are much more Hightech kind of shows um so it's they have very
44:46
different kind of Concepts so the Edge class is probably going for a younger more contemporary uh more family focused
44:53
kind of audience so when I've been on in sum of you know loads of families loads of teens that sort of stuff um whereas
45:00
the solstice class are perhaps targeting a slightly more couples slightly older
45:05
little bit more stayed in a way probably sounds negative but you know not as contemporary so so they do
45:12
have this kind of different concept Millennium ships are a little bit older they tend to do sort of slightly more
45:17
exotic arties so some of the Japans asias that kind of stuff as well um so
45:23
obviously the AG class ships because they're bigger they'll tend to do more the Caribbean they do the big Med itineries you can actually do some of
45:29
the Panama Canal and new the new routes through those um up in the Alaska they
45:35
do sources class ships mostly they've got some HCL class ships down in Australia so they have some very interesting tinies they're great ship uh
45:42
they're great they all trying to become a little bit more up Market in a way so their prices are all creeping up um they
45:50
if as a solar traveler they're a little bit more hits and Miss with solo travel because uh in some cases their price
45:57
will be more expensive going Soler than actually if you're going with two people I got around that originally by booking
46:02
when they did one of their 70% off second person so effectively I got a solo kind of rate um uh so they're
46:12
pretty good the food is pretty good uh you know food is probably about the same as Princess holl in America kind of side
46:19
they're they're probably a little bit more um contemporary than their direct
46:24
competitors which are princess and honor America DB making the point Viking has Excursion
46:29
suit so Viking offer you one Excursion included excursions so what happens if you go on Regent and on Silver sea you
46:36
so in region you can do as many excursions as you can pack into one day so if this if you you could actually do
46:43
an Excursion in the morning if there's a morning Excursion if there's an afternoon Excursion you can do basically both of those silver you can do one
46:49
Excursion a day but they give you a choice so you might have four five six depending on the port Viking has one
46:55
Excursion that you can do it's normally just one Excursion and they tend to be not everywhere but certainly I found
47:02
they tend to be a little bit more panoramic a little bit more walking tour or entry into something so for example
47:08
when we was in Alaska we got entry into kind of sea life in sew uh stuff like
47:14
that um so I found when I was on my Viking Alaska tour I actually booked
47:19
most excursions so like the train for example wasn't an included Excursion um
47:25
so uh you know so that's um that that's the one of the key differences there so
47:30
theion probably is grandos grandios if that's the right
47:35
word Michelle does a hop onoff bus go to the British museum you certainly will have a stop that will be very handy for
47:42
the British museum yes definitely um let's have a look oh Eric I about the
47:50
entertainment so in terms of the entertainment um I would say uh if we talking about the theater entertainment
47:56
talk about live music secondly so that's a good point in terms of the shows themselves um they had a group of 10 so
48:05
they had four singers and six dancers uh although many of the singers were very
48:11
accomplished dancers so some of the singers would do pretty the big dance routines um overall the shows are pretty
48:17
good um I would say probably Regent is investing a little bit more in the shows I thought regen were pushing the shows a
48:22
little bit more Sly on Grandeur um they they the yeah the the they were pretty
48:29
good shows the one thing I would say is they did Lean a little bit into being
48:35
dated music wise um which disappointed me because they still tend to think that
48:42
people of my age which are 65 which is probably sort of you know most people on the ship were probably 60s 70s in
48:50
reality they seem to think that we like Frank Sinatra and you know Bobby Darren
48:56
which I have no interest in whatsoever they're my parents interests my parents they're both deceased now but they're
49:02
well into their 80s so they seem to forget that you know people of our age
49:07
uh grew up in the 80s the 90s and pushed the 70s so it's the music choices that
49:13
tend to be a little bit dated they did some interesting things with musicals where they started by choosing some unusual things they chose rent they did
49:20
a little thing on musicals they did one musical which I hadn't seen But i' heard a lot about which is kind of a spoof on
49:25
Shakespeare and stuff stuff which is really fun because I hadn't seen it before very different quite modly they did some stuff from rent which again is
49:32
kind of an oldish musical bit a little bit different but then they went into West story it's like okay West story is like not really my generation it's my
49:40
parents generation I know they've remade West story it's a classic and stuff but so so I felt that they were pretty slick
49:46
the dancing was very very high energy beautifully like really ambitious choreography so quite well staged you
49:53
know they had a live band which I really liked they always perform into live band who was excellent seven piece live band
49:59
so you know the quality the caliber was really good I just felt it was a little bit dated um the guest artists I again
50:05
felt were a little bit dated they had a guy who did mention the Franken AR Bobby Daren night like really um uh so uh you
50:14
know so I you know it was okay um I went to most of the shows I didn't go to a
50:19
lot of the guest artists stuff they did have a guy who did like a Elton John thing which was pretty good so I thought
50:25
it was fine but it wasn't stand out uh R room to be improved but you know has a
50:31
lot of potential the live music though was very good they had um as I mentioned they had the band the
50:38
seven piece band who would play um you know do the show they'd play in The
50:43
Starlight for people wanted to dancing a lot they had a uh viist she was amazing
50:48
they had a Pianist they had so on top of the band they had a penis a guitarist
50:54
and they had Duo who would perform so so I thought the live music choice was big and what I liked about the guests that
51:00
live music is the violence lady she would play quite contemporary music she
51:06
would a little spin on it a little bit classic spin on it but she would weave in like cplay uh she would weave in the
51:12
theme from succession so contemporary kind of stuff so I really like that guitarist as well he would play you know
51:20
uh music uh you know that was kind of in the charts in the last three or four
51:25
years um kind of stuff so I really liked that and I think people really liked it they were always very popular listening
51:31
to that so I think the shows were fine they just need to kind of update be a little bit more modern
51:37
one of the things that in the production show they did a production show which started oh my God this is all music the second half was disco and I thought that
51:43
was fantastic because there were songs that I kind of knew they kind of were when I was at high school into
51:48
University I you know they pushed into the 80s so it kind of felt a bit more of my generation if you like so that was
51:55
that was good uh Eric hopefully I've answered the question for me water side was uh the
52:01
best uh I would probably put in that order Waterside comro at tide would be my ranking in reality um so let's have a
52:12
look um let's have a look Heather good to see you again Heather um iBook
52:18
Cruisers Heather's probably I know a lot of you have been here doing live TS with me right back to the days and I feel
52:25
Heather was probably right there at the beginning so let's have a look I about cruises far in advance and then keep
52:30
having to cancel because of conflicts with my kids schedules we having trouble affording cruises when I have to book and pay full with a 90 days help the
52:39
last minute suggestions are not helping because our dates always very specific that is a real big challenge so
52:46
let me say I assume what you're saying is the ones that I'm saying so far are very specific I mean I think the the the
52:53
only thing that I feel would work is that thing around I'm seeing a
53:02
lot of flash sale stuff um particularly as I mentioned end of quarter which I
53:08
assume they're hitting sales targets I feel that would probably be the best thing to work for those kind of
53:15
promotions um and activities they do though tend to be on the more premium lines which is not great um but
53:22
celebrity does quite a lot of them um I know you like Disney I guess Disney is always kind of pretty sold out and
53:28
pretty expensive um but that's where I would focus I think um and I've seen
53:35
them using particularly Instagram and Facebook a lot and what I've noticed is because I obviously interact with quite
53:41
a lot of um Cruise content they tend to show those those up there I mean the
53:47
other thing to do which is quite a good source for looking is s like Vacations To Go I personally don't book through
53:54
vacations to go but they're quite good I use them lot when I'm looking for our tenies you know if I want to go to Shanghai I use that to search and see
54:00
who's selling there when or I'm thinking I want to go away in June in Europe what's what's going that they may throw
54:07
up those kind of things the other thing to look for and I don't know what the equivalent is in the US um Heather but
54:13
certainly in the UK there are a couple of groups like RL Cruz bolov Etc and they I guess are used
54:22
by the cruise lines to clear stuff so there's also one which actually watch all every weekend in the morning we have
54:28
breakfast on the weekend which I think is called love it bucket or something and these these two guys and they basically talk about U and it's packaged
54:36
stuff so I'm guessing often and they a little bit further Advanced but what do I see in the newspapers like the Daily
54:41
Mail in the UK stuff is every weekend there there'll be adverts with kind of
54:46
these packaged things so there'll be a hotel flight whatever and they're quite it's quite short notice and assume it's
54:53
because the lies are saying right we've got 20 cabin who want to clear and they give them to them to clear I don't know what the equivalent would be in in the
54:59
US but there must be I don't know whatever the Sunday papers are that that would my other thought I don't know if
55:05
that's that helps um let's have a look Kim interested
55:12
ocean ised 24-day barley to Tahiti ien very nice itenary any thoughts about this olders ship's accommodation and the
55:18
Food Services probably slipped a bit well I haven't been on the oceanana those ships for a while I've only been
55:24
on their newer ships uh the big like um the Vista and Marina and this year at
55:30
the end of this year we're going on Riviera again so the key thing to note with those R Class ships is obviously
55:36
the cabins are smaller and particularly in every other cabin unless you're in a
55:41
suite uh the bathrooms are very tiny so you just need to bear that in mind so
55:47
the bathrooms are very very small um certainly in terms of food I can't com in directly I know people who've been on
55:53
oia we heard some some a little bit earlier the food has slipped a bit now there have been a lot of management
55:59
changes um so I feel like maybe ocean feel that things have slipped because
56:05
they've made a massive big change uh just this last month with their management where they've got uh where
56:12
rather abruptly their president which is Frank di Rio's the son Jor uh
56:18
disappeared as president they ched and changed so I feel like they're kind of making some changes there you they
56:23
probably alienated people because they Chang in the uh the olif programming to
56:29
get more get less and stuff so I feel like you know they they they I would
56:34
wouldn't be surprised if we see much more positive stuff coming from that so that would be my thought so any we booked Oceania we booked an it's an 18
56:41
KN from Sydney to papetti uh and I'm very confident that they will be that they will be good so that that hopefully
56:48
should be good um just want to write the word question so I don't miss anything uh n
56:56
missed that um rashika hope I pronounce it correctly what's your thought on Queen and Christmas Market cruise on the
57:02
14th of December 2020 five I assume you mean because other you're going back in time so um I
57:09
would say the critical thing with this if you want to get a feel for kod they're great bear in mind though that
57:15
generally speaking with those short kod cruises is you don't necessarily get a
57:20
particularly good K experience because they tend to be pretty sh sharply priced you get lots of people ing on
57:26
particularly for kind of a party so it tends to be a bit more of a party atmosphere so we used to take my mom and
57:32
my mother-in-law on some of those you know Christmas Cruise kind of things we sort of pulled away a bit from it
57:39
because it got a little bit more party like but certainly if you want to experience a ship you want to get a
57:44
slight flavor of Cunard uh and generally is a pretty good price you know Christmas markets I guess you go into
57:50
Brugge I don't know if you're going to any other places uh the bru Christmas Market is quite fun so um
57:57
so it's worth it's worth a tral but just bear in mind it's going to be a little bit more rockus than probably your normal which which might be which might
58:04
be U appealing to you um Anthony adding some things around
58:11
going on the a350 to 787 because they cab pressure that's good point uh on the
58:16
the the jet lag point the the more modern ship the more modern and recent uh ship uh uh aircraft are obviously
58:24
very focused on that so that's a good point point there Daniel um do you recommend the Panama Canal cruise of
58:30
Norwegian Uncle I always recommend a Panama Canal cruise what's important to bear in mind is have a look at my Panama
58:36
uh Cruise video uh which came out recently and I
58:41
talk about the pros and cons of the different things The Encore will go through the new locks which are still
58:47
you know fantastic to go through I would tend to try and go if you to Panama can now once if you can't go on a ship that
58:54
goes to the old locks but if if that's the right thing for you then uh do it at
59:00
least get through the Panama Canal would be my thing and obviously enco is a pretty nice ship as well um so let's
59:08
have a look
59:15
um Kate asking the question not related not Cruise related but R do you have any plans to do more train travel planned
59:21
I'm taking train across canas looking forward to I don't actually have any train stuff lined up I would desperately like to go on a train have a long list
59:27
of trains but I don't have any specifically lined up but um uh I do
59:33
need to look at that I do have a long list I need to try and figure how I squeeze all those in but that Train Cruise across Canada would be fantastic
59:40
I've followed a few people who've done that various bits and pieces um so let's have a look we're running
59:48
out of time let's have a quick look ah this is a Hot Topic Chris on H America
59:54
Rotterdam to Iceland in 2026 how do you see the port fee issue evolving fine print says the line can
59:59
change ports of call as a lawyer wonder if legal in case value Cruise suffers so
1:00:05
Chris you're absolutely right all Cruise uh contracts say that the cruise line can change the itinerary before or
1:00:12
during and you have no chance of compensation it's very clear in the cruise contract and um that's that is
1:00:20
absolutely the case so um you know some people do try and argue the point uh to
1:00:27
try and cancel or get a refund by significant some of the cruise contracts do talk about significant changes to
1:00:32
give you the option but generally speaking they're shuffling ports around uh you're accepting when you buy the cruise contract so you know that's
1:00:39
that's the case now for those who don't know what's happened that Iceland have introduced a fee is it 15 don't qu me
1:00:46
the exact price but it's unlike some places it's per Port so if you're going to four ports in Iceland you have to pay
1:00:54
it four times so I I think we will see we've seen already seen some Cruise Lines talk about reducing CS into
1:01:02
Iceland or you know if they're doing a combo according to fewer ports in Iceland um so I think we will see either
1:01:09
because there's such demand people want to go to some of those ports I suspect we will see the fs just ease upwards to
1:01:17
cover that um but I think some Cruise Lines particularly with the with more value conscious so MC for example where
1:01:23
price is a massive big draw for MSC uh they have said they are going to be cutting back in ports I think what what
1:01:31
because the 2026 is kind of locked in my personal I have no date on this I'm just saying what I think because 2026 is is
1:01:38
locked in uh I think you may see uh you know uh you know they'll add might
1:01:43
increase port fees and stuff like that I think heading out we we may see Iceland
1:01:49
being kind of adjusted a little bit um but certainly it's definitely one to do
1:01:55
a point definitely one to watch uh and see what people are doing I have only seen so far and I'm correct me if I'm
1:02:01
wrong if people seen El I've only seen MSC specifically talking about reducing ports other Cru lines have said they
1:02:08
will review and and monitor it so we will we we will we will see um here's a
1:02:15
good question from uh mman 547 for those of you who uh follow me or don't follow
1:02:22
me those who do follow me uh on Instagram or Patron Channel member will know that I on Symphony won uh just over
1:02:32
$700 uh one no over $800 on um what was it I was $700 six I was
1:02:39
roughly $700 up so I decided to cash out I did spend another $100 so I came back
1:02:46
I think I I was around about $600 up when I left so I didn't go back now the advantage was because the casino was
1:02:53
actually very quiet and it wasn't open many night nights because Japan has very strict rules China has very strict rules
1:02:59
around when it could open so actually the casino wasn't open very often couldn't open very often uh so that
1:03:04
wasn't draw set it didn't have any of the um machines that I really really
1:03:10
like so even though I did really well I wasn't if they have the certain machines that I love playing slots on which are
1:03:17
the Ze machines uh and uh in in more in Vegas the Wonder Woman machines so I if
1:03:23
those machines there I probably would have probably would have um uh you know I probably would have gone back more but
1:03:29
I did come back $600 up so that was fantastic right so I we' have churn
1:03:36
through time and saw there's many other questions that I need to uh that I haven't got to but the good news is I
1:03:41
will be back next week with um with a live same time same place I will have a
1:03:47
look at these questions and see if I can actually get any more of these answered in any other way but thanks so much for
1:03:53
joining uh so hopefully see you next week uh remember that's that video that
1:03:58
out that I mentioned earlier take a look at that um and have a great rest of your weekend thanks everybody
1:04:12
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