Live Cruise Q&A Back from Explora Journeys. Sunday 20 April 2025 9amPT/ Noon ET/ 5pm UK

Name: Live Cruise Q&A Back from Explora Journeys. Sunday 20 April 2025 9amPT/ Noon ET/ 5pm UK | Humix Video
Uploaded: 2025-05-15T03:16:20+00:00
Duration: 1 h 4 min 44 s

0:10
well hello everybody and welcome back it's been a while since we've did live streams with all my various travels and
0:15
so on so it's great to actually be back here doing a live stream we're going to focus a lot on Explorer journeys um but
0:23
while everyone's joining I thought I' want to talk about a few other bits and pieces as people join already a whole bunch of questions one of the things
0:29
that I two things I want to talk about is just reminding everybody about the cruise globe and the cruise globe is uh
0:36
I always forget to mute myself on my little thing that I track it so just remind you on the cruise globe so it's at the cruise globe.com so let me just
0:44
show you because this also sort of helps me set up a little bit about what we're doing so I've already inputed my explorer 2 journey great thing on the
0:50
cruise globe at the cruise globe com it then just brings up the whole itinerary so you can see that's where we went just to remind everybody where we went the
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good thing is you can then zoom in and you see some unusual things like we went sailing straight into Tang straight out
1:02
again h you can keep zooming in and you can actually see which I think is quite cool how we came into a port how we went
1:08
out of a port where we were docked and so on the other thing you can do is you can for you actually share each
1:14
individual cruise so we can see that there for example um where I can then share that but what I also really like
1:21
is you can then see all your stats so I've I've been on about 121 cruises i've only put so far into Cruise Globe uh 48
1:29
of them but it already shows you how many times I've been at sea how many cruise lines I've been on so it kind of collects all your stats and so that's
1:35
really good fun i just remind everybody the cruise got a little thing here it's the
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cruiseglobe.com uh and it's completely free it does give you links to find the maps the other thing I do when I come back which I'm going to talk about
1:47
because I'm a big fan of these two is the cruise maps so um you see the picture I've got them framed i already
1:53
have ordered and got because I clicked on this A4 map i already got my Explorer
1:59
journeys trip there in that so if you ever want any of those just remind the
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cruismaps.com/TFT and you can get 10% off so now um that's loads of people
2:10
have joined and stuff just a reminder this is a live stream so um I will be answering questions live if you're
2:17
watching this afterwards which many many people do just remind it is a live stream and you can sort of jump scroll through to see the questions and so on
2:25
happy Easter of course to everybody lots of people mentioning happy Easter hope you had a good Easter of course in the UK we get four days we had Good Friday
2:32
off we Easter Sunday pretty much everything's closed it's a bit like Christmas Day here um everything's closed supermarkets most things are
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closed and then we still have a holiday tomorrow so that's pretty cool um so let's let me get stuck into my explorer
2:44
journey uh questions and then I will maybe also talk a little bit about some other thoughts I've got obviously I'm
2:50
going to make um videos uh about explorer journeys and my thoughts so it'll be kind of more structured um also
2:58
what I did when I was away I posted four updates which I filmed on the ship which I posted to channel members and patrons
3:03
i do that when I'm away just kind of thoughts and answering questions and it's really helpful for me to kind of
3:09
get a sense of what people are responding to so that's really good so I will answer some of the general questions I've got uh on cruising a
3:15
little bit later uh as well because some people have asked me some of those but I'm going to start with u a couple of
3:22
questions so people spoke no that's not the question I bring up leslie so I'll jump around a little bit because I've
3:28
seen some of the questions so Leslie W good to see you here has asked um who do
3:34
I see Explorer as setting up to compete with are they competing with other luxury or ultra luxury lines have they
3:41
identified a different gap in the market much less MSC although I see MSE as a
3:46
real slap bang up against competing with a Royal Caribbean Carnival and so on which I think they do but anyway um so
3:54
what's very telling I'll tell you what I think they're competing with currently um but let's look at where they think
4:00
they're competing so what's very interesting is when I was away they launched their um their loyalty program
4:07
which is called explorer club and they are doing which is fantastic uh they are
4:13
doing status matching so if you've got status on cruise lines they will match it
4:18
however they will do status matching with MSE but they because that's part of the group but uh they have said they
4:26
will status match only eight cruise lines and all those cruise lines lines
4:31
are in the ultra luxury space so they have Silver Sea Seaborn Ponant Ritz
4:37
Carlton um Scenic Yachts um uh what a silver sea
4:44
uh and so on so they basically in fact I've just forgotten one of them so maybe I'll bring anyway so B the important
4:50
thing to remember is they are only going to status match ultra luxury lines so not Oceanania for example not Viking and
4:56
so on so that's clearly where they see themselves competing as a little aside by the way um they did status match me
5:02
on my silver C and silver C I have um I can't remember what level I was before
5:08
but I got a big bump up because the Royal Caribbean group will status match
5:13
your um celebrity and your Royal Caribbean day so that pushed me up into
5:18
quite a high status 250 days 250 nights or something on Silver Sea but what was interesting is they status matched my
5:25
proof of status on silver C as a status match so I've status matched my status
5:30
match so that's quite good to know um so they see themselves as competing with ultra luxury personally I didn't feel
5:37
that they were in the ultra luxury space i feel that they are much more in the luxury space i felt they were more of a
5:44
kind of elevated oceania uh sort of elevated Viking than a silver sea regent
5:50
level but they clearly that's their aspiration so a couple of reasons why I I mean they see themselves as competing
5:55
that they actually talk about themselves as a luxury line and I actually got to meet some people who work for the
6:01
Explorer Group because when I was boarding in Barcelona it was the opening
6:06
of the new MSC terminal in Barcelona which they they sort of own they built and so I actually got to meet some
6:12
people from Explorer Journeys they had picked up that I was boarding in fact it's a complicated story someone in
6:18
Crystal who follows me online is friends with the president of Explore Journeys who then measured them to say "I see
6:25
Gary's joining your ship today i got a message when I checked in will to go and meet a couple of people anyway but they
6:31
clearly see themselves as competing in they just call it luxury." But the telling thing is they say ultra luxury
6:37
the reason I don't think they're in the ultra luxury space is not because of the ships which are very beautiful they're
6:42
very welldesigned they feel very plush not because of the food because the food is excellent there's lots of choice um
6:48
of different venues that's all included they have lots of inclusions closer to
6:54
the ultra luxury side uh including Wi-Fi three devices it's very good however
6:59
they fell down on a couple of areas probably the most telling is service now
7:05
I think they understand that they need to really up their soft side um still
7:10
but the service is pretty good uh it's fine but it's not yet of an ultra luxury
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level uh they have some interesting staffing choices so for example in your cabin you have one cabin stew you know
7:21
once you got ultra luxury ships you might often have a butler and one you know two cabin stews so the cabin stews
7:26
are much more interactive with you much more tailoring your cabin experience and I hadn't actually appreciated that as
7:33
much until I went on there i didn't see my cabin stew for I was on an 11 night trip some I think I bumped into them
7:39
like I have not seen them for 5 days um not that my cabin wasn't you know clean and sorted and all that sort of stuff
7:45
but there wasn't as much tailor personalization certainly around the ship very few people uh would call my
7:51
name even though I it was kind of obvious that some people had been tipped off that I was on board so I probably
7:57
got a bit more i would dine quite early because I like to go early so I can video the restaurants before they get
8:03
too full of people it becomes problematic and do my food my my service was pretty good but I spoke to quite a
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lot of people who were on sort of when it was busier and service was very much more erratic so I feel that they still
8:14
haven't quite got that kind of soft side out um certainly the cabins on if you
8:21
compare some of the newer ships on their competitors like the ultra luxury side their entry- level cabins are probably a
8:28
little bit smaller beautiful cabins so I I think they're probably kind of that's where they're aiming to now one of the
8:33
things that I and someone asked me some money questions is I and I will dive
8:39
into this much more before I make the videos because um pricing moving ahead
8:44
is very important um as a few other things that going to be very important with Explorer is the pricing clearly is
8:51
increasing quite significantly and rapidly from in what I'm seeing when I was looking at alternatives versus what
8:57
I certainly paid which was very cost-ffective um compared to alpha luxury lines um and you know I paid an
9:05
average of $630 a night roughly you know that's very hard to get um and I was I'd
9:11
booked maybe three levels up on the entry level from the entry- level cabin you know if you're looking at at a
9:17
Silver Sea whatever side it's going to be significantly more than that however when I was looking at comparisons if I was to book summer next year
9:24
significantly increased um so so in ter but in terms of value couple of things
9:29
that do make them very attractive value they have very good approach to solo travelers so I'm asking a question on
9:35
solo so I've sort of jumped from Leslie's question let me maybe bring that up about solo um so they they have
9:41
a very good approach to solo so they will talk about um you know a range of
9:46
around about up to 25% they they've actually just launched a promotion uh just as I was boarding with no solar
9:53
supplements so a lot of what Crystal's doing at the moment um but they would talk if on their website they talk about
9:58
being up to 25% um although when I was doing some calculations it was looked
10:04
like more like 50% so I need to play around a little bit more uh with that but um so the very good value from a
10:10
solo perspective you're going to get pretty good deals um and um so I think as a solo traveler if you traveling in
10:17
the luxury ultra luxury space it's quite appealing with Crystal doing the similar thing but you get much nicer cabins to
10:22
be honest um probably but again I need to play around with pricing um they're also extremely good value for families
10:29
now I don't want to talk about families because the all kids traveling I think it's under three or or was it under six
10:36
uh I need to check exactly but young kind of really young toddler kids travel for free um if you're under 18 you pay a
10:44
maximum of up to 50% fair now it's very important to understand one of the things that was very clear to me uh
10:50
talking to the people who run the the the kids club uh which they don't like to call kids club anyway it's called the
10:57
nautilus club um but runs a kids program which at the moment are for six years and above um that you know family is a
11:05
massive focus for them they are expecting at least around about 10 plus%
11:11
of passengers in the sailings during the key European season to be kids um she
11:18
was telling me that in the key Caribbean sort of vacation times they were getting 78 or so kids which is over like based
11:26
on the numbers that cruising because they aren't ships on ar is is between kind of 10 and 20% of the ship is kids
11:35
so very good value for kids the other thing that's really important and I get lots of comments about people loving
11:40
explorer which I did i'm not saying that I didn't love it however I think we also need to see what happens as these ships
11:46
sail full so I my selling was 75% full um we had so we had 720 guests it was
11:54
714 in the first half I think 720 in the second half because actually people got off halfway through in Tenere there was
12:00
a change and more passengers got on so kids went up to I think was about 16
12:05
from 16 to about 20 the selling that I got off kids were going to be 50 something 53 kids I think it was but
12:13
it's really important so it's great value for kids but a lot of people are I think making judgments on an explorer when the ships are still sitting
12:19
relatively empty now talking to various people around the ship they feel that
12:24
they're probably the ship holds 920 uh roughly double occupancy they believe
12:30
that they're likely to sell more between 800ish on most sailings once they're really in their stride and people are
12:37
going because they think they'll attract quite a lot of solos obviously in the peak season that could go higher if
12:42
you've got kids sharing cabins but I think they want to kind of you know the ship is built for 920 and I think they
12:48
sort of want to keep that but lots of people talk about um how you know fantastic it was but you just need to
12:53
bear in mind the other reason that I think you know is questionable on the ultra luxury catery as I mentioned they
12:58
hold 920 passengers so most of the other lines would be you know 700 or less however of course the new region ship is
13:05
850 so it's kind of closer so so I feel that's kind of what I feel but very so in terms of value I think we need to
13:12
compare pricing um looking ahead because the pricing is um interesting because I
13:18
was talking to different people from different countries and pricing did vary a lot and there's exchange rates and
13:24
stuff going on so I think you need to do your numbers it looking ahead certainly it was looking way more costly ahead of
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time but I need to I'm going to really dig into that properly and do more sideby-side comparisons but um you know
13:37
so I'm sort of Um I I had a great time on Explorer i'm probably not as big a
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going to be as big a um champion for Explorer as other people who've been on
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but it's definitely a line I would strongly consider and recommend considering so let me tell about some of
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the things I liked because I know I feel like I've been more negative and I didn't intend to do that but you know I
13:59
really like the ships are magnificent they're beautiful ships um they actually feel quite big um you know considering
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there's 920 passengers so the the p uh you know the the space per passenger is
14:12
is really good very nicely designed good layout uh so very easy to find around uh
14:18
find your way around what is also really good is they follow a similar concept to the bigger Virgin ships in a way some of
14:24
the Norwegian ships where there are lots of kind of smaller little also little venues and bars but the outside space is
14:31
designed for warm weather so these are really ships designed for the middle of
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summer kind of Mediterranean and warm Caribbean there's lots of little nooks and crannies outside there's lots of
14:42
little plunge pools hot tubs so it's a really a warm weather cruise now what's
14:47
important to understand is there is one adult only area so if you are looking at going in the key summer periods if
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you're looking at July August or I guess Christmas holidays or Thanksgiving uh in the Caribbean time bear in mind there is
15:01
only one adult only pool area certainly even on our cruise you know the kids get
15:06
quite frantic in the in the main pool area so um there is only one adult area at the moment there's no adult
15:12
restaurants or bars or whatever but the but beautiful the quality is just magnificent you know the attention to
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detail the styling the design is fantastic so that was a big uh a really big like and I really like that design
15:25
concept i mean we were we had sort of mixed weather but certainly on those beautiful sunny sea days there was loads
15:30
and loads of spaces admittedly you know we weren't traveling full but I think even when you were full there'd be loads loads of spaces um uh so dining was
15:39
great i really enjoyed the food the import you know so the different restaurants that you can go you can go to once during a cruise and I did
15:45
clarify that we're on an 11 night cruise we still told we could only go to the the Sakura um uh and the um market the
15:54
Mediterranean Yacht Club which are the two that you have to make reservations you could only go once on a cruise but
16:00
if there was availability you could go twice so actually because we were not selling us full and it was 11 nights we
16:05
could actually get on i could get to Sakura a second time they have anthology which is the Italian that's €140 that
16:12
cost me if you're doing the wine pairing it would be 60 personally I would not pay that again um and I wouldn't
16:19
strongly recommend uh that but the dining was fantastic the Emporium Marketplace which is the buffet the
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non-buffet buffet again sort of like more virgin concept um where you've got these individual stations but what's
16:31
great it's all crew served and most of the dishes are made to order so if you want pasta they make it there um you
16:37
know there's someone literally making the sushi um and they don't keep a big pile of sushi sort of festering if you
16:42
like most dishes are kind of made to order so it's really nice and what I really liked is it was open in the
16:48
evenings so you'd have that D casual dining option which as you know is um is
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one of my things that I miss a lot on luxury ships um Wi-Fi was really good it was stinking and you as I mentioned you
17:00
had three devices so let me just touch on one other question so keep asking your questions i will I will have see
17:06
the world and asked the question do explore journeys take the crown for best cruise line and wellness and fitness no they don't but they I did like their
17:12
fitness a lot they had a very nice gym it it felt quite small and I think particularly when it's full it could be
17:18
more challenging but certainly we had I didn't no problem what I liked about it is they had obviously very modern equipment very high quality equipment so
17:26
they had um three bikes in fact they had a fourth one which was slightly slightly similar which you could do proper cycle
17:32
classes on so me as you'd probably know I'm a big palatin fan they weren't a palatin bike but I could use my pallet
17:37
app which means you can do the full stand up and stuff some free weights they had um a studio but all the classes
17:44
were included in the fair so that's great um and they had a fairly good range of classes they do you know kind
17:49
of your stretch and your yoga um and stuff like that then you could obviously buy personal training classes um but
17:56
they you know Virgin is probably the the the leading edge on wellness and fitness
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uh overall just in terms of the the the classes they have the variety the scale of it but I would they were they were
18:08
good they were really good what I also liked about Explore Journeys is they have this out outdoor wellness gym area
18:14
so literally they had a gym outside with um the techno gym little units which are
18:20
very good they're they're um they basically double as a bench and have weights and things underneath they had
18:25
some bikes outside and they also had rowing machines outside and I didn't work out work out outside but uh I did
18:32
see people using those so that's quite nice they got the outdoor working area they've got the paddle tennis court two of those one of which is like a
18:39
basketball thing they have quite a long running track they don't have a full round prominard deck down at all uh
18:47
which is which I know a lot of people like I like but they have a on the up on on the top of decks on deck 12 they're
18:54
nice running track and you could could have walked all the way around there which is which is pretty good um so they
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do well on fitness and wellness um uh so that's that's pretty good um so let me
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just have a look um at so as I said do ask your questions and I will make sure
19:10
I try and answer them and then and I'll come back to the others a little bit later so um George we worked on explor
19:18
in September my wife requires gluten-free options we uh we have made explore journeys aware of this so
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certainly George in the um importing marketplace they did have in the bread section they had a kind of a gluten-free
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thing and they did seem pretty alert and aware of those issues i didn't delve
19:35
into it a lot to be honest but they they seem pretty aware you know the menus would have all the gluten-free stuff um
19:41
and you know I think in in the um in in the various restaurants they
19:47
would you know they seem pretty on the ball like they would always ask about um you know allergies or requirements but
19:54
obviously of course when you get on board talk to the matri particularly because you you got lots of different restaurants you're going to you probably
20:00
need to speak to the different mates um as well uh so uh so that does answer
20:06
your question they were on display so Caroline hi there Caroline
20:12
who says she missed the live streams yeah it's been a while um friends who just returned for explorer many cruise they were really impressed give it 10
20:18
out of 10 more likes in silvery who would you say are the main competitors so hopefully I've answered that you know they see their main competitors as your
20:24
silvery your seaborn uh Ritz Carlton i think you know they sort of almost
20:29
bridge a little bit but I think they certainly have aspirations to that and you know they will focus I guess more on
20:36
their soft stuff and up that level of of service and stuff what's interesting is they made a conscious decision to not
20:43
just recruit from the cruising industry so quite a lot of the crew are completely new to cruising and they came
20:49
from uh hotels so I think that in some of them I did they they were talking about what a shock it was moving from
20:55
hotels when they suddenly were working you know seven days a week you know 10 to 12 hour whatever shifts they were
21:01
finding that quite you know a change for them but I think they will kind of get
21:07
into their get into this travel agent Sarah's here and as she mentioned she's on explorer quite soon next week that's
21:13
right um on explorer one I guess that's the Greek isles thing so I'd be interested to know uh from your
21:20
perspective Sarah how much of that you agree and dis disagree with that let's have a look at um let's have a look okay
21:28
so a few other explore questions one thing I might mention I'm just looking at my things that I didn't like as much
21:34
i thought the entertainment by the way was pretty weak it's going to be on my I think my video probably in the week
21:40
section so they had um they had a group of singers
21:46
um because it wasn't production show but they'd have a live band sort of five piece live band check my notes and I
21:53
think it was four singers um and they would do the old you know they'd do a Mottown show and you know all things I'm
22:00
less of a fan of Mottown kind of they do a little song song stuff which I thought was quite interesting that they didn't
22:06
do more contemporary stuff because it's very clear that they are obviously I think they're targeting sort of a a more
22:12
family 40s50s kind of demographic definitely multicultural which is we had a very
22:19
multicultural grouping although I we were I was all shocked to discover actually that the American American uh
22:26
were the biggest group you heard very little kind of US accents you heard most you heard lots of German Dutch Spanish
22:32
Italian Brits and stuff so it felt it was very kind of multicultural as you would expect for an MSC company
22:40
operating when it's in Europe because that's their sales infrastructure but it was very multicultural however what was
22:46
interesting was they clearly made the decision to have English as their prime language so everything was done in
22:52
English so all the announcements etc in English now of course for those passengers they they would get their Spanish I guess or whatever daily
22:58
programs but everything was very much in English anyway my point was when it comes to entertainment that it was again
23:04
all English focus so you'd have the singers they had very average um pretty
23:09
much guest entertainers the usual standard you know magician kind of stuff they did have actually a violinist and
23:16
his wife um and again sort of my notes who he was really good he was really innovative he studed I think the Royal
23:22
College of Music and he did a really great set one night where he he started with a classical music moved into sort
23:29
of movie themes and then sort of took off his tuxedo and he had this kind of rock gear and he did rock songs and
23:34
stuff and that was very exciting um but you know the shows are not really kind
23:40
of that that great the daily program is fairly light again being a small ship probably the thing they have kind of one
23:45
trivia which actually was not that well attended which is very interesting maybe that's because of the mix of uh groups
23:51
they would have uh you know DJ in the evening um that that kind of stuff but
23:56
not a particularly busy daily program i'll dive into that more I guess in the full videos
24:03
um so Gary asking the question uh did you do any of the explorer shore
24:09
excursions we have excursion excursion credit and I'm wondering how the explorer options so Gary I did not do
24:14
any of the explorer excursions uh partly because uh which I'd also mentioned them
24:19
is on board is I wasn't able to book them before I went but I'm I've been to
24:24
many of the ports before where I was really focusing on the experience however what I did notice is that their
24:30
extra excursions are run by Inter Cruisers which is the company that provides for many of the cruise lines
24:35
that cruises and most of the feedback I got from people where the cruise the excursions were pretty average um pretty
24:41
standard stuff and certainly when I was looking at the list there was nothing really terribly exciting or different
24:47
from them um but obviously you know if you got credit take it um you know uh I
24:53
didn't you know looking at the group sizes the group sizes seem fairly um small but again with the ship wasn't
24:59
completely full so maybe the group sizes will be bigger but certainly inter cruises um you know most of the cruise
25:05
lines whether I don't quote me on this but I can't I need to go back and check my notes but you know your princess or
25:11
your Qunard or whatever I think are all sort of use that same company as as their main kind of person um so I didn't
25:18
use any of them is the is the short answer um so uh Ken goes cruising is it
25:25
more elevated yes I do think feel like it's an elevated ocean just in terms of it's interesting because Ocean talk about the finest cuisine at sea i would
25:32
say the food is much stronger uh overall um on on that sorry Caroline I'm making
25:38
a point it's I did say the Mediterranean Yacht Club didn't I that's the one you don't have to make reservations for
25:43
marble and Co which is the steakhouse um and Sakura i really like Sakura i went to Sakura for uh dinner as I mentioned
25:51
twice once myself once I went with Karen and um her husband Neil karen is the is
25:58
the person doing all the port talks one thing I would say that was good on the program was port talks um Karen is is on
26:04
for a couple of months um and port talks are excellent and very popular by the way and what's great about the port
26:09
talks is they weren't selling excursions they would tell you how to self-explore and so on so Marvel and co the
26:14
steakhouse was pretty good sakura I really liked what's also I liked is Sakura on port days opens for lunch they
26:20
do a very nice bantto box uh and then the Mediterranean Yacht Club which which
26:25
is one you don't have to make reservations for uh is open on C days so you have um Field Rouge which is open
26:32
for breakfast and dinner every day and then the Mediterranean Rock Cup is open at night so that's sort of their
26:37
equivalent to sort of like the main dining rooms um let's have a look
26:46
um Tony just returned for export cruise I think is everybody's going to silver seen seabourn the pre- cruise experience
26:51
is horrible yes so definitely you know the they need to sort out that whole
26:56
kind of stuff and actually when I met the lady uh who was the president she did talk I did mention about the word
27:03
she said they know that those sort of things they need to get sorted and they're going to try and get those sorted before two three and four and so
27:09
on come come along by an aside explorer one explorer two are basically mirror images of each Another few slight
27:16
differences probably one of the main differences actually on Explorer 1 you have a Rolex watch shop you don't have
27:21
that on Explorer 2 that's probably they told me was probably about the main difference but once you get Explorer 3 and four they're going to be 10 m longer
27:29
but the same amount of cabins um and the reason it's longer is there's going to be LG ships and they need to make them
27:34
bigger so actually one of the things that the lady in the uh who runs a kids club notice club taugh told me is at the
27:41
moment the programs only start from six up till uh basically 17 but when they get the longer stretch ship there's talk
27:47
of them then adding in an under sixes kids club because they're seeing more demand more people coming um and they
27:54
think that would also be very popular and I think it would be very popular um so uh let's have a look Um let me
28:05
just go back and make sure I haven't looked at them because there are some uh what was your favorite so calling on
28:11
ports hi there so calling all ports D and Andrew here they've been on explorer they did a very helpful video actually
28:17
just before I went which was called kind of a guide to eating on explore journeys which was very helpful um so take a look
28:24
at calling your ports um and I think they're going to do some more deep dives into dining so my favorite station at
28:31
Emporium Marketplace was actually the sushi station which I didn't find until about day three because it's as you'll
28:37
know it's kind of tucked around the corner behind the sort of station which does oyster stuff and I saw people
28:42
eating sushi and I couldn't work out where they got it from so that was probably my favorite station and my second favorite was actually the pasta
28:48
station i really like that but then of course they had a carbury they had hamburgers desserts desserts were okay
28:54
actually and weren't brilliant in the emporium marketplace but better in the restaurants um then beautiful food kind
29:00
of uh bread kind of section but the sushi was my favorite for sure um by
29:06
quite a long way um sorry I'm sort of jumping around a little bit more than I
29:11
would normally do because I just want to make sure I sort of lead with the explorer updates first and then and then
29:18
come come back anthony I need to play around a bit with the pricing so being
29:23
offered an 8-day cruise including Mexican bise on journey two for about 4,800 for solo travel um would you say
29:31
that's good value so I always look at those at a per day basis um so you know
29:38
that you can always see versus what I paid you know it's it's shifting up but certainly if you were going to do an
29:43
8day cruise on a silver sea a seaborn regent you're going to be talking more like probably closer to £8,000 I would
29:50
guess so he's probably looking at that but um one of the things you can do which is what I've been doing at looking at the solo things is if you go onto the
29:58
the website look at what price you're get given if you put two passengers in
30:04
and then and they'll give you a price um and then do one with one passenger in and just see because there you'll see
30:10
just how much the discount uh the discount is that that that you're getting but certainly coming back to the
30:16
point that Tony said is you know I'm probably more of an outlook certainly I met lots of people who gone Seaborn Silver Sea Ocean well that it was those
30:23
sort of people who really you know most of those people really enjoying the experience so it's it's kind of in that
30:28
area i just feel it's not quite there yet but that's where it's it's definitely uh heading heading up with um
30:37
uh some of the people who are on the cruise with me by the looks of it which is great um Warren asking explorer versus region
30:43
i've probably answered that regent is is more more uh on terms of service level
30:50
is kind of elevated explorer has more dining options um I would say
30:57
uh uh sorry I'm just making sure I want to make sure I've done the the explorer
31:04
ones and then I will come back i'm sure there'll be more explorer questions to come
31:12
uh ah okay great so we did meet and chat I met I had met a lot of people who
31:18
watch the channel on explorer 2 which is great so explorer journeys so lots of people recommend explorer I think most
31:23
people coming would recommend it I mean I would recommend people definitely take a look at explorer journeys for sure if
31:30
they're looking at that kind of luxury out of luxury space and definitely versus haven it's I I would agree with
31:35
you you can probably get cruise on explore journey uh certainly I paid much less than I've paid in Haven and it's
31:41
definitely a much much elevated experience for for sure uh let's have a
31:47
look so I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I've answered most of those so let's go back
31:53
jump back and I'm sure there'll be more explorer questions coming in and I will answer those as we go jennifer had left
32:00
a question before saying please address the American port issues now the Trump has fired all the cruise inspectors i'm
32:06
just so confused that none of the cruise channels are based outside America okay so I'll set aside the factual part which
32:12
is not strictly f uh correct in what what happened but I know what you're saying is the CDC have spoken about um
32:20
that they're going to be not doing those checks uh as I understand it that they
32:27
do you know the sort of random checks they do on cruise ships and they give them a score because with all the budget
32:32
cuts that they've got they are um because a lot of those I think civilian
32:37
people that they do or something if I read it correctly um I think probably the reason that you're finding that most
32:43
C channels outside the US are talking about is because that's a very US kind
32:48
of thing so you don't see a similar thing happening you know ships selling out of Spain or Italy or whatever so I
32:55
think that's why it's it's less of a hot topic it's probably a little bit more under the radar so I've been kind of keeping an eye on that to see what
33:01
happens see where that settles down and I guess we're waiting also from what clear's perspective of as you know they
33:07
they do these kind of random checks and uh you know a couple of cruise lines you know got really close to the wire
33:13
something that he's got called out um but cruise lines will often talk about how high they do but certainly you know
33:19
it would be good if they did have those kind of random checks as a passenger perspective so we'll see where that
33:24
we'll see where that settles down at um I guess a lot of things are in flux
33:30
around that thing um and I definitely try to avoid getting into politics
33:36
whenever I possibly can whether it's on ships or off ships uh certainly in public anyway so let's have a look uh
33:44
Bill's fan 72 hello from Canada your opinion of Vital for excursions in Rome any other recommendations deciding what
33:50
to do for Rome in Rome deciding what to do for three days in Rome pre cruise so
33:56
certainly Bill's fanfan 72 via tour are a great option particularly on these kind of cities they do have a lot of
34:03
great excursions in cities that's kind of their expertise really um you you know I would tend to recommend things
34:09
like shore excursions group and I would tend to recommend uh you know venture shore because they they synchronize much
34:16
more with cruise itineraries um but when you're talking about being in a in a in a city Vitaltor great i do have an
34:22
affiliate link by the way for Vitaltor which I think is tips fort travelers.com via if I remember correctly uh so if let
34:28
me have a look at that i mean you don't have to use that but if you if you want to use that let me have a look i should
34:33
probably have this up here so let's have a look yeah so if you go tips for travelers with
34:39
two.comvia that's an affiliate link i get some commission you don't pay anymore that's very helpful if you do
34:44
look at shore excursions group though um again if you go to tips
34:50
fortravelers.comshore excursions um at checkout if you put in
34:55
TFT5 you'll get 5% discount i haven't promoted that much yet because I've only just negotiated that uh this week with
35:03
short excursions group um so uh I don't have any discounts with Viotor other
35:09
than what if they're offering any promotions but Shore Excursions Group if you go just travels.com/shore excursions
35:16
put in T55 at checkout and you'll get discount but yes Vital so it's a long way of answering your question but
35:22
Viotor is a great option for excursions uh in Rome definitely they're really
35:27
good at at cities um I find and so I always tend to lean a little bit more to via for those city break kind of things
35:35
if I'm looking for tours um there's a great hop on hop off bus by the way in Rome I think if you remember quickly there's two different
35:42
um routes but if there's if there's certain and Rome certainly getting around the hop on hop off bus is pretty
35:48
good but if you want something a bit more organized that's that's what I would that's what I would I would do so
35:55
Um let's have a look at there was a question around I've sort of touched on this before so I will answer it um but I
36:03
have spoken about it before but I will touch back on it so cross with friends good to see you uh back here on the live
36:09
um curious whether you fly business class or economy and how many days in advance of the cruise you arrive and
36:14
whether you stay an extra day or not so on the second part um first of all is if
36:20
I'm going even like this cruise I did for explorer journeys which is from Barcelona I do not fly in on the same
36:26
day i will fly in the day before which is what I did so anywhere in Europe I'll go minimum the day before so and you
36:33
know Barcelona has about British Airways who would fly there with us at least five maybe six or more flights a day so
36:40
if things get cancelled um there's ways of scrabbling but if there's a big problem of weather issues so for example
36:46
Heathro closed down completely every flight was canceled for a day because there was a fire which which had damaged
36:52
um the electricity uh substation so they closed down for a day so uh anybody
36:58
going out that day do not make the cruise so at least you've got a bit of a buffer so a minimum of one day uh extra
37:05
day or not depends on a lot of whether I've been to a place or haven't been to a place um uh you know so if I haven't
37:12
been to a place I'll probably um do you know and different ports I will add days on however when I'm going long haul it
37:19
will be a minimum of two days is what I try and do so for example actually when
37:24
I went to Japan last time I did four days um partly because I you know I want
37:29
to see the places I never know if I'm going to get back there to try and get into the time zone uh although touchwood
37:34
I'm pretty good at getting into the time zone uh and generally speaking I don't suffer from jet lag generally speaking
37:40
um and then I would stay again if it's a port I haven't been to so for example the last trip I did which was the
37:45
Crystal Cruise trip it started in Tokyo actually finished in Manila but I flew to Hong Kong so I spent four days in
37:51
Tokyo at the beginning and I spent three days in Hong Kong at the end so you know
37:57
I will try and expand that so I will uh fly business class uh and I will do
38:02
everything I possibly can to fly business cards particularly long hall so I'm an avid collector of air miles um
38:09
you know I have a credit card which collects AIOS because it clicks through British Airways uh so I put everything I
38:16
possibly can on there um and um then I will then I will also tend to because I
38:22
book so far ahead uh uh Mitsy Crafts with Friends i book all my I know what
38:27
I'm doing in 27 already so I I will try and use Air Miles uh bookings so when
38:34
they come out um I will will will use the miles um I will often now I'm
38:40
fortunate with my corporate travel and with my travel since I'm like a high status locked in high status which often
38:48
gets me uh deals where I can get you know use fewer miles things so basically
38:53
uh that helps me um also get into the time zone easier so I'm very spoiled
38:58
from that perspective and that comes from my like 20 odd years doing corporate travel where um we had a very
39:04
nice travel policy and got horribly spoiled but also a built up air mile so that's what I do um so uh Moonman 57 are
39:13
here which is good to see Carrie and Mike hope you're well um not sure if you're together or apart at the moment
39:19
susan M arrived back to hotel in London which is great um Sheila in Dallas is
39:25
here lou good to hear that the update um so Lou is is one of my captain patrons
39:33
uh so he got the updates but also the other thing whenever I go on a cruise I know being a patron member is not for
39:38
everybody but whenever I go on a cruise I post a lot of Instagram stories which
39:43
get cross-osted onto Facebook so do follow me Gary Benbridge on Instagram or my tips for travelers page and I will
39:50
post loads and loads of stories um as as well so you know that that's great um
39:55
and people seem to enjoy those i enjoy doing them as well so that's good paul I
40:00
if I understand this question I think I might have um I can't answer this
40:06
question i don't I've been to Ephesus but I haven't been to uh I don't know
40:11
i'll probably mask that pronunciation so I've been to Ephesus and I thought it was amazing i think I've been twice once
40:17
I went on a daytime excursion and once uh I was on Seaborn and they did like a special evening music performance thing
40:24
so it was very um atmospheric so if anyone has uh pluses and minuses they can share with Paul please do that you
40:32
you might have find you might have found that that people um people have already done that so thanks very much for that
40:39
dean asking the question good to see you there Dean i think you've changed your picture if I remember correctly maybe I'm wrong how many cruises do you do a
40:45
year so uh Dina I average probably 10 a year i think this year I'm currently
40:52
only booked on nine only i'm very fortunate i think it's nine this year because I have a landbased trip um in
41:02
September October um so I think it's nine and also I'm doing slightly longer trips this year so I'm doing like a
41:08
three a month away uh which is a combination of uh going to Seattle so hopefully maybe I'll get a chance to see
41:14
Mike and Carrie spend a little time in Seattle and then doing kind of uh from Seward to Tokyo repositioning on Silver
41:20
Sea then I'm doing a month-long West Africa trip so I'm doing slightly longer trips uh this this year so but that's
41:26
that's why I have that so many but it's around about 10 around about 10 10 a
41:32
year um do you have videos touring ship um Elaine if you're asking about am I doing
41:38
it off explorer yes I'm absolutely going to be doing um of Explorer now I don't tend to do video tours because so many
41:45
people have video tours and do a way better job so my go-to for video ship
41:50
video tours is hard travel um Danny I think his name is huge tour guy does the
41:56
most amazing ship and cabin tour so whenever I go on a ship I'm not familiar with as I did with Explorer when I went
42:03
on Crystal recently or any ship I go on I will use his tour and his cabins to
42:09
help me choose cabin they are just fantastic but what I've what I found like I did for Crystal recently or I'll
42:15
do for Explorer when there's newer ships and there's lots and lots of questions and points I want to make which you know
42:21
rather than if I try and do them in the review video of the line it's just too long so I I'll definitely be doing one
42:26
on Explorer emma Cruiser is here which is fantastic hi there Emma um been enjoying your Nile River cruise not
42:33
trying good well it sounds like you might be going on one i I thought it was fantastic um it's good to see you here
42:38
thanks for joining um Barbara seeking your input for an 18 to
42:45
21 voyage in October 26 so I'm thinking okay so I'm thinking
42:52
you mean people are aged 18 to 21 in October 26 we are Viking people
42:59
uh because no kids but over to other lines looking for an unusual trip so Barbara on the top of my head I'm not
43:06
sure I can answer that but I would strongly encourage you to talk to one of the travel agents and I I can't remember
43:12
where you're based if you're in the US there's Walter for example um so maybe I'll put a link down they will come up
43:17
with some things but October is a thing that comes that I October is a great time to go to Japan i don't know if
43:23
that's unusual enough for you but it's it's very warm it's not as manically busy um but that's a fantastic time uh
43:30
South Africa there's some really nice itineraries I think also around that time um and there's some great West
43:37
Africa and Africa trips because a lot of the ships moving down at that time because it's repositioning time so for
43:42
example I mentioned earlier that I'm doing that sort of month-long West Africa trip and that's actually because
43:48
the region navigator is heading down to South Africa going to South Africa it's heading on to Asia so you'll find
43:54
there's quite a lot of those trips going down um you know down that that West Africa trip um you know if you're
44:01
looking for unusual trips explore journeys as I mentioned could be a theme of this is explore journeys um
44:07
you know so um but but they are very focused on the Mediterranean stuff and if you're looking for something unusual
44:12
that would be the the the kind of top of my head see that top of time is quite interesting because you have some sort
44:17
of repositioning ones so you do have some which might some ships might be repositioning from uh from Alaska going
44:26
over the top to Japan like I'm doing but I'm doing that sort of September time this year so some of those kind of interesting kind of bits bits and pieces
44:34
around that time um yes €140 was kind of scary um
44:41
uh says Francis oh Francis is are you still in the UK oh after touring well on
44:48
touring Friday said the best team I had as a te room of the Jane Austin Center in Bath i haven't been to the Jane Austin Center Bath but there's some
44:54
amazing T- rooms in Bath that's that's a good that's good to know um ah okay so
45:01
Grant has asked me about the this the t-shirt I'm wearing so the clue will be
45:08
there i think Seattle so I got this um when I went to the amazing um museum uh
45:16
nautical museum i'm a massive big fan of transport and not cruising but transport so um so one of the reasons I'm actually
45:23
going well I'm going to Seattle anyway onwards but when I was there last time I didn't go to the Boeing factory so one
45:30
of the reasons I'm spending some time in Seattle is again come question I could work out air mile ways to get there um
45:37
it was the most effect fit way use of air mass to get there but also um I didn't go to the Boeing museum so I want
45:42
to go there i also made an incredible discovery by the way as an aside in the UK is I've you know I've lived in the UK
45:50
for like I god how long like I don't know forever basically since 87 so um
45:58
the um but this weekend on Saturday I went to um the cuz I was like kind of
46:06
I'm kind of into historical cars not into cars as such but we went to the MercedesBenz
46:12
um I've forgotten what it's called now Mercedes-Benz not center Mercedes-Benz World which is where they have it's they
46:18
have lots of historical Mercedes-Benz cars and they have this mass big kind of racetrack where you can um buy driving
46:24
experiences and do skit um go skidding around and all that sort of stuff which is not really for me but
46:31
more for Mark and some friends of ours but next to it they had the most incredible most incredible incredible uh
46:38
um aeronautical museum it's this the spot where uh where this now is it used
46:45
to be where they all the aircraft building happened uh in the UK before
46:50
kind of it lost um kind of I guess Airbus and Boeing took all all of that
46:56
but they have this incredible uh museum they have the London bus museum there but they also had Concord there they had
47:04
an old uh Vic count plane which had been Sultan of Aman's private jet which is
47:10
still all decked out on his big chairs and stuff anyway so um so anything so you'll often find I've got a whole
47:16
series of these different t-shirts which are themed around um museums I've been to my goodness I've forgotten the name
47:22
of the museum how embarrassing it'll come to me but anyway so it's incredible i still keep finding these amazing these
47:28
amazing museums so you need to go to Seattle is the is the short answer to the the question um oh here's a good
47:36
question so just around Steinvault Manchen good to see you here again new
47:41
thoughts on ities what strength and weaknesses do they have in that front you were talking explore journey so I spoke to um someone as I mentioned who
47:50
was the president but I spoke less to her about attorneys but I did speak to the hotel director and I also spoke to
47:57
someone who does the hotel kind of operations and they were very clear you know MSE's strength as a company is the
48:04
Mediterranean and it's also the Caribbean and that is where they are focusing they're focusing in the
48:09
Mediterranean and the Caribbean now they are looking to expand a little bit uh and they're doing a little bit more
48:15
Middle East so MSE also does have some Middle East stuff so um it could be interesting how they get the ships to
48:20
the Middle East with the challenge of getting through the Sus Canal but if you look a little bit further ahead they do have some uh sort of Middle Eastern
48:27
itineries but they are very clear they're focusing very much on the Caribbean and the Mediterranean so
48:33
they're pretty classic kind of itineraries what's interesting is most itineries tend to be kind of seven to 10
48:38
nights but they tend to sort of move a little bit so for example with my cruise
48:44
it sort of went down to sort of before that had gone come over did Lisbon to Barcelona then it Barcelona can run and
48:50
it was doing Barcelona to uh to Chvichia so you could have done like three-week
48:56
trip or almost four-week trip without too much duplication barcel duplication but then it's sort of headed back
49:02
they're doing the Greek ales for example um in with Europa one but even it sounds
49:07
like when Europa 3 and stuff comes they're going to be very much still focused on that and we will see because
49:12
by the time they get to six they're going to be going much further field um so that's that that will be that will be
49:19
interesting um PPPJ um do you know if the reluctance
49:24
to go to the US for holiday at present has impacted the Caribbean cruising for Florida less bookies so no the cruise
49:30
lines have not I I mean certainly sea trade was on recently uh which is the big gathering uh the cruise lines didn't
49:38
that they said that they were not seeing any softness in excuse me in bookings i think if anything what you might find uh
49:45
is actually you know Caribbean cruising will still be very buoyant because you
49:51
know the bulk of people cruising on the Caribbean certainly from Florida are US residents so um I think you know and if
49:59
there's more nervousness on traveling or weakening of the dollar and so on and that that I think less so the second
50:05
thing is you know certainly like if I look at the US the US is very attractive
50:10
uh as a solidification because the pound has strengthened so for example you know we have uh trip to the US actually uh
50:18
and it's reduced in price fairly significantly not fairly significant quite significantly uh because the the
50:25
pound has strengthe versus the dollar so actually it'll be interesting to see where this all nets out whether if the dollar stays a bit weaker whether
50:31
actually or people may for whatever reasons they don't want to travel but then they might will they be lured by
50:36
the fact that actually booking a Caribbean vac cruise is cheap going to
50:41
be cheaper than it was so so certainly we're not cruise lines are saying less bookings um so we we will see uh I did
50:49
notice though there are quite a lot of promotions on at the moment so I know it's Easter a lot of them running Easter
50:55
promotions um but there's lots and lots of cruise lines if I look at both my emails because I sign up for all the
51:01
cruise lines and also uh on social media particularly Instagram and Facebook
51:06
there's a lot of promotions on like Celebrity you know they're doing the 75% off second passenger holler America were
51:13
doing a $1 deposit uh promotion and x% off and Norwegian was doing something
51:20
50% off and throwing in the more at sea I think it's called that now more at sea so there's lots of promotions going so
51:26
there could be some good um good if you're looking at the Caribbean have a
51:32
look because there's lots of deals on and we will see how that nets out but you're right i mean a lot of the airlines have spoken about softness in
51:39
bookings um but one of the travel I was reading the paper one of the travel experts was talking about how um what
51:47
they're seeing what lands often do is again it's flexing pricing often kind of
51:52
sways people money I guess sways people i know if people got other reasons they don't want to go that may that may uh
51:58
may influence it so we Anyway that's what I'm seeing at the moment obviously I'm keeping a very close eye on that because we interested to see through the
52:04
turmo turmoil going on at the moment um with trade and so on whether whether
52:09
that that changes things i think what's going to be very interesting is actually the other way is this summer now most
52:16
people have probably booked and they've paid the final deposits but uh in terms of if you're coming from the US into
52:22
Europe with the dollar having weekend you know Europe looks less attractive at the moment price-wise so that will be
52:27
interesting to see how people think about you know coming from the the US way um into Europe because it you know
52:34
if they haven't booked flights and stuff they are going to be more potentially more costly potentially I don't know we will see um Gary oh here good point this
52:42
is another question about um the explorer so the spa therapy pool sa and
52:47
salt room are free to all so yes they are a bit like they are on crystal and a few other the premium lines um I didn't
52:53
use them but I visited them now um and I spoke to the ladies on reception What they said is they do get pretty busy um
52:59
the best time to go kind of early morning between 8:00 to 10:00 and sort
53:04
of late afternoon sort of like six o'clock or so because people are starting to do dinner and stuff um they
53:09
did recommend that you phone down before you go but so anyway I popped in there a couple of times i didn't use them but I
53:16
did pop in a couple of times to video to see what was going on and they didn't look massively busy but I did speak to
53:21
other people that said they they started phoning down if they were going to go down just to see how busy they were um
53:28
and obviously on sea days because they're quite small uh you'll see eventually in the video that like the
53:34
the people but it's quite a small it's not a massive area because you know it's not a massive big mega ship but there
53:39
was a nice it had a nice vibe a nice feel to it so that I always love it when I see that
53:45
it's inspires him to book a cruise Virgin Voyages in October fantastic i'm very excited when I see that it's uh
53:51
inspired somebody um here's here's a little aside so let's have a little a
53:58
little aside yes we we'll do a little diversion uh not a cruise specific how do you manage the different timelines
54:04
narratives stories for the different social outlets is there a specific content that does better on one platform than the others so Dr betic um I'm
54:12
probably not as good like Emma Emma still on here but Emma is much more focused on social media much more adept
54:18
than I am on social media so for me you know the most successful platform for me
54:23
is Facebook you obviously YouTube so YouTube is the most important one of all
54:28
because that's where most my followers are that's where most of my presence is so if I post on YouTube posts for
54:34
example that will get the most response um but Facebook for me is very is my
54:40
next biggest so Facebook is where I focus much more so I and I'm playing around a little bit more with with it so
54:47
I tend to post much more uh when I'm on a trip I will post daily onto Facebook
54:53
updates where you know what's going on often with a question so it's very much around what I'm doing then what I have
55:00
is a lot of repurposing of content so some of my videos being chopped down into smaller bits and pieces and
55:05
experimenting at the moment with posting more video content on Facebook so I tend to focus much more on what I'm doing now
55:11
so I see my videos as being where I do the deep dives and so on and then I use uh that kind of here's what I'm doing
55:18
this is what's going on so that's kind of what I do so that's why I mentioned when I'm on a trip you know obviously I
55:23
do some stuff for patrons whatever uh but you know I then post daily stories about what's going on um I don't tend to
55:30
post a lot when I'm not traveling and that's kind of almost a sin in terms of being good on social media but on
55:36
Facebook I'm very very active on Facebook um I I like Instagram i'm not as big on Instagram as other cruise
55:43
people i have 10,000 followers i mean that's still big but not of a scale that I have that other people have by by a
55:50
long by a long way uh Josh is asking the question would you recommend Princess Cruise Line for
55:55
Alaska so Josh both of them are excellent in Alaska i've been on both of those um and
56:03
a lot of it depends on what you're looking for now in reality the experience uh in Alaska particularly in
56:09
the peak season doesn't tend to be typical Princess typical Holl America because you get lots of multigenerational lots of families on
56:16
board so that kind of creates more of that kind of buzz i find overall I would horror market probably does a little bit
56:22
better in terms of um the sort of more enrichment side although they've drifted a little bit away from that but they're
56:28
a little bit stronger on that so um but you'll find if you go particularly in the season both lines will be more
56:35
family focused have lots of families on so if you want to avoid families go more sort of early May into June time maybe
56:42
towards the end of the season after schools have gone back sort of Septemberish you know late September October time colder times um because
56:50
both will be pretty busy with family if you're going with families multigenerational both of those will work um really well personally I lean
56:58
towards Honda America um I would say when I compare the two trips I did I probably prefer the Honda America one
57:05
but it's more kind of subjective both were were excellent they they know Alaska well they're the two longest operators there they get the best uh
57:12
locations they go into Glacia Bay uh good excursions i mean they just know it incredibly incredibly well um so I
57:20
probably didn't really help you i probably didn't help you Sarah thanks for that tip pre-book the line pass is
57:26
really important thanks for adding that um thanks very thanks thanks very thanks for that uh point that's otherwise if
57:33
you're going in peak season you could you can wait for just absolutely forever um SL asking the question what
57:40
would you recommend you do in Chvia i would like to spend time I would stay on the ship if you're not planning to go to
57:45
Rome um I've strivia a little bit there are some excursions which the cruise line offer closer to Chuvia so you're
57:52
not heading all the way into Rome um which I haven't done you know you can stroll around to Juve have a coffee or
57:58
whatever little along the beachfront there that big kind of statue thing and
58:04
whatever um I'm not didn't find a particular interest so I if I'm not going up to Rome I tend to stay on the
58:09
ship into sort of have a ship day spa after we'll do filming of the ship or
58:14
whatever but just enjoy the ship being less and less busy um so let's have a
58:21
look um Mara 22Q doing a family reunion June
58:26
22 Miami 30 cabins travel agents not being able to get much in the way of discounts or perks um that's unusual
58:32
actually if you got 30 cabins because you're working to about 60 people i mean if I look at my group cruises I mean I
58:38
count my group cruises sort of around 70 to 80 people um and most depends which
58:44
cruise line you're talking most will have some sort of package now if you're looking for massive bells and whistles
58:50
you probably not going to get it but you should get I guess what you should get like gap points for example which will
58:56
mean you can allocate certain uh perks and benefits might be you know on credit or treats in the room or some a cocktail
59:04
party for example you'll get that you should also get uh I guess what they call you know so many cabins you should
59:10
get a free cabin uh example but that's kind of all you're going to get cruise lines tend to have a little formula for
59:17
these so you can normally just literally ask you can actually Google if you've targeting a cruise line i find even
59:23
you've got like Honda America or Princess do princess cruises group uh
59:28
perks and you'll norally get a PDF or something that will tell you those kind of perks now some if you've got a travel
59:34
agent they can negotiate something else so you know one of the whole group cruises some of them we've been able to
59:40
negotiate group rates but a lot of them you know for example Sarah's working on
59:45
for me um another group cruise uh that we're looking at um and you know talking
59:51
to the lines they will have their standard package you know if you have this many cabins you get this you know
59:57
we offer this discount or this onboard credit or this package uh and then you
1:00:02
know you know perhaps a free cabin for the organizer or the tour operator or whatever so you'll find it fairly fixed
1:00:10
uh with some scope um but I would have thought also June 26
1:00:16
if you're doing it now ships might be quite full although June Caribbean should be more flexible but Google
1:00:24
you'll get a sense of what it is um and like you know you I don't I don't know who your travel agent is you can always
1:00:30
maybe ask another travel agent to take a look at it um you know I do have two travel agents in the US like Walter for
1:00:36
example so Walter from where's Walter travel he organizes a lot of groups so it might be worth talking to him if
1:00:42
unless you know if you do want another set of eyes on it so Walter again I'll put a link to but if you search where's
1:00:49
Walter Travel his website um you know he does a lot of he organizes a lot of groups both for himself and for other
1:00:56
people out of the US um and he has certain in my and with certain quite a
1:01:02
wide range actually of of different cruise lines so if you want a second set of eyes that would be uh that would be
1:01:08
what I would suggest david asking the question uh do you have any feedback of the new cruise
1:01:15
departure terminal at Fusnia i think that's how you pronounce it i haven't so when I it's great that they've opened
1:01:22
that when I last went out of there literally was just nothing we actually checked in at the old uh original ones
1:01:28
that cruise ships have to go and they were bus across to FNIA so I haven't actually seen anyone posting about it so
1:01:35
um uh so so if anyone has had experience let us know uh Lori I'm actually going
1:01:41
to direct you to a video and I will put a link in the uh in in the in the show
1:01:49
notes so maybe five 10 minutes after this I've done a video specifically looking at this issue about the cruise
1:01:55
lines ranging from ultra luxury through to budget um lines and there's a PDF
1:02:00
that you can download based on that video which does talk about um the pros the cons of the different lines you know
1:02:07
I have only done I've done silver I've done silvery I've done ponant those would be two you know really leading
1:02:13
ones but obviously seabourn uh is is really good so it depends a little bit on what you're pitching at and what
1:02:19
you're looking for so for me Silver Sea Ponant Seabour I you know I would really
1:02:24
rate highly Hag Lloyd I've been on but I've only been to Greenland again really good expedition uh experience at Quark
1:02:31
uh you've got Lindblad so if you have a look at that video um or you can just go to the channel on Google if you Google
1:02:37
Antarctica uh that will come up it's about how to uh go to Antarctica for less and it also has lots of tips around
1:02:43
booking uh booking from from from that as that as well
1:02:49
uh Highland Cottage Books asks me "What is the ship over there that is a model of Queen Mary 2?" I actually have a
1:02:56
model Whoops I'm making you seasick at the top there of QE2
1:03:01
uh at the top there so um uh yeah so that's that's the models i unfortunately
1:03:09
the person who made their models I I think passed away not long after a for a very long time and um unfortunately
1:03:16
because I would love to get other kind of ship models and things um but uh
1:03:21
haven't been able to do that uh Brooklyn thank you David thank you so much David
1:03:27
brooklyn Museum um that was I just went out of my head i was talking to my sister about it earlier today because I
1:03:32
was telling her to take her partner there brooklyn Museum is phenomenal so um and it's not that if you're visiting
1:03:38
London and you're big into transportation it's not that far it's just around the M25 the sort of circular
1:03:44
that goes around it's fantastic uh strongly strongly recommend uh strongly recommend that um Alli talking about
1:03:51
travel agent sends clients to my videos thank you so much indeed so we have
1:03:57
charged your time we've run out of time but I will be back next week next week I'm very likely to have a guest with me
1:04:03
uh Freys at Sea hopefully um because I want to follow up on some of the videos I did about living at sea um Fras is one
1:04:09
of the people that I sort of had researched and profiled um I will let you know during the week if he can join
1:04:15
me next week if not it'll be the week after but uh definitely I'll be back next week on Sunday same time same place
1:04:21
thanks so much for joining me thanks for the questions i'll have a look at those i'll try and add uh the the the links
1:04:27
that I said um so have a great rest of an Easter weekend everybody take care
1:04:40
[Music]

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