JCC The Ocean Liner, Cruise and Ship Enthusiast Thread

This is a discussion for ocean liner, cruise and ship enthusiasts. Here you can show off your collection of ocean liner books and memorabilia, talk about your next cruise, your last cruise or just swap sea stories.

 

My first and last cruise was in 1996 aboard the Sovereign of the Seas. Went with family and friends and had an awesome time. Spent a week visiting the islands of the Caribbean, the food was great, everything was great. I haven't gone on any other just because, well, I don't know why because I had a great time. I'm sure I'll get around to it again at some point.

My point is being on a cruise is great fun.

 

Yeah, a cruise can be great experience on the right ship. I've done three with Cunard, the QE2, the Queen Mary and Queen Victoria and one with Princess, the Regal Princess. We're doing another Princess cruise in June, this time to Alaska.

 

Our first was on Carnival, the second on Royal Caribbean. Then we took a Disney Cruise and it was a level above. We had our fourth Disney cruise last month and are planning the fifth. I doubt we'll cruise with anyone else. The service and shows are so damn good. The kids club is amazingly good - I wanted to stay and play in this:



But I couldn't.

DCL is also the only line that can shoot fireworks, which makes for a very good show on Pirate night.

I also love seeing Disney characters (except Pooh and co) walking around the ship. It just makes me happy.

 

Yeah, I hear that Disney is amazing. I actually got to see some the Disney ships last March and they looked like beautiful classic ocean liners, as opposed to a lot of other ships which just look like an apartment building on its side.

 

I first saw one docked when we were on our first cruise, previously not even knowing Disney had ships. Seeing it, I immediately wanted to go on it, but the mrs resisted. Then we had a daughter and I had my excuse to push for it

 

I've done three cruises with my kids and elderly parents. One on Carnival, two on Royal Caribbean. Never on their largest ships. I did it so the kids could spend time with their grandparents, but my parents are now too frail to do it comfortably, and I wouldn't do one again. Once would have been plenty for me. Did see Mayan ruins (Xunantunich) in Belize that I probably would never have done on my own otherwise, and that was nice. Some excursions we did were really awful. The range of quality has been extreme.

I'm a hiker and a walker, and I prefer vacations where I can walk a city or hike a landscape for a day or two at a time.

 

Why not? Please tell me it's not because adults are not allowed, that would be so unfair xD

 

Yeah, it's just for kids. They do have open hours, I think two hours maybe once on the cruise? I couldn't make it, though.

 

What's the big differences between a liner and cruise ship?

 

is it that a liner is officially in the business of transporting people from one place to another as opposed to the "closed loop" of vacation cruises?

 

That's it? I assumed there was some design difference.

 

I've had a bit of fun with the Cruisin.me website and the port webcams. Here's Genoa, for example. (Note that the cam can be flaky after dark there). I haven't really explored the site outside of the cam section but I figured it's a good fit for this thread.

 

GrandAdmiralJello Disney definitely try and maintain the more traditional elements with their designs. They also have nice little touches; when you board you are announced and the officers give you a round of applause, things like that.

I've been on three of the four Disney ships. The two older ones were fantastic, the newer one even better.





There are three beautifully appointed restaurants for your normal dining, and two adult only restaurants for brunch and dinner, which have a $10 cover, but I highly recommend them.

 

And you would be correct. The major difference between a liner and cruise ship is in the thickness of the steel. When I was on the QE2, on her last transatlantic crossing, one of the guests of honor Stephen Payne, the Queen Mary's chief architect and he said that walking through the cutting shed in the shipyard it was possible to visually tell what steel was meant for the Queen Mary because it was so much thicker than anything else in the yard.

GrandAdmiralJello, yeah I would agree. Cunard has much more old school style. On the Cunard ships there's half joking half serious unofficial marketing slogan, "Recreating the golden age of the ocean liner for those who missed the first one." When people who've never heard of Cunard ask me what its like, I tell them to go watch the dinner scene from Titanic, because the Queen Mary 2 in particular on formal nights is very much like that.

 

I've never been on one. Too expensive

 

After Desert Storm wound down, a cruise liner docked in Bahrain and I was one of the lucky ones who got a couple days free on board for R&R. We didn't go anywhere, just stayed tied to the dock, ate real food, played tourist in Bahrain, and relaxed on board. It was a nice change of pace after months of sleeping 12 to a tent, but it's not something I'd be excited about doing again.

This is more my style:


I went for a 3 day Maine windjammer cruise around Penobscot Bay in the 1871 coastal schooner Stephen Taber.



I thought that was a lot more fun, and the food was even better. I'd rather sit on deck and eat really really fresh lobster out of a stew pot full of seawater than a sit down formal dinner.


I also had an afternoon cruise aboard the Lynx, a replica of an 1812 privateer.


Lynx has guns.


But what I really love are the sails.

 

Yeah, I've heard of those. It's kind hard not to see the appeal. You might also be interested in Star Clippers. They operate the fastest full rigged sailing ship in the world and specialize tall ship ocean cruises.

 

GrandAdmiralJello, is there where we can talk about the greatest warship ever to sail, the HMS Victory (as well as HMS Warrior and the Mary Rose), the best thing about Portsmouth?

 

IIRC correctly, there was a tall ship discussion thread at one point. I'm not sure what happened to it, however.

 

probably resting on the jcc floor