Hi allmen

I can recommend the Thomson Spirit for a first cruise as we had a great time on her last year. The cabins were nice, the entertainment good and the ports of call excellent.

Many members have sailed this year on various MSC ships through the Daily Express offer and all have had a great time. Their prices have been very reasonable too starting at £399 pp for a week.

luci

Thanks luci.
Any more for any more ?

I haven't been a cruise - yet, so am probably not the best person to advise you.

I have however been keeping a close eye on the cruise offers and watching any time they come on the travel channels on Freeview, so I can tell you that if you are after a package deal in the Med then Ocean Village and Island Escape seem to be the main cruise and stay choices for British holiday makers.

They both sail out of Majorca and are both very informal, so may not be suited to you if you are after a traditional cruise experience. Personally if i were choosing based on the reviews and the look of what i have seen i would go for Ocean Village.

If you have Sky or Freeview then keep an eye out on the travel channels and you should see them featured sooner or later. Island Escape is also constantly featured on a programme called Cruise Ship, but keep in mind that it was the first few cruises that they filmed if you consider it.

My recomendation is DON'T do it

Pay the extra and do two weeks cruise.

As has been said OV IE and thomsons are the main brit ships but do look beyond, RCI , Carnival, NCL will all have ships in the med for 2006. there are 10,12 night options if the 14n is a bit too pricy. Also Costa and MSC will give a more international cruise.

I think prices have been a bit higher this year(£50per week) based on last years TXT adds(which I keep)

Read as many reviews as you can to get a feel for what is on offer.

Sept can be expensive because the schools go back and the cruisers that prefer fewer children pick Sept while the weather is still good.

Keep a keen eye on prices now for Sept this year to give you some idea of what you should be paying next year.

Any one done a cruise / stay florida and the carribean? thinking of the celebrity liners.

Mulling over the idea of doing a cruise and stay in the med next summer.
There will be me and my wife along with our fourteen year old daughter.
Idelly on an all inclusive basis.

Any advice would be much appreciated

My first cruise was cruise and stay on the old Airtours Seawing, we did one week greece and turkey out of Cyprus and one week stay in Paphos.

I agree with the earlier comments, the week stay was a real let down after the cruise and would say go for the two weeks, or at least stay first, cruise later. Ever since we have done the 2 weeks.

There is a misconception that cruising is busy busy busy, hence people booking one week on the ship then the second week to "relax" the advantage to cruising is you choose what you want to do when. You don't have to get off the ship at all if you dont want to. When you do there is no reason to spend hours walking round a city, we usually take a stroll round the harbour, buy some bread in the supermarket to feed the fish and find the local cafe and try whatever the locals have, eg, greek coffee and ouzo.

Sometimes we don't get off the ship, very occasionally we will spend hours sightseeing but not often, if the port has a nearby beach we will go there.

If you can get the All Inclusive option free then its worth having and you have to book early, but if you would like a better standard of accomodation then it is worth waiting until a few weeks before you go as the upgrades come down in price a lot.
I've booked this year for the Thomson Destiny, but am disappointed with the quality of the accomodation. I have signed up for offers with a couple of the travel agents that specialise in Cruises - just google Cruise Offers - there is loads and they will send you regular offers with all sorts of lines, Talk through with them, what you want and they will be able to steer you in the right direction. Then check out the Cruise Reviews here, they are really good and give you loads of info.

The choice is endless and only you can decide what you are after
I am really getting confused now and am inundated with ideas unfortunately I can't get through all the things I want to do.

The reason we fancied the cruise and stay was because although my wife an i fancy the cruise my daughter is not keen at all.
So it is a bit of best of both worlds if you know what i mean

I think a cruise and stay is an excellent way to see if you like cruising. Though I would recommend you stay first then cruise. That way you get to do the sunbathing/ swimming etc first and get a bit of a tan. Also, people who cruise first spend the next week bemoaning the fact they are not still on the ship! We did a stay and cruise first time, and the only problem was trying to keep the clothes ready for the cruise!
Teenagers seem to enjoy being on the ship very much, and it must be reassuring for parents to know they are safe in the evenings.

Another one of our concerns is that there may not be people of the same age range as my daughter on board.Do you normally see families on say the Thomson or Ocean Village cruises?

We sailed on OV the year it was launched (2002?) and did a week in Majorca and I must agree we wished we had booked two weeks on the cruise. It was fantastic from beginning to end. Our daughter at the time was 12 and we hardly ever saw her. She made lots of friends and went around with them on a night and with us during the day. When we came back we immediately booked again for the next summer for 2 weeks. Last November we did the Caribbean with OV too and again fantastic. My daughter thinks it is the best holiday ever. Also at that age they get a little more independant. If I was staying at a hotel there would not be far for her to go yet it is easy to lose your parents on the ship! Personally I would say book a 2 week cruise and OV I don't think you will go wrong. We are going in 4 weeks on the Emerald mainly because we have done all the ports OV offer, however next year there is the greece cruise to look at. Hope this helps.

So am i correct in thinking that all food is included on OV but drinks are extra?
Is there an all inclusive option? and if not what are the drinks prices like?

Please post any questions regarding the Ocean Village in THIS TOPIC. You may also find the answers to questions such as the price of drinks in that topic too.

luci

My friend booked one that sounds quite similar. They have a New York stay, Caribbean cruise and a Tampa stay onboard Zenith I think.

It was for 18nts in Oct fo £1500 and that was outside cabin

Not sure if this should be in cruises forum, but we are thinking of combining a 7 day cruise from Crete (Ocean Village) with a 7 day stay in a villa in Crete. The problem is the cruise starts on a Thursday and as far as we can see the villa holidays start on a Tuesday(eg James Villas). Also the flights may prove to be a problem.
I wondered if anyone knows of any Villa holidays in Crete where we may be able to go on a Thursday to fit in with the cruise. I know that Ocean Village do a Cruise and Stay option but they don't seem to offer any villas to stay in, just hotels or apartments
Any suggestions would be very welcome thanks

I have also been looking at Ocean Village for September, and flights and cabins are becoming restricted on availability. I was looking at a hotel though, and some of them aren't available either.

I don't know if they do cruise only (and you could organise the rest yourself)?

One travel agent I called did suggest Splendour of the Seas (1 Sept from Venice) as they do cruise only for £575, and I could arrange the rest myself. I know that's not Crete, but I have a feeling they cruise from Crete as well, on certain dates. I think 1 Sept may be a saturday though, so also doesn't solve your problem.

Have you considered a private let?

The problem with villa bookings in Crete is that most of them are geared up to when the charter flights arrive and unfortunately for flights from Britain that means Tuesdays. However some will do a Friday to Friday booking as that is the second most popular day for charters. If you could persude someone to do that for you then you would only have to arrange to do one overnight in a hotel after you disembark or alternatively only lose one night at the end of the week in the villa if you went there prior to the cruise.

However, I would suggest that you try one of the smaller outfits such as Pure Crete or Meltemi ( meltemi-travel.co.uk ) because they can often be more flexible and Meltemi in particular offer a number of properties with no fixed changeover day. They're not the cheapest but worth it if you need greater flexibility than you'll get from one of the big operators A 'Thursday to Thursday' cruise booking suggests that you would be flown out on a scheduled flight and so this might be less of a problem than it at first seems.

SM

Thanks for your suggestions, that's given me something to look into. We are hoping to go in 2008 so have a bit of time to research our holiday

The problem I see is the flight matching(not tried so it may be possible),

If you can get OV Cruise only then you may be able to find cheap charter but they are practicaly free with packages anyway.

I don't think I would bother trying to match up and look for other options like a med cruise on another line say using one of the cheap desination from the likes of easyjet, even if you have to fly back to UK to pick up the Villa package.

You save very little trying to combine the two holidays, even consider seperating them and have two one week trips.

You could check if there are any cheap flights into crete from anywhere and try to match up with those.

Any reason for picking OV other than it sails from Crete?