De Rash,

Probably the best one for you would be Ocean Village. Its aimed at families and 30 somethings. Very very laid back - 24 hr buffet dining, no formal nights....etc and great fun.

http://www.oceanvillageholidays.co.uk/

HTH

Sandi.

blueeyes2002 wrote:

De Rash,

Probably the best one for you would be Ocean Village. Its aimed at families and 30 somethings. Very very laid back - 24 hr buffet dining, no formal nights....etc and great fun.

http://www.oceanvillageholidays.co.uk/

HTH

Sandi.

definitely ocean village average age 45 baically please yourself when and where you eat.Do dress up or not anything goes. plenty of entertainment pub style, comics,singers.Nightclub on top deck if you want to dance.

Two questions asked, Best(cheapest) time, Most suitable ship.
Starting with the ship.
Current feeling is OV is the best ship but has been more difficult to get the realy good deals. In the past I would have recomended the Topaz(no longer sailing) or the Sunbird but due to airtours current problems I would personaly would only book real last minute trip. Thomson spirit also gets reviews.
Dates that give the best deals. in general avoid the school holidays and the earlier or later you go in the season the cheaper it will be , there are exceptions and OV does seem to hold prices better than most, and we just had a great deal over the easter holidays with NCL.
The down side is that the weather may not be as good.
Best weeks seem to be first 2 in dec and january each side of the xmas/NY break but not a lot in the med mainly Canaries/caribbean.
If you can be flexable and can have a few dates available from now until the school holidays start just keep an eye on teletext and something will come up.
I see that current June pricing is now under £500 for 7nights which isn't too bad. £450 is a good target for last minute and if you get down to £400 you have got a great bargain.
Actually any of the main stream brit ships will be ok for a first cruise except the obvious(Seawing)and what ever you pay the chances are there will be someone who paid less so just be happy with what you paid.
Get all the brochure they are not bad in giving a feel for what is on offer on each ship although do tend to have a madeup menu with lots of the best items.

I apprecaite the help I'm probably thinking about october time and I see from the OV web that deck E is open for 608 sterling. do you reckon that I should hang on until later on for a better deal.

Right I got some good prices from the links in the Cruise info thread but some questions.

Are Island cruises decent for younger people?

The reason i ask is that I want to include Messina on the cruise and only two do it Island and sunbird.

Thanks

Checking back through my TXT records OV was on offer in late July for <£500 7n <£700 14n for Oct sailings. slightly cheaper in Aug but nothing by end sept.( this is inside cabins)

I would hang on a bit I think the same will hapen this year.

why not try island escape we did it last year and it was our first cruise - so impressed we want to do it again this year

I see that Island lastminute for May 25 is down to £259 lets hope the June prices follow the downwards trend.

Windjammer, can I ask where you have seen this price please?

i can highly recommend island escape, we did it last year for our first cruise and are doing it again at the end of june, we`ve paid £600 each for an outside cabin on coral deck, no doubt it can be got cheaper ! we paid £890 for the 2 of us last year about 6wks before departure. i`m 37 and my girlfriend 23 and we loved every minute of it, never once felt outta place and not a waltz in sight !

I see that Island lastminute for May 25 is down to £259

Hi WJ. I'm asking the same question as Marjrie, where did you find this price? I found it at £339 on a link to Orchid Travel which you put on another post.

Prices on TXT pages. claiming golden deck as well on some.
(lsts try a couple of images, these are from sat/sun23may but will change)

Thanks WJ

Thanks for that Windjammer, I have only used cruise control (on the web) but it seems good old teletext is better.

Pages have now been updated so no longer show origional pricing.
These rock bottom prices to get rid of the last few cabins go real quick.

Overall TXT is still best but the E mailings from some agents do often come before TXT is updated. I used CruiseControl when they first started but started getting better deals elsewhere and the updated web site is not very good if fact I hate it.

Just checked and may is back on at £329 (must be a late flight) with june dates at £359 Might be time to book our june dates although I thing we would prefer OV these may be too good to risk missing.

I should have mentioned it is possible to look at all the TXT page images on line in a single browser page with a bit of html with "img" enties of the correct form hopefully they won't change it to server side if too many people do look at the pages this way.

I'm collecting the vouchers for the Daily Express £10 cruise offer - v excited, as never been abroad, cruise or otherwise, though have always wanted to. Hoping it will be a novel way to round off my 2nd decade.
Anyway, was wondering if anyone has any advice for me, on absolutely anything - passports, visas, good websites for information, insurance, cruises in general etc. You can see that I'm ever so prepared for this!!

Hi WaWa and welcome to HT!

You may get a better response if you post this in the Cruise forum. Here is the link Cruise forum

Incase you haven't looked at it yet, most of your questions will be answered there, particularly under some of the Thomson's Spirit topics as several first time cruisers have posted questions.

Please feel free to post any specific questions you have left after reading these topics.

Moved from General Enquiries