Essential Cruise Tips

Anyone close to cruising knows that cruise lines are incredibly involved with trains and train travel. Some even own and operate them, including some of the most famous and iconic ones, as you will hear. That's why they really want us to do three things: book train travel before cruises, during cruises as excursions, and after the cruise.

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I told my friends not to book the cruise as it was one that I keep warning cruisers to stay well clear of as they almost always disappoint. But they insisted and sadly, three days before they were due to depart, what I feared would happen did. It was cancelled. I'm Gary Bembridge and I'm here to warn you about this and 5 cruises I suggest you NEVER book, along with tips of what to do instead - or how to reduce your risk if you really do want to do them.

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Although most cruise reviewers say there are five, there are strictly speaking only two cruise lines that truly have a "ship-within-a-ship". A fully self-contained world where passengers paying at least $500 per person a night for a suite are given the special entry card to a door that lets them step out of the regular cruise ship and into an exclusive VIP (Very Important Passenger) one. I have stayed on all 5 of them though and review and rank them

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Four years ago, Royal Caribbean, best known for huge, good value resort ships, surprised many by buying Silversea known for ultra-luxury small ship cruising. Having cruised on it before the takeover, I decided I should return to see if the online reviews from other pre-takeover cruisers saying things like, "Not the same Silversea" and "Before it was sold, we thought Silversea was superb, well run, with delicious food. Not now" were right or not. So, I booked myself on Silver Spirit for a two-week cruise, and this is what I found

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I used to think of myself as a considerate cruise passenger, trying to be polite and help make the crews' jobs simpler, easier, and more pleasant. But I've had to reappraise what I was doing after a crew member discreetly told me on this cruise that I am on that some were having the opposite effect, and could get them into trouble with their boss, affect their ability to get a promotion, and even whether their contract would get renewed. Surprised by this, I asked the cruise director, waiters, shore excursion staff, guest services, guest entertainers and speakers, and of course my stateroom attendant, what well-intentioned things I was doing on a cruise that I should stop, and importantly be doing instead. The answers were eye-opening.

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There are five things I took for granted last year as a cruiser that have unexpectedly disappeared this year, the first massive one I experienced first-hand on a recent cruise. I was on the first leg of Silversea Silver Spirit's 62-night Grand Voyage from Cape Town to Athens via the Seychelles, Dubai, and the Suez Canal. Find out what that was and the 4 others

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Cunard has the reputation of being the most class-based cruise line sailing today, keeping alive the tradition of grand old ocean liners from the Titanic era had of giving First-Class passengers, or what Cunard now call "The Grills", a more rounded and top-notch experience vastly superior to that of all other guests.But is that the reality. I reveal what it is really like and why

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Cruise lines charge less per day for repositioning cruises than ANY of their other cruises, making them some of the most inexpensive and appealing to many cruisers. But I've met so many people on them discovering too late that being inexpensive alone is not a good reason for doing them, as they'd been caught out or fallen into some traps. The same ones I see repeatedly.

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I met so many regular Norwegian cruisers on my Norwegian Viva cruise that disliked this new Prima class of Norwegian Cruise Line ships that I started wondering if Norwegian had actually gone out of their way to create a new type of ship they knew current cruisers wouldn't like! Perhaps to attract different cruisers, perhaps cruisers like me. I'm not a regular Norwegian cruiser, largely because I've not been a fan of the Norwegian ships I've been on, but this ship did some things so differently it made me rethink my position, as you will hear.

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Just before my much anticipated and costly $1,800 a night cruise in Norwegian Viva's all-suite Haven, "Cruise with Ben and David", one of the leading YouTube cruise channels, released a critical review raising many issues and complaints about it. So many that friends of mine suggested I cancel, as they knew that it was THE most expensive Mediterranean cruise I had ever booked. As it was so costly, I was really torn but in the end I decided to risk it hoping that as they'd been on the maiden voyage, things might have improved. This is what I discovered.

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