During our combined 46 years of service in the US Army, we were fortunate to visit so many places around the world. After after another eight years serving in education, we fully retired and now our full-time occupation is to follow our dream of seeing as much of this beautiful world as we can.
The purpose of our channel is not only to share our experiences, but also to provide a resource to those who want to travel the world through cruising. Whether you are traveling to the blue seas of Caribbean, the history of the Mediterranean, or exploring new cultures and peoples in Africa, Asia, and South America, cruising is a great method of travel to get you there.
We will not only bring you information about the different cruise ships that may take you to these locations, but also give you an insight into these beautiful and interesting destinations.
Thanks for coming to our channel, please continue to travel along with us! Keep on Traveling!
We plan to go on this ship next year. We've been on Princess Sky this year and it was great. Preziosa is listed as a 3.5 stars while Princess Sky is 5 stars. Is it such a big difference, what can make for such a big difference downward, thank you.
Our experience was in the Yacht Club. We felt it was a truly amazing experience with exceptional service-better than what we have had in NCL's Haven. We also like the size of the ship, which isn't too big. That being said, we tend to have a rule that if we are on MSC, we do the Yacht Club or a suite (world cruise excluded). We're unsure how our experience would have differed if we had had a normal balcony. We also cannot comment on a comparison with Princess as we have not yet sailed on the line--but it's coming up very, very quick!
This will be my first expedition cruise set for Feb 2025. I will be going on Atlas. I love all your content. i am looking forward to experiencing the wildlife, the iceberg, and the excursion. I hope to do the kayaking and camping. Q. did you bring your own Antarctica flag for your continent landing pic?
You should have a wonderful time. As for the flag, that’s something the ship has and will have ashore for everyone to take a selfie with. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for sharing. Brought back some memory. Were on the same ship same deck in Nov 2023 but never went far enough south to walk on an ice sheet. What an experience, especially with cracked sheet. Not sure if you've been to South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands or not. If not, see if you can get an itinerary that include that location and verify the bird flu won't close all landing sites before you book.
No, we haven't had the experience of going to those islands. . .yet. We will be sailing from Ushuaia again to the Chilean fjords and back later this year on the Navigator, but not going to those locations. The ice sheet was such an amazing experience! It was the perfect way to start our adventure in Antarctica. We hope you're experience was just as remarkable. Thanks for watching.
What an amazing experience. Would you say the camping is worth the extra money? I know it's "once in a lifetime" but we have been quoted $750pp with Atlas which is double the amount I've seen elsewhere 😬
The "once in a lifetime" aspect was the sole reason we did it. Just to say we camped overnight on the 7th Continent and get to tell the story. It cost $500 pp when we sailed--which is the most we've ever spent for an excursion. Jonathan (the expedition team leader) started our briefing while crossing the Drake to inform us about camping and in no way was he trying to sell us on the experience. Quite the opposite. I've never had a business have someone get up and say they hate offering the experience because it is the option they receive the lowest marks on the post-cruise surveys. BTW, it's not because it is not well done. It is. The expedition team does an amazing job with everything they do. It is the conditions that guests encounter during camping which is a function of Antarctica. First, we had wonderful weather. We tried to take video, but it didn't come out but at about 3am the clouds moved away and we were laying in the snow of Antarctica underneath the galaxy of unimpeded stars. Second, while uncomfortable due to leaving way too many lumps in our hole, we were actually nice and warm in our sleeping bags. Yet, we got very, very lucky. The truth is that if it had started to rain--we would still have had to lay there trying to stay warm. You are sleeping in a warm sleeping bag within a waterproof bivy sack, but if we would have forgot to zip something we would have been wet and totally miserable. They will tell you that you will not be able to use the bathroom while ashore, which is technically true. Although there is actually a makeshift toilet made out of a bucket set about 150 meters from the camping area. If you decided you couldn't hack it anymore, they can come get you. But its a two hour process for the crew on the ship to be woken up, launch the zodiacs, and come get you and depending upon the issue, the entire group might need to leave with you. This is not camping like at your local state park with camp fires and kumbaya moments all together. You get ashore and begin digging your "coffin hole", lay out your sleeping gear (which if raining could be problematic, and go to sleep. And if you didn't make the bottom of your hole completely flat and smooth, your sleep will be difficult to accomplish--trust us, we know. But, it was AMAZING! We were prepared for the worst--again, the expedition team does everything they can to inform you everything we just wrote above--and were so blessed to have had the experience we did. That being said, we would have still have done it with the cold and rain if it had come to that. We certainly would not have loved it for the 10ish hours we were away, but just to have the stories to tell makes it worth it to us. The real question, though, is would this be enough of a reason for YOU to dish out $750 to be cold, perhaps wet, miserable, and unable to get comfortable enough to sleep. For us, absolutely. But you can only ones that can answer that for yourself. Hopefully, this helps you make your decision.
@@janandtraceytravels thank you so much for the information. You have given me a lot to think about. I was prepared to pay $500 for the experience but if Atlas have increased their camping charge by 50% since February then I think this is a bit of a rip off. Thanks again, I will try not to hound you with any more questions 😉
Thank you for your very forthright review of your Oceania cruise. My spouse and I have been looking at booking an Oceania cruise, but your review has put us-or at least me-off the idea. I don’t know whether that’s what you intended, but a cramped cabin, a rusting ship with stored equipment on deck, a disappointing-to-terrible culinary experience, aside from hamburgers(!), and overpriced lackluster excursions, sound like a recipe for misery to me. We’re now looking at Viking or Silversea for better quality. Thank you again.
Thank you for your kind words. If we had only had this one experience with Oceania and had heard similar things from other travelers we might have had your same reservations. But as we noted in our review, we do believe that this was a one-off. We have previously sailed on the Marina and later on the Vista (videos still to come). On both of those cruises we had completely different experiences. In fact we have two more cruises booked with the line. How we would take our reviews-as we note in our video-is that these are observations of two people on 1 cruise. As such they are a single data point to add to your consideration. If this observation tends to be replicated by other travelers, then you have a trend and might act accordingly. If it stands alone amongst other reviews-then It represents a “one off” and we’d chalk it up to bad luck. We offer our reviews to provide that one point for consideration and not a summary judgement. This also is how we think of our reviews which tend to be much more positive. Hopefully this puts our review in perspective with the intent in which we intended. With that said, we enjoyed our Viking cruise and have a video of that experience. Although we have not been on Silversea. Thanks again for watching and hope you find the cruise that best fits you.
Thank you for the information. We have a cruise on Marina next month. e were able to make one reservation at each restaurant before the cruise. May we make additional reservations on board? Thank you.
The base answer will be no. If your cruise has segments to it (ours was actually two segments of Rome to Barcelona and Barcelona to Miami) then you'll be able to make reservations for the next segment the night before that segment begins for each of the specialty restaurants. However, we found that sometimes the restaurants do not always fill up on each night. So we did inquire the day of a particular evening to see if there were openings and a few times we were able to get in. But don't plan on it. We actually understand why you can only book once to each restaurant. It ensures that everyone will be able to experience all of the culinary options. Regent did the same thing on our 5 cruises with them. The good news is that the main dining room is also very good and we also found ourselves eating in the buffet for dinner as it too had very good food. Enjoy your cruise and thanks for watching.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. What month were you there please? Atlas don't seem to have much of a presence here in the UK, can I ask did you book direct or through an agent?
We went early February (yes, we are way behind in getting videos out). Funny, our first Atlas cruise was in the UK. But to your question, we did book through a travel agent. Thanks for watching.
We have cruised a lot on older, refurbished ships. We want comfort and decent food, not unduly bothered about balconies but like a window. We tend to find that we want to be on an upper deck because the law of sod says that the best views are the other side of the ship. As we are in our 70's we dont need flow riders, water slides, climbing frames etc. We are looking at booking a cruise on Norwegian Sky in January 2025 so the review was useful.
We'll be on her in October, our first time on O. Thank you for this fair review. The cabin bathrooms remind me of an older Princes ship we were on. I had to shave my legs in the sink while sitting on the toilet due to the lack of room in the shower. I'm a small woman, too!
I loved Ushuaia and this brought back such good memories. I'd love to do an Antarctica trip...one of these days! How exciting! Atlas looks really nice and the room is lovely.
You should! Jan is editing the video of the experience we had in Antarctica right now and we are falling in love with this experience all over again. Atlas is the perfect sized ship as you will have 2 landings or zodiac cruises each day. It is hard for ships with over 150 passengers to be able to do so as you can only have 100 people (passenger + crew) on the sites at any given time. Spoiler alert for our upcoming review: It was the best travel experience (land or cruise) we have ever had--even beating out our safari in Tanzania which was pretty awesome.
Great video! We're going on the World Traveler at the end of the year so its great to see what we can expect. And we are in room 602, right next to yours, which is a bit scary since if we get the Drake Shake it is maybe the worst place to be!! So very curious to hear how you found the motion of the ocean in 604. One question - how did you pay the taxi driver?
Thanks so much! We were on the Traveler last year (we have a room and ship tour of that cruise on our channel). The rooms are pretty much identical as the Navigator, however for some reason the Traveler does NOT have the shelves in the closet. We'd recommend bringing some hanging shelves that you can put in the closet or hang from the ceiling with some magnetic hooks. As far as location, yup you will be pretty much by the bridge up forward. With that said, we don't think that on a ship this small that it has as much of an impact--you are going to be feeling the Drake Shake pretty much anywhere on the ship. However, we used patches for the first time on our crossing and didn't have any issues. We'll recommend to use a 1/2 patch as a full patch gave us really bad cotton mouth. (And no, neither of us are doctors, so use that advise accordingly. In Buenos Aires there is a central kiosk in the airport after you come out of security where you can arrange for a taxi. Be advised that they only took cash. We think we paid in US dollars, but cannot completely vouch for the authenticity of that memory. Have a great time! We are booked to be back on the World Navigator to cruise around the southern part of South America--including some more time in the Drake Passage. We're looking forward to it.
@@janandtraceytravels Yes, that is my thought as well that in such a small ship it isn't going to be very different no matter where you are, but I did see a video recently where the person was shown to his cabin at the very back of the ship and the crew member said something like you are so lucky being back here rather than at the front. Either way, all part of the experience and looking forward to it immensely. Thanks for the tip, we will definitely bear that in mind.
Thanks again for this nice informative video kiddo's !!! We sailed on Princess's Pacific Princess (another R class ship which has now been bought by Azamara I think) -- and the Pacific P. had an exquisite library !!! With many days at sea, we spent a lot of mornings having coffee and enjoying the space, layout and gorgeous painted skylight that expanded the entire space ! Can you comment on the library on the Regatta ? Many thanks !!! Marcia
Ha! It's been a while since someone called us "kiddos"! :-) We really like the library on the Regatta. While the Oceania Marina's library has that cozy feeling with small little sub-rooms, the Regatta's has an open feeling with windows and is really comfortable. It doesn't have the painted skylight that you referenced. If you want to see what it looks like, we have a ship tour that includes the library: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-W6t8wn-fZRg.html Thanks for watching and for the kind words.
Lovely video ! Your upbeat positive voice makes me want to burn rubber to book a Viking Cruise !!! May I ask how soundproofing was in your stateroom in as far as foot-tread from the above public area and also from your side neighbors ? We like our peace and serenity while cruising, so this is an important point for us. I look forward to discovering/watching more Viking and other cruise line videos on your channel ! Cheers ! marcia
Thank you for such kinds words. I know that others have noted issues with the sound proofing of the rooms but we didn’t notice any issues. Thanks for watching!
We had a different cruise on the Splendor booked for 2020. So when COVID canceled that, we were looking for another cruise and found this one…discounted due the chaos of the pandemic.
Nice Video. So you have 1 day less for the Cruise? Or the cruise will return to the port 1 day later ? Or they refund a portion of fee by either the insurance / curise line...? Waiting for your next video :)
Thanks for the kind words. We apologize for not being a clear as we should have. What happened was we spent the night in Ushuaia as opposed to making our way out through the Beagle Channel to the Drake Passage and on to Antarctica. This is the reason we were filming the second day in Ushuaia. As a result, we had one less day in Antarctica because we arrived a day late and still needed to return as scheduled. As far as a refund. No. And to be honest we fully understand and accept it. One of the things that we've learned over our 300 days at sea is the weather is always in control and changes to the itinerary are expected. This is certainly true of an Antarctica cruise. During our initial briefing--and we think we used the clip in our video--Jonathan explained the 3 rules of an Antarctica cruise which are 1. Flexibility, 2. Flexibility, and 3. Flexibility. The reality is that although we were bummed by losing a day as we were in Ushuaia, by the end the time we were returning to Ushuaia from the 7th continent, we had such an amazing experience we really didn't even think about it. Jan is sitting at his computer right now editing our footage to bring you this experience hopefully next Sunday. Thanks for watching.
Fantastic! I would imagine that crossing the Drake was a bit more manageable on a Celebrity ship as opposed to the 10,000 ton ship we were on. Although we wouldn't have traded our experience for anything. Thanks for watching.
@@janandtraceytravels it was rough crossing the Drake, but I’ve been In worse. The captain and the guest lecturer both said we had amazing weather for our trip. It was clear, no rain or clouds and the wildlife was plentiful.
Celebrity uses the Equinox for their Antarctica cruises, right? It's got to be a bit more steady than our small expedition ship. To put things in perspective, the Equinox has a tonnage of 122K tons. The Atlas ships have a tonnage of just 10K tons. Our cabin was on deck 6 and in the evening, we had waves splashing over our veranda! Unfortunately, no footage of this. That being said, we managed without any real issues or even sea sickness--thanks to the patches. Your overall sentiment seems to echo our own, however. A cruise to Antarctica is a magical experience. Thanks for watching and caring enough to comment. Next video is on our editing software being edited right now!
Ahh...that's the same class as the Equinox, no? We haven't tried Celebrity yet. Although we have our first cruise on the line booked for next September. Thanks again for watching and commenting!
Great video! Were considering a Regent cruise (though on older Voyager) but reconsidering that as I saw your comparison of Splendor and then this one with Marina. We sailed the sister - Riviera - a couple years ago, and just recently on the brand-new Vista, with a transatlantic booked on Vista in 2025. We found the same things you did on Marina, especially the food. Only a couple minor "misses", but everything else outstanding. For now I think we are sticking with Oceania. Again - thanks for posting this! :)
Thanks so very much. We did a transatlantic on the Vista a couple of months ago and loved it (restored our faith in Oceania after a rather shaky cruise on the Regatta). The videos for the Vista are upcoming--we have the very happy situation that we are traveling faster than we can edit and get videos out. We have always loved Regent and it is a great line. But for the money, it has pretty much priced us out of the market and didn't provide enough over Oceania to justify--to us at least--the additional expense. Thanks again and we hope to run into you on an Oceania cruise in the future. We have two booked in the next 12 months!
Thanks for taking the time to post this video. We're excited to be sailing on Marina next month. We sailed on Oceania Riviera twice in 2023 and loved it. I hope they upgraded the Wi-Fi as part of the refurbishment last month. I'll report back. Rumor has it that they added the Aquamar Kitchen restaurant to Marina as of June 2024.
Have a great cruise. We’ve heard the internet has been upgraded as well. The internet in the Vista was good when we did a transatlantic cruise on her a couple months ago (still getting through content to get those videos out, ugh). The Vista had the Aquamar which Tracey enjoyed. However, with the Waves Grill on the other side, Jan couldn’t resist eating there for the burger and malts! Thanks for watching.
Just curious if you checked both sides of the buffet? Lack of selection is something I’ve never noticed, but many don’t realize until late (or never) that the selection is different on each side. The fresh seafood and sushi every night, the gelato bar, the best paella I’ve ever had, and many cook to order options we had on the Sky makes me wonder what the big changes are.
Yes we did. There was one evening in which the special was lobster and they made a rather big production out of it, but for the most part, we found it wanting. Of course, this is an experience where N=1, so maybe we hit Viking not at their best. Although, outside of the food we greatly enjoyed everything else.
Great question. Every sea day in the morning--check the Currents for times--one of the crew (sometimes its the asst. cruise director or one of the production cast members) will host needlepointing. Usually there are at least 20ish guests there. The ship will provide needlepoint kits that you can choose from. The only caveat is that you have to complete one project before they will allow you to select a new kit. It's held in the Horizons Lounge which is a wonderful venue and is a great way to meet other guests.
I have cruised with NCL a number of times and have noticed that our american friends often pronounce the name of the irish pub as O'Shee-Hans. If you pronounce it the english/irish way, it is O'Shee-ans, which allows you to get the joke in the name. O'Sheehans = Oceans. I have just booked an aft suite (deck 9) for next year and have enjoyed the information in your video. Thank you.
Wow. If we would have know that from the beginning we would have never mispronounced it. We now wonder how we should be pronouncing The Local 😎. While we didn’t like the forward suite, we did love the aft suite. Have a great trip. Thanks for watching and great information.
Oceana Regatta is the identical ship to those of the Azamara fleet. Their pricing structure (like that of Viking) makes no sense. They’re older ship with relatively smaller state rooms yet they charge hefty prices. You get so much less than you do on Azamara, I wouldn’t choose to cruise on them. Atlas & Explora are excellent options with newer smaller ships similarly priced. Viking ships hold Almost 1,000 passengers, only include alcohol during meals, do not include gratuities, and charge an arm & a leg.
We haven't sailed on Azamara (yet), but friends of ours have and loved their cruises on the line. However, we were under the impression (perhaps erroneously) that the fares on Azamara and Oceania were rather comparable. We were very close--reservations were even held--to doing a series of B2Bs on Azamara that went from Miami-Miami circumnavigating the whole of the South American continent. But backed out when we learned that unlike most other lines there was no discount on doing B2Bs and that specialty dining was an additional fee. We've done one Viking ocean cruise (so far), and with the exception of that one cruise's food, thought it actually had a great deal of value--especially when you figure in the included thermal spa--which we thought was the best at sea--and included excursions. Where we do agree with you is Explora and Atlas. Our Antarctica trip on the Atlas World Navigator was amazing. We are still putting together our review on that trip and are having difficulty beyond the Wifi package on coming up with our 3 downs. We will be on the World Navigator again in October going around the southern portion of South America. Atlas might be our favorite cruise line. We also enjoyed the Explora 1--review on that is also in the works--and thought that it has the potential of being a real contender in the luxury segment of cruising. We do worry that when the ship begins to sail at full capacity whether some of the venues are big enough to handle additional guests. We are booked on the Explora 2 this upcoming January. Anyway, thank you so much for not only watching, but being passionate enough to provide your thoughts. We'll have to give another look at Azamara.
My wife and I tried Regent twice before COVID. Our experience was very much the same as yours. There was a certain blandness to the whole experience. However, this may have been a cultural thing as we found Regent to be less cosmopolitan than the other ultra luxury lines we’ve tried.
We had 5 Regent cruises before COVID (Regent/Raddison was actually our first ever cruise) and we’re blown away with them. We do want to go on Seaborne and Silverseas, though. Thanks for watching!
We completed 3 out of the 4 month world cruise but we got off early because of the issues in the Red Sea. Viking was not only amazing while we were on the cruise, they were very accommodating for those of us who chose to leave early rather than choosing the alternate itinerary. Viking flew us home with a stop along the way to allow us to extend our cruise with independent travel. We have 2 more cruises booked with Viking and look forward to getting back to Viking. I found the food to be great. The main restaurant was fine and the wine stewards made the meal excellent.
@@janandtraceytravels Viking was excellent. The sea days with the spa and enrichment lectures were great. The many spots on the ship to sit and relax were wonderful. My wife did art classes, I joined the choir and played baggo and we made many new friends. I highly recommend Viking for a world cruise if you can do it. Because everything is included, when the wine steward recommends a particular wine to go with your entree, it is because it is the right wine, not because he/she is trying to sell you a high priced bottle. We had cruised with Crystal before they had issues. We found Viking to be a modern version of the Crystal we enjoyed previously. We have a 28 day Baltic cruise planned in 2025 and a 14 day Asia cruise with Viking in 2026. We are considering an Oceania transatlantic repositioning cruise in the fall of 2026.
Like we said, we would love to do a WC on Viking. We did the 2023 WC on MSC as it was achievable on our current budget. However, in a few years we will be old enough to begin taking fund from our IRAs and the math changes a great deal. Thanks again for the comments and safe traveling! Sounds fun.
We are big fans of Viking Ocean but are considering a repositioning cruise with Oceania in the future. I think it will be a good fit for us as the quality and experience seems familiar to our Viking cruises. We prefer smaller ships and like getting to know the entertainment staff through the daily activities.
We didn't have these issues on our recent Oceania Vista cruise, either. I believe that Oceania upgraded the Marina with Starlink after we sailed on her which might be the difference in experiences. Thanks for watching.
We appreciate you watching and the thoughtful comment. Good news, though. This was simply a first impression of our first day in the ship. Our review should be coming out in 2 weeks. Also, while we were disappointed with the atrium and the main dining room, we liked the food court and love the Ocean Boulevard. In the review, you’ll hear our impressions on the specialty restaurants which-save for one of exception we really enjoyed. Stay tuned.
We have been blessed to have been on 10 cruise lines--we have 3 more booked in the next 18 months that will be new to us. We think that cruises are like clothes. What you wear may not fit us and what we wear may not be your style. When we were younger and had kids in the house, we loved NCL. In fact, it is the cruise line that we have sailed on most (and have 2 more cruises booked, sans-kids ). Carnival and MSC receive lots of angst from cruisers. But for families or those on a budget, they are lines that are good fits. Although we love the Yacht Club and think it's probably the best value at sea (spoiler, we just got back from the MSC Seascape in the YC and will be bringing those videos soon). We've sailed once on Royal Caribbean in an Owners 1-bedroom suite and thought it was a fantastic deal. However, as we are now in our 50s, we are gravitating towards smaller ships. Our one cruise on Viking Ocean was fantastic (less the food) and look forward to finding an itinerary where we can sail on them again. They have perhaps the nicest (free) thermal spas and the ships are gorgeous. That they include excursions in every port is definitely a plus. We sailed Explora Journey's Explora 1 and have the Explora 2 booked and were blown away. Our only concern is that when this new line begins to fill up to 100% capacity, we worry that some of the venues might become too crowded. Regent was the first cruise we ever did on our honeymoon years ago have taken a total of 5 cruises with them. They are probably the best cruise line, but have pretty much priced us out of the market. So, to (finally) answer your question. It probably comes down to Oceania and Atlas. We've done three cruises on Oceania and 2 of the 3 have been amazing. Our Oceania Regatta cruise had plenty of ups, but something just wasn't quite right on that cruise. That cruise review comes out next week (fingers crossed). We did Atlas twice including our Antarctica cruise which was the best trip of any type we've ever taken. It's a small expeditionary ship with only 150-190 passengers. We just loved the vibe of cruising with a small intimate group of active, well-traveled passengers. Sorry to wear you down with a long answer. But it's a question that we find to be very involved. Thanks for watching!
