12 Wonderful Days Cruising On The Great Lakes - Pearl Mist Cruise Ship Review 

You can catch part 2 at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FyLtYoVGv6w.html

There's tons of different River cruises all over the United States as well as many Great Lakes cruises like these. The only downside to them is they can be quite pricey compared to a Caribbean or "full sized" cruise ship cruise. These cruises also offer a much different experience than a typical "full sized" cruise such as one to the Caribbean or Alaska (e.g.) , I would do lots of research before going on a River or Great Lakes cruise.

Start saving, the price tag knocks you out of your socks, lol😁

That's really nice of you to say. Thank you!

Yeah, that's the thing about cruising on a small ship with a small amount of passengers. It's impossible to do a cruise like that as inexpensively as a cruise on a mega cruise ship. When you cruise on a big cruise ship, the fixed costs of the cruise line (cost of the ship, fuel, labor, food, etc) can be split among thousands of passengers. But when you cruise on a small ship like American Cruise Lines, there are only about 100 cabins on the ship! So, there's just no way they can get the cost of the cruise down to $2000 or $3000 like the big cruise lines can with the big ships. It's just math. If a big cruise line can get $3000 per cabin for 2000 cabins... that's $6,000,000 coming in for just one cruise. But if American Cruise Lines were to charge $3000 each for 1000 cabins, that would be only $300,000 coming in... not nearly enough to pay the cost of building and operating that ship... especially in light of the fact that the crew on ACL ships are Americans and are being paid American wages.

This is not a part of the world where a cruise makes sense. It's a much better road trip.

It is now $9500 per person. My husband & I just booked it for our 35th.

The cruise lines would love to go to Chicago, but Navy Pier is fully leased and the shore and harbor are hazardous for large ships. It’s a mix of shallow sand bars, rocky shoals, and unpredictable weather. Back in the schooner days, boats had to go up the Chicago River to dock safely. It would take $100 million to make it workable, and the Great Lakes cruises are too few and too small to make the finances work.

That's just the way I talk when there's a microphone in front of me! My actual conversational voice is annoyingly high pitched, and with a bit of a mumble. Kind of hard to understand the words sometimes!

They're allowed to be onboard, but it's not really the kind of cruise that people would bring kids on. In very rare occasions, a multi-generational family might do a vacation together on one of these ships... with kids, parents, and grandparents... but generally speaking you do not see people bringing their kids on these ships.

@@JimZimOk thanks for the info....If we did it it would be a multi generational thing. Basically I would love to cruise the Great Lakes. I would also love to make it a family cruise (Us, our kids and our grand children). I know that Octantis does not allow kids, so I am looking at alternatives.

I see. For a multi-generational cruise on the Great Lakes, with kids along, Pearl Seas would be your best choice. You'll see want to be sure to bring along things (coloring books, games on a tablet, etc) to keep the kids occupied. Besides Viking and Pearl Seas, the other alternative is American Queen... but the cabins on Pearl Mist are hugely better than the cabins on American Queen... and the last thing you want to do is have bad cabins for everyone during your vacation! So, I think you should seriously consider Pearl Seas.

Oh man thanks a lot....I relly want to do this so your input is of great value...I have also seen the Pearl Mist off of Pelee...thanks!@@JimZim

Actually, I was sailing at the cruise line's expense. They like the publicity they get in these RU-vid videos that I make. When you watch cruise ship videos on RU-vid, it's actually quite common for the RU-vidr to be there as a guest of the cruise line. All the cruise lines know the value of good publicity.

@@JimZim Well, then, I'm glad that you got to do this cruise. It looks like one that I'd enjoy. Thank you.

My husband & I were corporate executives for 30 yrs at a major pharmaceutical company, and no children.

I kind of chuckled when I saw that. Detroit has many good restaurants from fine dining all the way down to wonder bread sticks with ketchup, lol