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That is quite an OP. I've always been kind of curious about trying a cruise, but I've also been afraid that once I've gotten on, I'm stuck. I don't mind crowds, but I can't handle guided tours or standing in lines. Am I just the wrong demographic as someone who enjoys DIY? I've always been kind of curious to try a cruise just to see how it is, but then every couple years I go on some sort of day trip excursion with a group of 60 people and I spend the entire day praying for the sweet release of death, and have had a similar impression when being at the receiving end of a cruise load of tourists in places like Santorini and Monaco. What's a reasonable minimum cruise length to see if we like it? The Alaskan fjords seem like a cruise is pretty much the only way to do it. Is there anywhere else like that? The Aegean I've looked into too since there it's a slight hassle to get around multiple on your own, but there you can also rent a yacht and crew which seems like it'd be more up my alley; same with the Galapagos and San Blas, although there I guess cruise ships aren't even allowed at all. I'm surprised there are so few cruises going through the South Pacific, at least assuming your OP is comprehensive, which it seems to be. That was another place I was thinking is going to be difficult to do either on one's own or by small boat. Maybe the distances between places with cruise ship-accessible infrastructure are too few and far between to make it feasible.
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Dec 12, 2018 16:37
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 16:39 |
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Zero One posted:Where do you live? You could probably find a 3 day cruise for a couple hundred dollars per person that will give you a taste to see if you like it. Switzerland, so realistically it'd have to be a European cruise. The Norwegian fjords are pretty accessible by car, which I've done and loved and should probably go back since it's been 13 years (whoa). Does anything spring to mind for you in that case? Maybe Finland-Estonia-St Petersburg? Balkans also I've thought of several times, but tbh I think I'd want a car as I really enjoy driving on terrible roads through mountains even though my wife gets carsick on curvy mountain roads.
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Dec 12, 2018 17:59
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Pixelante posted:Anyone remember a thread ages ago about working on cruise ships? I do, but I think it was in Ask/Tell.
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Feb 4, 2019 16:42
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Huh! Surprising how sudden this is actually going into effect. All the travel restrictions for the past 3 years announced by the Trump administration have both (a) taken months to come into effect after being announced, and (b) not especially restricted independent travel to Cuba since they have still left the "support for the Cuban people" exemption open, still allowed Americans to rent cars from the (military-owned) rental companies, and do not appear to have prosecuted anyone through OFAC* *E: I mean private travelers. A bunch of businesses and businessmen have been fined. Saladman fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 15:19
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Zero One posted:Drone footage of Carnival Vista parking on the floating dry dock. That maintenance ship the "Vanguard" looks like it would tip over in the slightest breeze.
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Jul 15, 2019 13:00
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Nanigans posted:Having been on 3/4 (soon to be 4/4) of the Oasis class ships, I can agree with an earlier post stating that those ships never feel crowded apart from the odd sale going on in the Promenade. And in that case...you can just leave and go somewhere else that's quiet. Is there any easy way to find videos of how cruise ships look in normal situations? I was kind of curious what various ships look like in action, and I could only find a handful of videos that seemed representative of an actual ongoing cruise at peak hours. 95% of videos just used stock footage of either nearly-empty areas that I presume were taken either at like 6am or during major shore excursions. Like specifically I was looking at Viking Cruise ships, for instance, the Viking Star, and I couldn't find any videos that had even remotely enough people for me to seem like it was representative of normal use, e.g. Like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KONkn-9qFVM Is just everyone on a shore excursion or something? I presume those restaurants must actually fill up with most tables occupied concurrently at normal dining hours? Or do high-end cruise ships have 2-3x as many seats/tables as they ever expect to use on a normal day, kind of like how most 5* hotel restaurants and lobbies are half-empty even on normal Friday evenings in summer? I looked at other ships and I did occasionally find "real life" videos, but the majority seemed to be like like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yCe7DJlDns&t=229s The beginning has people, but if you skip around like to the linked time, nearly everywhere is empty. Is that normal? I'm surprised I couldn't easily find more trip-report videos which use footage which is obviously from normal use times. Like, I don't think I ever even saw a single person in a Viking ship pool in any of the many videos I skimmed through.
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Feb 26, 2020 23:32
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We spent a few days in Miami Beach before Christmas. It’s a super nice area and to my surprise, extremely walkable. There is even a free trolleybus for Miami Beach. Uber is easy to use in the whole Miami area. Miami downtown sucks and is the stereotype of a lovely abandoned downtown. Oddly, the Brickell district literally a block away is really nice and upscale, albeit not that much to do besides food and shop. Also it all depends what you like doing for where you should stay. If you want the beach then Miami Beach is the only option. If you want cheap eats, Miami Beach is not such a good option. For hotel, just set your budget and dates and look at the map on booking.com and click around. Shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes to find one that meets your price range in your target location.
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Jan 13, 2023 16:21
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Wynwood Walls is neat if you like good murals. The Wynwood area has a lot of murals outside the Walls museum too. Not a super pleasant area to walk in but plenty safe - just lots of big construction sites and the other inconveniences associated with early stage mass gentrification (eg few businesses - old ones closed down and new ones mostly not open yet). The Miami metro is an adorable little miniature elevated metro system, and free. I wouldn’t go out of my way for it but if you happen to be somewhere it goes I found it cute, not a word I would usually use to describe a transport system. Definitely not a *mass* transport system, each metro can carry like 20 people max, not even bus sized. Miami Beach has nothing in particular to see but it’s all nice and there’s a lot of art deco architecture. On the west side of Miami Beach you can get good views of Miami’s skyline from the Biscayne Bay Path. We found that there are a bunch of second rate tourist attractions which are all nice and cool but if you miss any particular one of them, or any particular several of them, then *shrug*. Miami Art District is neat for like 10 minutes because the architecture is interesting, then you realize every shop sells the same handbag for $18,000 and are like okay, I just want a burrito, so maybe it’s time to go somewhere else. I think there were literally three Louis Vuittons there and it’s tiny, just a bunch of boring upscale chain stores. I mean nothing against Louis Vuitton, but they sell the same exact stuff in every other one of their thousands of stores across the world so I don't get why anyone sees that type of shopping as a tourist destination. Anyway, still cool architecture in the Miami Art District. I found the mall in Brickell to also be really neat architecturally, but again it’s just a bunch of international chain stores inside so I wouldn’t go more than 15 minutes out of my way to go there. Actually I think that sums up Miami for me. It’s nice and I liked it but I also wouldn’t go more than 15 minutes out of my way for even a single thing there. E: I don't mean to sound down on it, we just spent 5 days/4 nights there and had a great time every day. We just never found anything that I would be like "omg you're going to Miami? You HAVE to do [x]." Saladman fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jan 15, 2023 |
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Jan 15, 2023 18:02
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 16:39 |
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Uber, if your hotel doesn’t have a free shuttle. No idea about that but do hotels in the US have free shuttles anywhere, except sometimes airport hotels? If you need to save $5 urgently for some reason you can take the free elevated metro from Brickell to the FTX Arena and Uber from there. We did that over Christmas to get back from Brickell to Miami Beach when there was a game going on and the entire downtown area was totally blocked with traffic. It also doesn’t look like it is even legal to walk across the bridge from downtown to the port. I don’t see any sidewalk on that bridge so even if legal it looks like a bad idea. Even if you could walk, like on the Venetian causeway going to Miami Beach, it would be an absolute garbage way to save $10. If you’re worried about traffic then just keep an eye on it, or go earlier. Also the requested boarding time on the first day isn’t like a hard cutoff like for a flight… most likely. You can check what the actual boat departure time is, if it’s like 6pm or if it’s like 4pm. In any case it doesn’t seem like it should be very stressful, traffic or no, since even if you are crazy unlucky and there is absolute gridlock on the bridge for some reason then you could walk.
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Mar 24, 2023 00:04
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