Cruise

by Dennis Sherwood, Gig Harbor, WA

My husband, Tom, and I took the “Danube Discovery Cruise” with smarTours, Sept. 24-Oct. 7, 2008, as well as the pretrip “Dracula Castle Extension” on Sept. 23. The pretrip was a bus tour with a guide and was done very well. After boarding the ship Kleine Prinz, however, the whole trip fell apart, we felt.

On the cruise, we had day guides at all the stops and all were adequate, but none made sure they were giving their talk in a place where we could actually hear it. We had talks surrounded by traffic, construction and leaf blowers.

My husband, Roger, and I boarded the MS Marshal Koshevoy in Nessebar, Bulgaria, for a Black Sea/Dnieper River cruise-tour to Kiev, Ukraine, Sept. 15-27, 2008, operated by Orthodox Cruise Company (Ala­byana, 5, 125057, Moscow, Russia). We booked the tour through Russian Empire Cruises.

Upon boarding the ship, we smelled sewer gas. The odor was quite strong in the bathroom of our cabin, an upper-deck stateroom on the third of four decks. The ship was scheduled to depart at 22:00 but did not due to weather.

For years the cruise industry was a sellers’ market, with more eager passengers than cabins. But with the global economic crisis, many passengers are staying home, the cruising fleet is overbuilt and sellers are desperate for your business. This is good news if you can afford to go cruising, and at some of the discounts available you may be surprised how cheap it is.

In this column, I’ll describe how to research your cruise and some of the unusual discounts available. Throughout I will give examples on how to use the tools involved and have a great cruise at a great price.

A really good small museum is the Museum of Ancient Shipbuilding (Neutostr. 2b, 55116 Mainz, Germany; phone ++4961 31 28 66 30, www.mainz.de — click on “culture,” then “museum”) in Mainz.

It showcases the Roman ships found in the mud on the shores of the Rhine during construction of a parking structure for a Hilton hotel 10 years ago. Five Roman ships have been preserved, with life-size models built to show what the ships actually would have looked like.

I worked for Orient Lines Cruise Tours as a sales rep in the Southeast for two years, 2000-2002. Previously, I was a CLIA MCC (Master Certified Cruise Counselor for Cruise Line International Association). I have been on more than 35 ships, so I know the cruise business very well.

My husband, Larry, and I booked a Costa Europa cruise in the Indian Ocean that was scheduled to go to Mauritius, Madagascar, Comoros, Reunion, Seychelles and Kenya (for Mombasa), Jan. 17-31, 2009. We embarked and disembarked in Mauritius, and the price was $8,878 for the two of us in the Grand Suite.

by Lew Toulmin

I had Zierer Visa Service (multiple offices but based in San Francisco, CA; 866/788-1100, www.zvs.com) get me a visa for Brazil in September ’08, several months ahead of a Princess cruise I was about to take. I received the visa in about three weeks.

At the end of my Venice-Manaus Pacific Princess cruise, Nov. 28-Dec. 19, 2008, the ship’s purser informed me that Princess Cruises had paid a fine of $359 levied by Brazilian Immigration and before getting my passport back I had to reimburse the cruise line.

I appreciated Lew Toulmin’s article on the American Canadian Caribbean Line (“The Cruising World,” March ’09). My husband and I took an ACCL cruise in October ’07, and although I had wished to share the merits of ACCL, I did not know how to do it as the cruise we took began in Quebec and ended in Warren, Rhode Island, places ITN does not cover.

We were aboard the Grande Mariner, and although the ship was in need of refurbishing, that did not stop the 86 passengers on board from having a wonderful time and partaking of the personal benefits offered to us.