It’s your first cruise and you’re dutifully reading the cruise line’s pamphlet on what to expect on your upcoming voyage. Your heart skips a beat when you reach the section on clothing: Two formal nights! You haven’t been that dressed up since the prom (more years ago than you’ll even admit). You got great deal on the [...]
02 November
In a volatile economy with high unemployment many of us are cutting back expenditures in order to to stretch budgets further. And in order to afford a vacation, it may be tempting to pick a ship because it has the cheapest price.
What we tend to forget is that our time is the most precious commodity of all. To spend precious vacation time on a ship where [...]
12 September
Promising luxurious ships, exciting destinations and a wide choice of cuisine, cruise holidays can offer disabled travellers a fantastic experience. Many of the larger ships pack a wide variety of accessible facilities and activities into a relatively compact area, and you get to choose the right balance of activities and relaxation to suit you.
Overall, facilities [...]
09 August
In the late 1990’s I decided ships had had become too big when a cruise line announced it was building a 2,500-passenger vessel. The size was unimaginable. I envisioned long lines and waiting to board and disembark. Certainly there would be crowds at the lido café since people seemed to show up for breakfast and [...]
05 August
I bought a dress and a week later encountered someone with the same dress, which she bought on sale for half the price I paid. My response? “Oh well….”
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Bought a new car and paid $23,974. A month later I open the newspaper to find the same dealer is now selling my car for [...]
17 June
By Sam & Arline Bleecker
Compared to your cruise fare, the cost of quenching your thirst for soft drinks, coffee, juices, wines and spirits may not seem like much. But at two dollars a pop for soda or four to twelve for a glass of wine or twenty-five or more for a bottle of vino, the [...]
04 April
Welcome guest bloggers Arline and Sam Bleecker, two veteran writers who have been covering the cruise industry for over a decade. In this post, they give useful information designed to help pick the perfect ship based on your personal interests and lifestyle.
Cruise lines have personalities too. Matching your personality to a cruise line is [...]
28 February
A story on CNN that says the world is divided between people who love cruises and people who hate them. I’ve met plenty of people who swear they wouldn’t be caught dead on a cruise ship for predictable reasons: they’ll be bored, don’t want to vacation with thousands of people, take a tux, the [...]
31 January
While I grew up in upstate New York and love to see white snow gently piling up outside the window of my New York City apartment, this is starting to get old. It’s still January and today the fifth storm of the season has once again closed local airports. After four days of temperatures hovering [...]
27 January
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours! Here are my cruise tips for saving wear and tear on body and soul. I’d love to get a few tips from you as well. And, because air travel is so unpredictable, several tips are especially important and noted as a NEW RULE.
1. To arrive with wrinkle-free [...]
23 January
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ShipCritic Blog is a labor of love by Anne Campbell, a journalist who has been covering the cruise industry since 1993. Why a blog? This newfangled technology is the best way of interacting with cruisers, both first timers and veterans, who also share a passion for seeing the world by ship.
