totalmorganmove

The three mast ship that you've photographed beautifully is the Bark Europa! (Built in 1911, the same age as the Titanic - but, y'know, still sailing.) My partner sailed on her last year to Antarctica with his brother. A bit too rustic for me which is why I've been following your blog so heavily - think Silversea might be a better fit!

In the recent Black Friday sales, we purchased The Key for $1 more than internet alone for an upcoming sailing. It is a 14 night so we figured $14 per person for a nice embarkation lunch was worth it. There are also some tender ports and having priority tendering is a useful bonus. Having had The Key before, I don't think we'd purchase it at more than $2 over internet.

Very common when cruising in Asia. From my experience, they collect them in on embarkation and they are very well organised. We never had to talk to immigration at any port we went to across multiple countries and everything was handled for us - very easy. On the day before we arrived back in Singapore, they had an organised system to pick them up on your room deck elevator lobby. They checked them against sea pass and returned. As someone who always keeps their passport on them, I was a bit unnerved about the idea at first. But it was seamless, and far less stressful than times I've crossed borders of the same countries by land or air!

In January, Spectrum tendered off of Patong Beach. So you just walked off the tender and were on the main beach. It was a little off to the side so to get to restaurants, beach massages, chairs to rent, etc you'd need to walk about 5 minutes down the beach. It was very convenient.

We sailed on Spectrum this past January on her first 7 night cruise since the restart. We loved the ship and the entire experience! One thing that really stood out is how many crew members told us how much they loved the longer cruises as they got to get to know guests better than on the usual 3/4 nights cruises they had been doing to Port Klang or Penang and back. Even when Spectrum moves to back to China, they are mostly 4/5 night sailings so enjoy being on one of the few longer ones!

Is your trip on Spectrum travelling to Vietnam by any chance? Having passport size photos is usually a requirement for a visa on arrival there, and I would expect the same would be true via cruise ship. On Spectrum they will very likely collect your passports on Day 1. You will get them back on days that you are required to have them in hand for immigration, and otherwise they will do all the immigration work behind the scenes. On the last sea day, they'll have stations to collect them back. They will give you a run down of what you need to do for each stop - they are very efficient.

There is definitely a place inside the cruise terminal where you can store your bags. I believe it closes at 5 pm, so you would just need to pick them up by then. (We planned to use it last year in the same circumstances, but ended up doing a private tour to Whistler for the day and they transported our with us all day instead.)

All tenders (I took 6 during our overnight stop) in Phuket were from a local company. They did not use the ship's lifeboats. They were big double decker ferries - lovely open top deck for getting great photos of Spectrum as well!

I got there maybe 30-35 minutes before they started handing them out and I was about 7th in line. But they called the numberw so quickly that when they got to mine, I had just gone for some breakfast. Went down maybe 15 minutes later and walked straight on. Honestly, it was a breeze of a tender port. If the priority tender is your main motivation for the key, I would skip it.

Just cruised on Spectrum in January with a stop in Phuket. We lined up very early to get tender tickets, however once the tenders started running they were very quick. Unless you need to get off in the first 20 minutes, you really didn't need one. The tenders were really quick, under 15 minutes and they were continuous. We were there overnight and we never waited more than 5 minutes for one.

Kia ora! We booked this while cruising in Alaska back in July - truly can't think of two more different itineraries! Still no excursions available for Thailand, but Royal sail into Phuket for the first time in ages in just a few weeks, so I suspect they'll appear them. Having been to both Thailand & Malaysia before though, we'll likely do all of our exploring independently. Happy to make some suggestions to anyone!

Honestly, the flight is not as bad as everyone says it is. Living in NZ now, and having lived in Aus previously, I've done the transpacific both ways 2-3 times a year for ages. If you're worried about how long it it, Hawaii is a great stopover, especially if flying from the East Coast. Ideally try to get a flight that arrives in Sydney early in the morning and hit the ground running. The daylight helps with the jet lag and February is peak summer sunshine! If you can only tack on a few days before or after, Sydney has plenty to do and see within the city surrounds. If you can tack on an extra week or two, hiring a car is a great option to see more of Australia and you could easily drive to Melbourne or the Gold Coast and fly back from one of those. Yes, you could fly directly to them as well but an Aussie road trip is a quintessential experience (and driving on the left is not as terrifying as it sounds. )

I didn't start cruising until my early 20s and have always cruised with my mum, rather than a group of friends. I always made friends on the ship - no matter the itinerary or time of year. It is a great chance to practice making friends, which gets so much harder after they finish college. Go to the nightclub on board. Whether or not they can drink, they can talk to people. Especially if you go the night before a sea day. I'd often meet people and then we'd plan to meet up at the hot tubs to catch up the next day - low pressure hangout. If you are a small group traveling, ask about getting a larger dinner table with others. A very easy way to make friends. Go to trivia and ask to join up with another team - everyone likes the idea of getting more people with more knowledge on their team! If you can, book shore excursions with third party operators. These tend to be smaller so you meet a few people and have shared experiences. That being said, it's honestly up to each individual. Just like on land, if you don't put in the leg work, you won't meet anyone.