Dummies Guide To Cruising...

Greetings:

I'm just starting to plan for my first cruise, a family trip to Alaska
for the summer of '05.

Rather than ask all the standard newbie questions:

What's included in the price of the cruise and what's extra
How to get (or not) upgrades
What's a "pax"
etc....

Can someone point me to a good online resource for newbie cruisers?
Most of the sites I googled are looking to sell me a cruise and seem
to assume I'm up to speed on all the lingo and such.

Thanks.

Outstanding question, Steve. I suggest you start with the following two
faqs. The first was written by John Davis, the founder of RTC. The
second is kept in the official archives of RTC. Good luck.

Howie

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=re...o.net&rn um=1

http://www.seacruisereviews.com/faq.htm#1

Steve wrote:
Greetings:

I'm just starting to plan for my first cruise, a family trip to Alaska
for the summer of '05.

Rather than ask all the standard newbie questions:

What's included in the price of the cruise and what's extra
How to get (or not) upgrades
What's a "pax"
etc....

Can someone point me to a good online resource for newbie cruisers?
Most of the sites I googled are looking to sell me a cruise and seem
to assume I'm up to speed on all the lingo and such.

Thanks.

Steve:

Dummies Guide to Cruising

You are reading it. If you can't find the answers you are looking for, just
ask here. (and please do not feed our trolls)

Mike Quint


" Greetings:

I'm just starting to plan for my first cruise, a family trip to Alaska
for the summer of '05.

Rather than ask all the standard newbie questions:

What's included in the price of the cruise and what's extra
How to get (or not) upgrades
What's a "pax"
etc....

Can someone point me to a good online resource for newbie cruisers?
Most of the sites I googled are looking to sell me a cruise and seem
to assume I'm up to speed on all the lingo and such.

Thanks.

Howie wrote:

Outstanding question, Steve. I suggest you start with the following two
faqs. The first was written by John Davis, the founder of RTC. The
second is kept in the official archives of RTC. Good luck.

Howie

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=re...o.net&rn um=1


http://www.seacruisereviews.com/faq.htm#1

I should add that in the second link above you will find numerous
reviews (some from very experienced cruisers) of many different cruise
ships belonging to many different cruise lines.

Steve,
Saturday at 4pm on the east coast the Travel Channel has a 1 hour show
called "Cruise ship FAQ" that can answer some of your questions as well.
Have fun, it's great doing all the investigating.

Bill

"Steve" wrote in message
...
Greetings:

I'm just starting to plan for my first cruise, a family trip to Alaska
for the summer of '05.

Rather than ask all the standard newbie questions:

What's included in the price of the cruise and what's extra
How to get (or not) upgrades
What's a "pax"
etc....

Can someone point me to a good online resource for newbie cruisers?
Most of the sites I googled are looking to sell me a cruise and seem
to assume I'm up to speed on all the lingo and such.

Thanks.

Steve wrote in message . ..
Greetings:

I'm just starting to plan for my first cruise, a family trip to Alaska
for the summer of '05.

Rather than ask all the standard newbie questions:

What's included in the price of the cruise and what's extra

Included is cruise passage from starting point to various port stops
to ending point. Food will be included but there will probably be some
extra fee dining options available. At the least, you'll be able to
eat in a dining room and a buffet restaurant at no extra charge.
Entertainment will be included - production shows in the main show
lounge, various entertainment in the smaller venues, etc. Some
beverages are included - coffee, tea, iced tea, lemonade...maybe fruit
punch, milk. Room service is free, but it's customary to offer a tip
(amount depends on what's delivered...usually in the $1-5 range).

Expect to pay extra for alcohol, soda, extra-fee restaurants, spa
services, photos taken on board by photo staff, tips, casino,
espresso/cappucino, bingo, shore excursions...

How to get (or not) upgrades

No sure fire way. Hope that the upgrade fairy is waving his/her magic
wand? Book the lowest cabin category you will be happy with, so that
if no cabin upgrade happens, you won't be disappointed with the cabin
you have. I believe that, on my last cruise, I got such a great
upgrade in large part because of the volume of bookings the TA I used
does with the cruise line I was on. Might be wrong about that...not
sure.

What's a "pax"

pax = passenger

etc....

ask away. That's what rtc is for.

Lee

Jim wrote:

There actually IS a book by that name and it was written by Fran Golden who
is on the staff of Cruisemates.


I gave my mom a copy of "Cruise for Dummies" to prepare for their first
cruise and she loves it. It answered almost all of her questions. Pick
up a copy from half.com cheap and ignore the price information in it
(which is out of date before the book is even printed anyway).

There actually IS a book by that name and it was written by Fran Golden who
is on the staff of Cruisemates. There are also a couple other books I can
think of, one being "Happy Sails" and the other being "Cruise Control" both
written by Pam Kane and available at www.amazon.com Pam also was staff at
Cruisemates until she had to take time out to finish her latest book 'Happy
Sails'. There are also a couple websites on the Internet that are not run by
travel agencies, the one that I of course recommend is www.cruisemates.com
for it's accuracy and completeness.
Jim
Staff Leader
www.cruisemates.com


"Steve" wrote in message
...
Greetings:

I'm just starting to plan for my first cruise, a family trip to Alaska
for the summer of '05.

Rather than ask all the standard newbie questions:

What's included in the price of the cruise and what's extra
How to get (or not) upgrades
What's a "pax"
etc....

Can someone point me to a good online resource for newbie cruisers?
Most of the sites I googled are looking to sell me a cruise and seem
to assume I'm up to speed on all the lingo and such.

Thanks.

The poster asked for information about other online resources to research
cruise info. Jim responded with some suggestions.

Not sure what was wrong with that. Heck he didn't even put in this link
http://www.cruisemates.com/articles/firsttime/
where there's quite a number of articles specifically for first time
cruisers. Some of which I wroteG

There's also a wide variety of articles throughout the site covering many
cruise topics, including one on cruise ship terminology. And also a separate
message board for first time cruisers.

But then, why would anyone actually want to answer the posted question, when
they can get more joy attacking another poster!

Regards,
Kuki
Features Editor
http://www.cruisemates.com
"CupCaked" wrote in message
...

Maybe you don't like me because I call it as I see it, Jim? At least,
I'm not a spammer ... or a liar.

"Jim" wrote:

And you are the same vindictive, nasty person you have always been.
Jim


"CupCaked" wrote in message
...
"Jim" wrote:

spam ad snipped

Here we go again. He just never learns.



__ /7__/7__/7__
\::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.cupcaked.com/reviews
(...and leave off the "potatoes" to e-mail)



__ /7__/7__/7__
\::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.cupcaked.com/reviews
(...and leave off the "potatoes" to e-mail)

Accuracy? Weren't you the one who just a few days ago was telling people
they couldn't get airfares at a decent price when airfare is the lowest it
has been for quite a while? Funny, you never responded to the post giving a
ton of examples of incredibly priced airfares.

Your information is neither accurate or complete. It's nothing more then a
shameless attempt by you and the rest of your "staff" to get people to click
on any of the cruisemates links period. You make stuff up just to post the
link, as you did with the airfares. Anybody who has ever even seen an
airplane would have known you were making stuff up.

Your posts could best be described as babble with links, not accurate and
complete. You've even manages to post the links multiple times in the same
post, then have the rest of your staff come here mentioning links you forgot
to post. Babble with links.

Explain to us again how expensive airfares are the first week of May, won't
you?





"Jim" wrote in message
. ..
There actually IS a book by that name and it was written by Fran Golden
who
is on the staff of Cruisemates. There are also a couple other books I can
think of, one being "Happy Sails" and the other being "Cruise Control"
both
written by Pam Kane and available at www.amazon.com Pam also was staff at
Cruisemates until she had to take time out to finish her latest book
'Happy
Sails'. There are also a couple websites on the Internet that are not run
by
travel agencies, the one that I of course recommend is www.cruisemates.com
for it's accuracy and completeness.
Jim
Staff Leader
www.cruisemates.com


"Steve" wrote in message
...
Greetings:

I'm just starting to plan for my first cruise, a family trip to Alaska
for the summer of '05.

Rather than ask all the standard newbie questions:

What's included in the price of the cruise and what's extra
How to get (or not) upgrades
What's a "pax"
etc....

Can someone point me to a good online resource for newbie cruisers?
Most of the sites I googled are looking to sell me a cruise and seem
to assume I'm up to speed on all the lingo and such.

Thanks.