Is Cruising On A Maiden Voyage Worth The Hassle? | Cruise Cast Ep.29

Booking to go on a cruises Maiden voyage use to be a bucket list for many cruisers, but since 2020, so many of these first (or first few) cruises are having major issues. From entertainment and restaurants not being ready, to unfinished construction work, and even engine problems; and in Episode 29 of the Suite Natured Cruise Cast, we ask, "Is A Maiden Voyage Just Too Risky?"

We talk about our own experiences aboard maiden voyages, as well as looking at other more recent challenges with delays and problems such as NCL Aqua, Cunards' Queen Anne and Virgin Voyages Brilliant Lady. 

We also give our thoughts on a few of the recent cruise news stories and have a bit of a saucy confession from one of our listeners/watchers, which sparks an interesting conversation about Late Night Linzi!

If you enjoyed this episode please consider supporting the channel via our YouTube Membership https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaAHapT85jdtLYwrJhFsCw/join

And please consider subscribing to the channel https://youtube.com/c/suitenatured to keep up to date with all our latest videos, podcasts and live streams

Cheers, and have a lovely day
Linzi & Mark

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Maiden Voyages
01:34 Defining Maiden Voyages
02:25 Recent Problematic Maiden Voyages
05:59 Challenges Faced by New Ships
09:39 Pros and Cons of Booking a Maiden Voyage
18:07 Unique Experiences on Maiden Voyages
20:55 Tips for Booking a Maiden Voyage
23:20 Cruise Confessions and Stories
28:15 Cruise News and Updates

Transcript

Linzi & Mark (00:01)
Welcome to episode 29 of the Sweet Nature Cruise cast. Hi, I'm Linz as always I'm joined by Marky. Hello. Hello. And today we're talking whether it's a good idea to book a maiden voyage. But first a little mood music.

What did you think of today's mood music? No. I was trying to go with it's a bit mysterious. Is something going to go right? Is it going to go wrong? It's kind of like a detective show, but a really rubbish one. It can indeed have that vibe to it. It's fair comment. OK, we won't class this week's mood music as a window. I can see me with a magnifying glass. Can I have a big trilby? If I've got a magnifying glass.

Super. Shall we talk about what we're going to talk about this week then? Yes. So we're going to be having a chat about whether it's a good idea to book a maiden voyage or even close to a maiden voyage on a cruise ship. And what we class in as close? Within the first couple of months. Closer than close? Closer than close. We've also got some cruise news and we a cruise confession as Lovely. But let's kick it off with sort of having a chat about maidens.

It's probably worth... buxom and wenches going to Not books and wenches as in from medieval England. But it's probably worth clarifying what we meant by Maiden. Because you asked earlier on what are we classing that as. So a Maiden for me is if you're a paying passenger... So the first paying passengers on a ship, when either it's brand new or it's had a major refurbishment.

So it could have gone from one line to another and been completely redone. I don't just mean went into dry dot for a few weeks. No, I mean a facelift. understand. Yeah, completely redone on there. There's... Shall we talk about some recent examples of ones? Yes. Yeah, because I've jotted some notes on a couple of them to remind myself of Hit me with your notes. So, and you can feel free to comment on any of these. So these are all problematic maidens.

to different levels. And again, we're not talking about you or people from the Middle Ages. I am a maiden. Like the sheriff of Nottingham, he would class Maid Marian as a problematic maiden. I'm fairly sure Maid Marian was classed as problematic.

Just a quick drink of wine to wet my lips there. very, very recently, we've just had Norwegian's new aqua. Now this didn't have the sort of normal issues that we've seen when maidens happen, which could be a delay or things not working. they cancel it. With like a two days notice. We'll come on to that with some other examples. But what they did with this one, because it hadn't had

sort of a proper run out, so to speak. had its sea trials and everything like that, had been certified. the, up there was going to be some bad weather because its maiden was going from Southampton. Straight across to Boston. Straight across to Boston, which we've done that journey before. done that. did it on Celebrity. wasn't the maiden though, but go It's not a long one. It should take seven, seven days from start to finish, seven hours. Yeah. At the very last minute,

And by last minute people actually put in the luggage people already loaded luggage up and in the terminal. They then decided that they were going to change it to go to New York rather than Boston. Yeah. And it was no longer seven nights. It was 10. That's crazy. And was it not nine nights initially and then became 10 nights? Well, I'm not sure if it was nine nights slash 10 days or 10 nights. There's a little bit.

up in the air about that. Are they there? They've not arrived yet, have they? No, it's still going, isn't it? Oh, it's imminently going to be there. Oh, bless them. But they gave zero notice on that. And they've just said it was because of the weather. Well, we've been on ships. We did the transatlantic. North transatlantic? 15, 16 months ago on Apex and there were storms on the way. We were middle transatlantic at that one. Yeah, but there were storms en route and the captain just kept changing. It didn't delay.

us getting to any of our destinations. all. Saying that though, we did arrive in the Azores a little bit later on in the day. Yeah, by like a couple of hours, not three days. No, that's true. So apparently the service in the restaurants on board, Aqua, has been a little bit slower and there's been some technical issues, but nothing major. That can happen even if the ship sets off on time. I'm thinking of you, Queen Anne. Yeah. Now, if you...

look at that sort of delay and how late it was that that for me is a weird a bit i know weather is uncontrollable and yeah it's just part of cruising but to delay it by three days and change where you're going and it wasn't like it was hurricane no and people had the flights organized and transfers organized and well about the other 200 people didn't get on it including um ben and david yeah they'd got their luggage on and then to rub sort of salt into the wound

People had to wait about five hours for the luggage to be checked and back off the ship. And there was no representative either from NCL. No, it was a very strange thing. But again, a maiden voyage. It set off on time. It wasn't delayed. And by that, mean, on the day, I mean, it wasn't delayed like a week or two weeks. No, no, they had it. They took delivery when they said they would. It set off on its maiden when they said they would. It just wasn't arriving when...

they said they would or where they said he would arrive. It's funny you should say about taking delivery because for the last couple of years post pandemic, that's been a major problem for maiden voyages and it certainly put a lot of people off. Now, whilst we weren't on a maiden voyage, we were due to be on the second voyage on Sun Princess. Yes, the second voyage. Was it always going to be the second voyage? But then it became the first voyage. Yeah, and then it became no voyage.

And some princess was probably one of the ones, and to be clear, we loved the shape. Yeah, we had fun. Once we got on it. But it had just about every tick box that you can have for maiden voyage problem. So it was delayed for the first couple of cruises. So the first couple didn't happen. was, I think, the third one that became then the maiden.

How long was it when we were cancelled? How many hours? wasn't a lot, was it? days. Three days. So we got notified three days before. Because we were getting super excited and we were tracking it from We'd already done the washing to pack. That's how close it was. It was all kind of getting organised, yeah. But then when it was still sat in the shipyard, we were like, yeah, this might not be happening. So it was delayed. Cruises were cancelled. Then there were restaurants that weren't open.

Oh yeah, like Love by Brito. The spellbound full experience, including the restaurant. The main theatre wasn't open for any of productions. But we did go in the main theatre when we were on there because it had some of the guest people in there. So we had a comedian, saw some singers in there. We saw a juggler. But we didn't have the big shows that we were talking about. Deck 19 wasn't open and subsequently, well, by that I'm on about things like

the sky rail thing, whatever it was going eventually it just never happened and it's now being removed. Sanctuary was opened, but that subsequently changed in the couple of months after it came out and specialty restaurants have physically moved location. yes they have, yeah, yeah. So there's been lots of changes on that. So I think if we went on some princess tomorrow, it would be not unrecognizable.

that there would be massive differences to a cruise ship that we only went on a year ago. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So again, it's when you're talking about those sort of maiden voyages, you have to be prepared that especially when it's a brand new type of ship like some Princess, a Sphere class brand new one, there's going to be some stuff that ultimately they change because they don't work when they get a lot of passengers on board. Now, do we feel if you're a certain

type of person and you're quite, you like living on the edge. Do you feel it's worth booking a maiden on the thinking? Well, it may be happened. Maybe it won't, but if it doesn't happen, I'm going to get quite a bit of cruise credit and, and a good deal on my next booking with that cruise line. Which generally does happen if it gets canceled with relatively short notice princess, for example.

gave really good cruise credit We ended up going to Alaska. Yeah, and we wouldn't have gone to Alaska last year had it not been for Sun Princess being cancelled and we ended up with a lot of credit. Yeah. So, for us, we still got on Sun Princess relatively quickly. Yeah. And we then got on Alaska cruise. We got on Alaska cruise. wasn't a planned Alaska cruise.

And it was very stressful on the day that we found out it wasn't happening. We'd got holidays booked, we'd got loads of stuff sorted. was sometimes the universe has a plan. It worked out. Another good example of and I'll come back to the living on the edge bit. We'll talk about pro-strip. He's brilliant lady. Yes. Now were due to go on her next march. Yes. For Panama cruise.

She was meant to come out 18 months ago because we had friends doing the first Transatlantic on that. Yeah. And then it just disappeared. wasn't they were given the heads up that it wasn't happening. The crews just poof, disappeared. And I'm not sure. And we do love Virgin. We talk about them lot. Virgin. They may be in one of the crew stories today as well. We do love them. Their communication around that was at best week.

if I'm being kind. Because I don't think they've ever really said what the reasons were that it was delayed so long because the ship's finished. saw it last month when we were on Winstar. She was at it Mallorca or Valencia when we there? neither of those two that I said. But we saw her and she's been cruising around the Med for the last sort of, it appears year.

she's due to come into operation in a couple of months time. Yes. And, but there's been a big delay on that. I don't expect her to be delayed again from that one, but when you asked at the start, what are we classing her maiden period as, and really that first couple of months, you could expect problematic. Certainly the first couple of cruises. Yeah. If you had any of the brilliant lady ones, but for the first 18 months they got canceled.

Yeah, I think they did all right cruise credit wise though, didn't they? Yeah. Okay. Then, just talking about another couple of ones as well, where it's maybe not been as obvious to a lot of people as say, some Princess or Virgin where they were much bigger issues on there. Icon of the Seas. Icon. So Icon launched on time. People loved it. It had its media cruises before. People continue to love it.

Were you aware they had to cancel the next cruise after its first one? No. Yeah. So it had during its first cruise, they had to cancel going into St. Thomas when they had major propulsion issues and it couldn't then go as fast. So they ended up, I assumed ended up sort of one of the pods down. following crews had to be canceled so it could go into repairs for a week. Wow. You see, again, even when you're

It's something of that size. It's had sea trials. It went transatlantic to get there. can happen. Something you have just to be failed to prepare, prepared to fail. I think it is with these cruises. Another couple of ones as well. There's been significant things. And again, all of these ones that we're talking about are pretty much post pandemic. Queen Anne was delayed four months. She was delayed.

She was from gone from February to May. January to May. Was it January to May? Yeah. And then when people got on, things weren't as smooth as they were expecting. Well, the biggest issue they had because it had been delayed and they didn't have any sort of shakedown cruises, which they normally have like a friends and family type cruise or media cruise or staff cruise. I didn't have any of those. Most of the.

staff who were on there, certainly it appears in the restaurant side of things. Yes. Had never been on a Q &A chip before and were, had literally been on there a couple of days. Even in the speciality, which you would expect them to be like top notch. Yeah. So they had a lot of issues. They had issues with tech on there where they ended up having to take orders on a notepad, which I say that's a bad P &O Avia when it came out. yeah. It's one had major IT issues.

And then it bumped to Christmas. The Christmas cruise was the first cruise. Because Tom and Dom travel was on that one. So it still happened, but they had major delays and restaurant issues throughout and things just not working as they wanted to. Then you had Wonder of the Seas. Wonder of the Seas? Yeah, which again now we don't think about it as a problematic one, but it had a load of issues with entertainment. OK. The escape room wasn't ready. They were still building it during the maiden and there were

pops missing that they couldn't get shipped over from Miami in time. my goodness. So for instance, on the ice skating, there's meant to be a load of pops on there. All that they had was one lonely deck chair. So I'm sure people who watched it still loved it and probably didn't even notice, but you do get those ones and you get sort of more obscure things and these will bother you to different degrees, but Disney wish when it came out. Yeah.

Couldn't get any of its speciality beers that had been advertising due to supply issues. I mean that is compared to three days out cancelling on some princess. Yeah, you'd be like Speciality beer I can deal with that. There's always cocktails for some people. yeah, that might be something that stresses them out. Maidam want to book. But yeah, I guess. Yeah. Then just another couple of ones on the small ones because it's not just the big ships on there. Emerald Cruises.

I think it's called Azora. It's fancy that one. Each crew were forced to purchase temporary furniture en masse using credit cards after the furniture for the pre-order that they'd pre-ordered for the ship didn't arrive to the shipyard in Vietnam when it needed set off. So they went to like the local home base or whatever it was out there, Ikea, and bought a lot of temporary furniture.

So again, when you got on there, you would have this level of expectation of luxury and find that you're sitting on plastic patio furniture. I'm sure they forked out for bamboo. No, I've seen some pictures, a lot it plastic patio ones. Oh my goodness. Again, I'm sure that was fixed very, very quickly, but it's that risk of that maiden. As a matter of onward, it saw workers still patching physical holes in the ship.

and fixing the pool deck and passengers were told a few days before that they have to bring their own hairdryers because the hairdryers wouldn't be there. Nobody wants to see a physical hole on the ship. You don't want to see a hole. You'd be quite happy if they said take your own hairdryer. You wouldn't have a problem I would. It depends if we were flying Ryanair though because then it's, you know, my luggage allowance. I'd be quite happy as long as I could plug it in because sometimes my hairdryer doesn't like to travel. It's a bit of a home bird.

Yeah, yeah, that's another part. So there's massive differences there of ones that we've talked about, but why do they happen? Well, supply chain issues have certainly been a thing. I was going to swear then things happen. Yeah, things go wrong. You can't swear on here, okay? I'm not swearing, I've got Rosie. But I think there's also been, since the pandemic, a lack of shakedown cruises.

it seems to me and I might be wrong because I might be misremembering this but cruises seem to be ready quite a long way before they put passengers on before the pandemic where they'd have two or three test cruises. Yeah maybe. Plus other bits and pieces. just trying to remember. And they don't seem to have them down as much anymore. No. And the first shakedown cruise in some ones are the ones where passengers get on. Yeah. Which yeah the

Logistically, there's a lot of stuff going on on a cruise ship. Yeah. And also you need your staff to be, your team to be like at their top level and not necessarily when it's the first cruise and they don't know what. OK. Let's get on to some pros for a maiden because you touched on this earlier. Are there any pros to booking a maiden other than you being the first on something? I want to say if it doesn't happen, you get a hefty

cruise credit back and offer. You can do. Depending how close it is. Yeah, if it was cancelled 18 month out, you're probably just going to get your money back and yeah, a little bit of onboard credit. If we hadn't had that happen, there's no way we would have gone to Alaska. No, we ended up essentially nearly getting a free cruise from Well, I wouldn't say free, we still had to pay. But we the going rate for Alaska. No, because we had the cruise credit, it was substantially less.

Yeah, there's no way we would have done Alaska last No, no and and I wouldn't have had my existential crisis. out at three in the morning. In the sunrise. The amount. You wouldn't have had the whales come up to see you when you're eating your chips on the balcony. In no bra. It just. I don't think the bra had any sort of bearing on the the whales coming up to see you. I don't know. It could have acted as a barrier and then just my natural

maternal instinct drew me to the baby whale to me. There were baby whales. I'm not making up a baby whale. No, I'm just saying. Now you do also, when we're talking about Poser being on a maiden, the cruise lines will often give unique gifts to people being on there. Yeah, you get some merch, don't you? Yeah, and stuff that you never see again in the future, they just do it on those ones.

often if you book them early enough because do maidens pretty much always sell out. Yeah they're very popular to say how precarious they are. with an exception being NCL Aqua it hadn't sold out at the time and it ended up with 200 passengers left. was straight across though from Southampton to Boston. Doing a transatlantic as a maiden was less common. we did look at that ourselves. We did look at it and we but I can't imagine the conversation I would have had with my boss.

If... It's actually three days longer than I it would. Yeah, I mean... Now, I wonder, because I haven't read anything about this. You might have read it, so correct me if you know it. If you'd bought the drinks package in advance and then they extended it by three days, did they then give you the drinks package for 10 days or did you have to pay for it? I'd like to think they gave you it for 10 days. Not said, by the way... Oh, can know, they give us a lot more money. I could definitely imagine that they did tell people they had to pay for it. I'd like to think that they would have given them it. Yeah.

I think people got some onboard credit, but it's going on. So we'll find out about this in the future. I think there is a strong argument for waiting several months beyond a maiden. Yeah, but we would never have gone to Alaska. No. Would any of these stuff that I've just read out there, and there's been quite a few there and most of them post pandemic, are there anything that I've said within there that would...

really discourage you from going on a maiden or a near maiden? I don't think it's a case of going on a maiden. I think it's a case of booking a maiden. Would I have an issue? No. Would I think that I was getting on it? No. Would I be happy if it was cancelled and I get to go somewhere that I always wanted to go and have an existential crisis? Yes. So I'm quite happy to do that. However, I can imagine some, lot of people would be gutted. Yeah, there is.

based on what happened with Sun and what happened with a couple of other ones as well. Cruises do get canceled, not just in sort of maidens, they get canceled all the time for various reasons. But one thing that I would say to people as a proper tip, if you are going on a maiden or a near maiden, and we've got one coming up later, which is a near maiden, so it's within the first month. It could be a maiden. It could even be a maiden.

But when we've been talking about it, we were like, well, we should really book the flights with the cruise line. Yes. Because if you look at what happened to a lot of people who were flying over from the States with some princess. Yeah. And other cruise lines that happened to as well, that their insurance didn't cover them. No. For the cruise getting canceled because the flight wasn't canceled. No. Whereas I don't think I would be willing to attack a near maiden. No. And not book it as a package through the cruise line. Through Karen and Stuart and through...

Yeah, the cruise line. I would rather have that level of security. And if one's cancelled, I haven't got to fight with insurance and airlines to try and get them holidays. I've just remembered we're doing it about those holidays. So it wouldn't stop us doing one again. it's sort of there's just a couple of things to be worried, be aware of. Yeah, it might happen. The universe has a plan. There's no free will. You may end up on that cruise.

the university decides. I would say though, if you, if you do like things to be as close to being perfect as they can be, then you probably better off waiting until the new cruise line is than six months. At which point six months in, it's probably fine. And just leave it a little bit longer. Oh, you're going to have a load of stories to tell about what happened. What went wrong? Maybe because that channel or maybe your other channel. then you can talk about things. Yeah. Would you like a cruise confession?

Yes, please. OK. This one's a little bit of a saucy one. Is it? Yeah, it's a little bit of a saucy it's from Steve. That's his real name. Is it Steve, Steve? we're not saying? Well, it's a Steve who you know, Steve, but not necessarily the Steve that you're thinking of, Steve. OK. So, dear, this still makes us chuckle. God. It was our very first cruise, a Mediterranean adventure with MSC. MSC, OK.

And the weather was absolutely gorgeous. One afternoon the sun was beating down and we were both feeling incredibly relaxed, perhaps even a little too relaxed. We were on our balcony gazing out at the most breathtaking view. The ocean was like glass, a perfect mirror reflecting the endless blue sky. Lovely. With nothing but a distant horizon in sight. Nice. Which nothing better than those, is it? No, no, it's beautiful. Feeling rather lighthearted and maybe a touch more than lighthearted.

I leaned over to my partner and with a cheeky grin suggested we come on board. What? C-O-M-E. Right there and then. Come on board? That's a euphemism. my god Steve! Let me have my drink. I did warn you a bit. You said saucy, didn't say erotic. It's not erotic. The response was an immediate...

rather firm not bloody like her. Okay, okay, sourcing not erotic. What if someone sees us? she exclaimed. Then the penny dropped for her and the laughter was instant and infectious. Still giggling I couldn't help but laugh too. Who I asked, gesturing around our secluded bedroom and balcony and the distant vistas, were midship deck 14 and were in the bedroom.

So they're not on the balcony? No, they've gone back inside that part. the sheer silliness of it all. It's a memory that always brings a smile to our faces, a funny reminder of our early cruising days. So there's not really a forgiveness there because no one was affected. I think it's more them getting that off the chest. I mean... It's a lovely story. I mean...

I mean, that wouldn't happen to me because I'm not that type of person. I'm not commenting. Don't comment. You've no right. So no forgiveness needed. No. And thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. I thought it was going one way. It went another. It took me on a journey very much like a Mills and Boon. yeah. More Mills and Boon than Lady Chatterley. It was. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought it was going to go Lady Chatting. was going go like Lady Chatting or 50 Shades type thing.

Yes. It Maul, Mills and Boon. It was Maul, Mills and Boon. Yeah. And that's nice. That's nice for our little podcast. Sort of. PG13. That's another podcast. That's a different... There are plenty of other podcasts. Late Night Lindsay reads... Erotic Confessions. Erotic Confessions. The thing is that I'd probably do much better than this podcast. Maybe that's one for the Let us know in the comments below. Would you like Late Night Lindsay and by late night...

Night Lindsay, she's on more of this. Erotic cruise confessions. What would we call the channel? Well, it's still, would it not still be on the Sweet Nature? would be Sweet Nature Late Night Lindsay Live. Late Night Lindsay After Dark. You can also suggest some titles for that podcast as well. People love Late Night Lindsay After Dark. They do. But you've got to be careful what you wish for if you start voting for this.

You know what? I think it'd do well. I think it might help you go to sleep. It'd be like, you know... I don't think it'd help you go to sleep. I know it would, you know, like the people with their... sound baths. I really don't think it'd have the same effect as a sound bath of you reading out erotic stories. Of course it would! Or like the rain and thunder noises. I think you could put the song... I think it'd probably wake people up more. No, I've got soothing voice.

You've got to say in your voice that you've been reading erotic fiction or erotic truth. No, it's erotic truth. That's even more erotic. I don't think that's helping people go to Send your erotic confessions. I've had quite a few glasses of wine and have had one of those days again at work. In a few weeks time when I'm reading out the comments from this year and saying, oh, people really want to be safe. She's like, I didn't offer to do that. Yes, you did. Here's the video.

Would you like to hear some cruise news? I don't know now. There's no erotic podcast news in this. I'll try and find some for the No, please don't. Cruise story number one. I said we had some Virgin news within here. in the last one, we touched on that we're going to be doing a lot of new entertainment. Yes, you did. you did. So the Vultor now announced for Brilliant Lady is a new restaurant concept. I'm loving it.

So this is in Razzle Dazzle when the redid Scarlet Lady fell recently and showed her a dry dock. They did Lucky Lotus by Razzle Dazzle. I like the sound of that, sound is fabulous. does. I like that they've now got, or they're now going to have a couple of different restaurants on each ship because it gives you a different reason to go on them. Yes, exactly. As opposed to European Yeah, they've figured it. But you're still getting that in five. We said it, but they've figured it. We did, yeah. So...

on Brilliant Lady, it's going to be... I'm definitely going to butch however this is meant to be pronounced, but it's either Rocco or Roger. So it's R-O-J-O by Vasato. Now, I think you'll actually find that the J is a H and it's Rojo. Well, it is Spanish. So Rojo. Rojo. Well... I'll ask my friend who speaks Spanish. That doesn't help us right now, but it will help us in the future. So this new concept...

is going to feature food designed by some really renowned chefs Justin Severino and Nate Hobart who are four times James Oh my god James Beard. Does James Beard exist? I've never seen a photograph of him. I don't know if he's a person. I don't know. He's a foundation isn't he? He must have been a person at some point. But is he a person? It's a foundation that

make sure the food is the best it can be in restaurant service, et cetera. again, we've already, we talked about when we doing our food review on Winstar of how Pinkagave we felt compared to the food level. But you know, as a ship wide one, Winstar was phenomenal. When it comes to this on Winstar, had Quadro 44, which was their Spanish tapas. They are a James Beard foundation partnership.

Is James Beard like James Bond? And it's basically like you... it's a different person but you are James Beard. The name's Beard. James Beard. Don't do that. You don't can't do that. Don't do that. So I'll tell you a bit more about the restaurant anyway. Go on. So Spanish gastronomy as we've already hinted on. Love a bit of Spanish gastronomy. tapas stuff. But it's not just going to be in an evening. So we've still got Razzle Dazzle.

in the morning for breakfast. The vassal dazzle breakfast things are renowned. But then from brunchy lunch onwards, it becomes Rojo, loco, whatever you want call it. I'm going to say four hour brunch. All the drink. I'm hoping in there is like we've got in wake with the unlimited mimosa, Bloody Marys thing, unlimited sangria.

Yes. And if you've not thought of that already, Virgin, you can have that for free. Claim it, show your idea. do the champagne sangria, because that's always fabulous. we got absolutely destroyed when we went to Tenerife once on, to the degree that you couldn't get out of bed the following day. I couldn't. I could only eat cheese toasters. So maybe not the champagne one then. But some of the really well known...

dishes that they've done state side. think you might like the look of this one. go for it. Ox tail Montadito. Okay. Which is a combination of braised ox tail. Nice. With caramelised onion and Mahon cheese on a crispy crostini. Crostini? Yeah. Okay. But during the day it's going to have lighter menu. That's okay. That's in the evening. They're the fancier tapas type stuff. Okay. Yeah, they're like the little starry ones. But during the day they're going to have like frittatas and...

ham croquettes or jamon croquettes. Love a croquette. What's your thoughts on that? Are we happy with this one given that we will get to try that? Yes, I approve. I approve. I approve. It'll be really interesting to see how that does that. Like I said, I'm really pleased that they're starting to put some different restaurants on each one, but keep them within a theme. So it'll be interesting to see what the change on Valiant Lady and Resilient Lady. Yes. Before, because Valiant Lady's got its dried up before we've got our group cruise next Yes, that's true.

Resilient Lady hasn't announced it yet, but I'm assuming it'll be in 2026 or 2027. And they'll update that as well. So I was very pleased about that. news story number two. I'm done with the cruise news now. These are quite interesting ones. I'm nearly running out of my wine. You've still got enough to get through And I really want a

Crescent Sorry, a bath. A bath. Crescent Seas, if you recall, we mentioned them recently because they were the ones where you could spend eight million on a cabin to go live on it. We didn't go for that though, did we? We didn't buy it, no. We didn't even look at it. No, we didn't look at it. They've already announced what their second ultra luxury one's going to be before the first one's come out. Because if you recall, the last one, they bought Regent's 70s Navigator from them. OK, so what are they doing now? So the new one...

is Oceana Cruises insignia. Blummin' heck! So the previous one I think was 490ish, something like that, passengers. The Oceana previous one is a 700 guest one, so it's a little bit bigger. Yes. They're gonna, it's coming into their fleet in late 2027. Okay. It's having a 50 million pound renovation. So I would definitely then class that as a maiden when you get on that. Yeah. And once completed...

The ship will offer 290 residences. Oh my goodness. At a cost between $650,000. For a cupboard. And 10 million.

Let's go in between. Let's go in between. I always find when somebody does some pricing like this, we have a budget entry level price and then you have the top whack price and people tend to go for the middle. So let's go for the middle. At five million. At around five point five million. And this is dollars I'm guessing. It is yes sir. Yeah five point five million dollars. We can do that. Yeah depending on. I mean what is a dollar today? Well who can say? It's definitely not two to one day while along.

that. Okay. But even then that's still very expensive. Final Cruise new story. Darling, you're killing me. You'll like this one. Go on. Disney Adventure, which starts cruising out of Asia and Singapore. Which is the huge, huge New mega one. Yeah. Has announced, announced. Who announced? Who announced? Has announced who its stern characters are going to be on the back of the ship. Okay. Because each one has a different one. Yeah. Any ideas? Who do you think it is? Mulan.

Mulan? you saying that just because it's Asia? Yeah. OK. No, I'm going to say, who's in Mulan? You're one lucky bug. Mooshu. Mooshu. That would have been great. I would have liked that. But as it is, for the first time ever, it's Captain Mickey Mouse and Captain Minnie Mouse. That's boring. And I've seen the picture of it. They're both sat on the anchor at the back painting the ship, which I feel that that's...

a little bit of a, well I'm not going to say a cop out, I'm going to say a bit below the position that the captain should be doing a paint on the ship. do too. think Mooshu with his little fancy tail could have done it much better. Mooshu would have looked beautiful. Love Mooshu. I would have liked to have seen Mooshu. I can't remember what Mooshu means now. It's quite, I think it's quite cheeky. They could have had Mooshu in the Lucky Bug. I can't remember what the Do him what? Paint it in the back of it. Okay.

Little keyboard could have sat on Mooshu's head. that'd be lovely. I think Mooshu means something interesting. Well, we will look up that afterwards because I'm not going to go check Google while we're doing this right now. OK. And that brings us to the end of the cruise cast. Wow. Well, I finished my wine. I will cheers you with mine. I've still got a little bit left. That's more of a You've got a little bit left in That's such a clank. that's because there's no...

I'll call in yours, it's just a little sippy. And shall I play us out with a little bit of mood music? Yes, play us out with a little bit of mood music.