From where do you hail?

a while ago you asked "Who is Malcolm", well it's me! As for "What does he do?"...I post messages, lots!

I think you have made a pretty good choice of ship/cruise. Please do look at the resources on this wenb site.

Ship profiles: http://www.cruiseserver.net/travelpage/cruiselines/index.asp

Readers Reviews: http://www.cruiseserver.net/travelpage/yourfav/yourfav_cruise.asp

(Sunbird reviews are featured in both links)

Green - I'm from a town called Paisley about 10 miles from Glasgow.I have lots of family in Canada also lol.

So glad I've found this great web site.

She entered service in 1982 as "Song of America", built for the American "Royal Caribbean International" (then called Royal Caribbean Cruise Line) at a cost of $130 mn. She is 37,584 gross tonnes, with a maximum passenger capacity of 1,595 and 540 crew. She was christened by Beverly Sills, an Opera Singer. She spent most of her RCI years cruising the Caribbean and later doing the New York to Bermuda run. She was held in high regard by the cruising public and was awarded "ship of the year", twice, by the World Ocean and Cruise Liner Society.

In May 1999, after a long career as part of the RCL fleet, she was purchased by the British Company, Airtours. She underwent a £10 million refurbishment at Britain's Cammell Laird Ship yard. This included the creation of nine penthouse suites behind the bridge, and a dramatically refurbished dinning room, renamed the Seven Seas Restaurant (formally the 'Madam Butterfly') The ships decor in general was given a more 'British' feel and can be considered an improvement* over the original RCL style. (*Well, by Brit's anyway!)

When she was built she would have been considered a 'big' ship, in fact at the time she was the largest passenger vessel built in Scandinavia. However, now she is dwarfed by the RCI newbuilds "Voyager..." and "Explorer of the seas", which are nearly four times bigger! However, don't go believing that the biggest is necessarily best!

Normally RCI usually insisted that when there ships are sold, the distinctive "Viking Crown Lounge" (the observation lounge suspended on the funnel) is removed. However, in this case, they allowed it to remain and it was renamed the "Chart Room Bar".

You will now be aware that here at CruiseTalk we have had many favourable reports of the Airtours/Sundird experience.

(See the 'Passenger Review Section')

Thx Norma

Malcolm: Thanks for taking the time to tell me the history of the ship - I've also checked out a vitual reality web site so I'm now counting the days - only 227 to go!

Hopefully we will get passenger reviews from our CruiseTalkers as they return from the Sunbird. I hope you will report back too on your first cruise.

If you have any questions about Cruising, I'm sure that our many experienced CruiseTalkers can help you

Cruising is simply the best holiday! This is my third. No 1 on the SS Carousel and No 2 on the MV Bolero.

I've also done the Island & Africa trip before which was great.

I found a virtual reality web-site about the Sunbird but unfortunately I forgot to bookmark it and I'm frantically looking for it again. I'll e-mail it to you if I can find it.

Norma xxx

Malcolm: Thanks for the history of the ship, it nice to be able to read up on it.

I think this might be the link your are looking for.

The 'Berlitz' Crusing guide book is a pretty well respected publication. It rates Sunbird as 3+ stars. Sundream, Seawing and Carousel are rated as 3 stars. Bolero is also rated at 3 stars.

This web site's 'Ship Reviews' rates Sunbird as 4 stars, and the other Airtours ships only 1 star! (Some CruiseTalkers would certainly not agree with this!) The 'Readers Reviews' on this web site rate Sunbird between 2 and 5 stars!

As far as I can gather Sunbird is Airtours new Flagship and therefore they give it 4*.
We were on the Carousel 3 years ago and would give it 3* and spent a day on the Seawing when my mum was cruising on it who unfortunately took ill and spent the whole of her cruise in her cabin! I would only give that 1*.

The Bolero was good but would give it just a possible 2.5*

Although we enjoyed our cruise with the Bolero and had a wonderful deluxe cabin we felt that it was just too small for the amount of passengers on board. There was nowhere to go for a quiet drink or just a read! Also there weren't any no-smoking areas. On the Carousel the Midnight Buffets were themed nights and were wonderful but on the Bolero it was mostly bar snacks.

Bath towels were supplied by both ships as I remember.

Normally you get plenty of time to go off on your own at ports. But please remember to get to the ship in plenty of time to board. I remember at one port with the Carousel (at that time it was their flagship) there were 2 elderly men left behind! Our ship had already left the dock and the pilot boat had to pick them up - it was hilarious watching their faces as they struggled trying to board our ship from the pilot boat. Neither of them were seen around the ship for at least 2 days after it! At their age it must have been a shock for them lol

Norma xxx

quote:

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Originally posted by Norma:
The Bolero was..just too small for the amount of passengers on board. There was nowhere to go for a quiet drink or just a read!

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Budget Cruise lines/ships keep the prices low by packing them in! You will often find that quite small ships have a very high density of passengers when full, and they normally are.

If you divide the ship Gross Tonnage (which is a measure of volume, not weight) by the number of passenger berths you get a 'Space Ratio'. Some guide books publish this. It gives you a useful guide to how crowded a ship might feel.

For example, Carousel, Seawing and Sundream have space ratios of around 18 to 20, based on all their berths being full. This ratio is pretty normal for a high density ship. If all berths on the Bolero are full, she scores a mere 16.3 - this is pretty low! (No wonder she felt crowded, Norma). Sunbird has a better ratio at 23.5.

It can be argued that you get what you pay for. I cruised on the Black Watch last year, her ratio is 32, the QE2 offers 37, Crystal Harmony offers 49!

Some of the new mega-ships are spacious, but others do not offer as much space as you may think. For example, Voyager of the Seas offers : 37, the Grand Princess: 35 ,Carnival Destiny: 29, Disney: 25.5, NCL Dream & Wind 23.5.

After all those figures, it is important to remember that there is so much more to a good cruise than ratios!

quote:

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Originally posted by Norma:
But please remember to get to the ship in plenty of time to board.

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A common mistake is to forget to adjust your watch to the new time zone. You get back to the ship in what you think is plenty of time. only to find that your watch was telling the wrong time.

Although the ships guided excursions can be a little expensive, you will have any worries about missing the ship. However, you can normally do a similar excusion under your own steam, much cheaper. If a few of you share a Taxi, it will be even better value.

Are there email facilities on board?

quote:

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Originally posted by Claire Jessiman:
A couple more questions on Sunbird that I hope someone can help with. Is topless sunbathing OK?

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Claire, it's always Ok with me. (I assume you mean females?)