Athens
Madeleine
The one to call for group travel — reunions, milestones, friends going together. Group space on a ship is her specialty.
“A cruise” means four completely different vacations. Picking the wrong one is the expensive mistake.
A 4,000-guest ship in the Caribbean and a 200-guest expedition vessel off Antarctica are both cruises, and they have almost nothing in common — different pace, different money, different kind of person. People who say they don’t like cruising have usually tried one format and assumed it was all of them.
So the first conversation we have isn’t about where. It’s about which of these you actually want.
The formats
Which kind of cruise are you after?
Three we specialize in — plus mainstream ocean cruising, which we book too.
River Cruising
Unpack once, dock downtown
The Danube, Rhine, Seine, Douro, Nile, Mekong, and Mississippi. Small ships that tie up in the center of town, with meals, drinks, and excursions in the fare. The easiest cruise to love if you’ve never taken one.
Small Ship & Luxury
600 guests, not 4,000
Silversea, Regent Seven Seas, and Azamara. Ports the big ships can’t enter, longer days ashore, all-suite accommodation, and a fare that genuinely includes what it says it does.
Expedition
The ship is base camp
Antarctica, the Arctic, the Galápagos, the Kimberley. Ice-capable ships with scientists aboard, Zodiac landings most days, and comfort at the end of it. Books twelve to eighteen months ahead.
How to choose
The questions we’d ask you
How much do you want included?
Mainstream ocean fares look cheaper up front and add up onboard. Luxury and river fares include most of it. We’ll compare the real number, not the headline one.
How many people is too many?
Big ships have more to do; small ships have no queues. Neither is better — but people usually have a strong preference once they’ve done both.
Is the ship the point, or the ports?
Some ships are destinations in themselves. Others are transport between places you actually came to see. Worth knowing which you’re buying.
Who’s coming?
Kids change the answer completely — mainstream lines do families better than anyone. Adults-only trips open up the smaller ships.
How active do you want to be?
From a deck chair for seven days to Zodiac landings twice daily. Both exist. Being honest about this one saves a lot of money.
Have you cruised before?
If a past cruise put you off, tell us which. It’s usually a format mismatch rather than a dislike of ships, and it’s fixable.
Or come with us
We host a few sailings ourselves
A few times a year one of our advisors picks a voyage they love, holds space aboard, and sails with the group — so you have a familiar face at dinner and your advisor right there if anything comes up.
Who you’ll work with
Pick the office nearest you.
All four of our advisors book cruises. Which one you work with is usually just a question of which office you’d rather walk into.
Dunwoody
Leslie
She started out booking Caribbean and Mediterranean sailings in 1990 and has been at it ever since. Ask her about Bermuda.
Dunwoody
Steve
Left a career as a chiropractor for a year-long trip around the world. A lazy river through the south of France is his idea of a good week.
Tuscaloosa
Stella
She builds trips around local life rather than the tourist checklist — which is what longer port days and smaller ships are for.
Ready when you are.
Tell us where you’d like to sail, or just that you’re curious. We’ll work out the rest together.
