opinions pls! Transatlantic/Med. Nov-Dec which cruise line?

[beenie weenie]

Ok folks here's my latest self induced conundrum. I am having second thoughts about a couple of things and want to invite some constructive feedback from those of you who have been there and done that.

I have a 12 day Transatlantic cruise booked on NCL Jade for the end of November 08. The itinerary is: Barcelona; Casablanca; Agadir; Lanzarote; Tenerife; Ponta Delgada; New York City

For the same price I could do 12 day: Barcelona; Nice (Villefranche); Florence/Pisa (Livorno); Rome (Civitavecchia); Ajaccio; Malaga; New York City on the Gem

Or

RCCL Brilliance OTS: Barcelona, Spain 14 day; Malaga, Spain; Funchal (Madeira), Portugal; Santa Cruz, Canary Islands; Tenerife, Canary Islands; Lanzarote, Canary Islands; Casablanca, Morocco; Lisbon, Portugal; Seville (Cadiz), Spain; Barcelona, Spain

The cost of each is comparable. This part of the world is new to us and don't know Nov-Dec is a good time to even be going. So those of you who have experience with this neck of the woods, what do you think?

[MTL]

Hi!,
Any itinerary in Europe is great.I made 2 cruises,one in early June and one in November. I prefer a Transatlantic cruise in November because the days are shorter.
MTL

[Paul Motter]

If you have never been to Europe I would take this one:

12 day: Barcelona; Nice (Villefranche); Florence/Pisa (Livorno); Rome (Civitavecchia); Ajaccio; Malaga; New York City on the Gem

The other three feature Atlantic Islands (Canaries, Azores, Madiera) and Morocco. Those are interesting, but nothing compared to seeing Italy.

[kimmiegirl]

Hi Bennie Weenie,

Definately do the NCL Gem itinerary. As Paul says they are great locations as we did all of those on our med cruise in August (obviously in the heat then).

You will get to see so much more of Europe and the different countries that way.

As we speak, our US friends are actually on the Gem now having sailed from Barcelona on Monday and they are doing the transan to Boston.

I have heard from them and they say the ship is great and having a great time.

Barcelona is a fabulous city. We spent a long weekend with them last weekend post cruise and they live in both Scottsdale and Chicago spending 6 months in each city. They both absolutely loved Barcelona and are planning on sailing from there again so that we can all spend a long weekend there post their cruise back to the US

So if it were me go with the NCL Gem.

When they have arrived in Boston and I can speak to them once they get back to Az. I will ask them their thoughts after the 12 day cruise and let you know.

Regards,
Kimmiegirl

[momofmeg]

We loved our transatlantic on the Celebrity Constellation-especially as they had great lectures scheduled on sea days. One lecturer lectured about the space program and he showed great pictures. He was a retired NASA photographer.

Another lectured on oceanliners . He was very interestign also. we also had a couple of classicail music concerts schedule din the afternoons.Tthis made it very nice and pleasnat and all those seas days just flewe by-we were not bored at all.

I found out celebrity always does this on their repositioning cruises which have a good bit of sea days and I also learned-not all of the other lines do that-so to me that is a plus in Celebrity's favor.

Check out Celebrity Galaxy repositioning to Puerto Rico and Clelbrity Century repositioning to Miami. both of those do the med in the summer and then reposition for the winter.

We said ourselves we want to do another transatlanitic in a couple of years, as this year's was so wonderful and as we want to spend time precruise in France and Italy that we would look at those two ships.