DCL WITH ABD ADD ON??

[BonnD]

Hello all,

I'm strongly considering the Mediterranean 12 night cruise next summer with the and add on. Has anyone ever tried it and is it worth it?

 

[sayhello]

Hello all,

I'm strongly considering the Mediterranean 12 night cruise next summer with the and add on. Has anyone ever tried it and is it worth it?

I did the 12-night Med cruise with the ABD add-on in 2010 when they first did them. Back then it was TOTALLY, ABSOLUTELY 100% worth it! It was like having an entire cruise of Premiere port excursions, with smaller groups than the normal DCL excursions (only 40 people), two Adventure Guides to worry about all the logistics and act as your concierges, first off privileges in the mornings, all lunches on shore included, the equivalent of 2 or 3 excursions per day that you didn't have to worry about getting back to the ship for, top notch local experts on your excursions, etc. You also got a free CD of all your ship/port photos from Shutters, an included dinner at Palo, free bottled water, a couple of on-ship events, etc. It was the best of both worlds between cruising and doing a land ABD. The only negative, which is inherent in cruising, was having to leave and get back to the ship at 4pm most days (unlike normal ABDs, where you are fully immersed in the places until you go to sleep.) All that for about $2500 per person. SO worth it!

Unfortunately, from what others have reported, I think the experience has been diluted somewhat. Plus the add-ons are more expensive. So I don't know if you can use my experience as a guideline.

Hopefully someone who specifically has taken the longer Med cruise add-on more recently than I have can chime in here...

Sayhello

 

[Calfan]

I have not done the Med add-on, but I did the 12-night Baltics add-on this past July, and I was underwhelmed with the experience. As sayhello, mentioned, it seems the experience has been diluted as the price has gone up. I did a write-up of my add-on experience. Here is a link:

http://www.disboards.com/threads/12...ut-not-likely-to-book-another-add-on.3433633/

I'm happy to try to answer any specific questions.

 

[BonnD]

I have not done the Med add-on, but I did the 12-night Baltics add-on this past July, and I was underwhelmed with the experience. As sayhello, mentioned, it seems the experience has been diluted as the price has gone up. I did a write-up of my add-on experience. Here is a link:

http://www.disboards.com/threads/12-night-magic-of-the-baltics-abd-cruise-add-on-–-no-regrets-but-not-likely-to-book-another-add-on.3433633/

I'm happy to try to answer any specific questions.

I can only imagine how disappointing given the expense. Leaves me a lot to consider. Thank you so much.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

I can only imagine how disappointing given the expense. Leaves me a lot to consider. Thank you so much.

Sorry to chime in so late--crazy week. Anyway, I was on the same ABD with Calfan and had a similar (probably even more negative) reaction. It actually caused me to move a deposit I had for the inaugural ABD River Cruise to another trip. We're doing ABD Greece this summer instead and really hoping for a palette cleanser after the disappointment of the add-on. I haven't called to find out how many are on our trip because I don't want to know. If it's over 40 this will probably be the last ABD for us. After experiencing Nat Geo last fall, I'm in love I did a trip report for our B2B cruises, which included the add-on in the Baltics. http://www.disboards.com/threads/23...ics-with-abd-add-on-updated-complete.3427323/ There were actually a number of discussions about the add-on cruises by various people in the late summer on this board--if you poke around you will probably find more info/threads, including some reports from people who really enjoyed it. Our group was huge though--way above the advertised 40 at 49--and that definitely played a part.