Let's just start this by saying that I've never been on a cruise before. Never had the slightest desire to do so. I hate small spaces and large crowds with a passion and from what I've seen of cruise ships, both are abundant! The exception to both of those is The World.
Because it's a residential ship, the cabins are large and the people few. If you're an ER member and have stayed in the NYC Park Avenue apartments, that's your reference for the size of the 808 cabin on the world.....I'd estimate about 1200 square feet. In the picture below, that's our cabin directly above the middle life boat. Check out the size of that balcony!
If you have the same feelings about crowds as I do, no need to worry. Maximum capacity on the ship is around 650 people (~240 crew) and we were told there were only about 120 on the week we were there, so not only were there no crowds, a lot of times you had to look for people!
This was one of two pools. See what I mean about crowds!!
The other pool was in the lower portion of the butt end of the boat. That's it inside in the center with the railing around it. I never saw the first person in there! The day we were in Ile d' Yeu, they dropped down the back deck and were organizing some water activities. A little too chilly for me!
Tennis court.
How awesome are these beds? A great place to relax with a book. They're at the butt end of the boat. I know that's not the technical boat term, but I never could get any of that straight. Mostly because I didn't care......
There were five restaurants but not all were open every day. I'd give the food an "average" rating with my favorite restaurant being the Japanese inspired East.
That's the master bedroom where I may have had the best night's sleep of my life the first night at sea. The captain termed the seas "rough" but our cruise-seasoned travel companions said they've seen "rough" and this wasn't it! They've been bounced out of bed by the rocking before so they'd know. I felt like a baby being rocked to sleep. And after spending a week not sleeping in the rock-hard hotel bed in Spain, I was dying to slip between the sheets of an Exclusive Resorts bed. They're all the same and always perfect.
See what I mean about space?
Aren't sunsets the best over water? This was our first night at sea.
One of the best times was sailing up the Garonne River into Bordeaux. I'm not sure where I expected us to port, but it certainly wasn't the center of the city.
But that's exactly where we ended up....one of the busiest parts of the city! It was so convenient to be within walking distance of everything. Especially on the last day when the taxi drivers went on strike. Seriously? Why does this always happen to me in France? Remember the transportation strike last Fall while we were in Provence? Barely made it out that time! This was just a blip on the radar compared to that one.
Our views from the ship.
Seems like you guys had a lot of fun in The World. Thank you for sharing these wonderful photos with us. I can almost experience being there!
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