Ngaire, I think you have put it all in perspective quite well. From my experience with many cruises (I think I'm up to 14, none longer than 14 days) on Radisson, I have only happy memories of them(well, maybe that IV thing I had while sick in France wasn't fun, but the nurse sat there forever with me!) or I would not continue to book with them. Like Doc Desdin, I take every negative review with a bit of caution based on my past personal experience. If a poster well-known to me from participation on this board or cc comes back with negative impressions, then I listen a little harder if their experience was different than the past. But when someone brand new posts either here or on cc with a totally negative experience, I try to evaluate what happened, how they reacted, and what was the outcome.

I don't recall any "pattern" of negative reviews from people on this board or cc of recent cruises on any ship in the fleet. Almost everyone is coming home happy, and we are hearing balanced reviews based on big and little things that mean more to one person than the other.

The Diamond thing with airfare is unfortunate, and I would be upset if had I purchased airfare independently and didn't get made whole for my losses. I have had the experience of being canceled twice, but it wasn't the end of the earth, I rebooked, and I was well compensated for my inconvenience! RSSC may be costing themselves more in bad customer relations on this issue than taking care of the customer would have cost in dollars. Word of mouth is a powerful advertising tool, positive or negative.

Richard, I don't recall you have had negative experiences on any of your cruises, unless you were on that 2-fer on the Diamond when so many were upset about a group of children on one particular cruise. You seem to me disappointed that the fleet is changing size, as we all are. Nothing we can do about that, other than look into good deals on similar lines such as Silversea, and gosh knows I get enough of them in e-mails, several a week. As for the rumors and speculation, I just let stuff like that go right over my head. Sometimes on boards like cc, people with little RSSC experience seem to like to blow off steam, and have little knowledge about the facts. I feel that if Ngaire knows something, she is going to share it, and since as she says, she "lives and breathes RSSC" every day, we shouldn't be ruffling our feathers in angst over what may be nothing.

For sure, if one gets on a ship looking for problems to report on this board, no doubt he/she will find them, and dwell on that more than all the good part of the experience. I prefer the "glass half full" rather than "glass half empty" approach to life, in both work and play. And I for one think it best to speak from our personal experiences rather than speculation gleaned from others as we post here.