30

Wow! thanks. I learned to listen, aboard my first ship. oooh lots of stories; I told the cheap stuwrd I'd do the dishes (by hand) in the morning. He scrawny old fart shook his first very close to my nose.

He screamed,"Yaw yaw! You varsh se deeshus, or I geeef you se blue eye!"

On his 70th birthday, the old prosthesused ...one legged chief steward kicked the ass of a 30 yr old engeneer. The younger man begged him to stop.

31

Bring back 'Culture Thirst'...

32

Maybe we will hear from the OP in 2014......

33

Sounds like a pretty accurate timing schedule.

34

At the risk of getting off on the wrong foot in this community (see my post count) I'd like to agree with the OP for the most part...though I think he may have exaggerated a bit.

I can understand the frustration after years and thousands of posts helping thankless strangers with their travel plans, but I have to say, some of the things OP mentioned were immediately noticeable when I started reading this forum a year ago - they didn't turn me off because I'm not really one to be easily offended, but I can see how maybe the way some newbie questions go answered (or unanswered) can prevent new users from posting feedback from their trip or further contributing to the forum - this will only hurt the entire forum as the same dozen or so members contribute and other choose to not be involved.

But hey what do I know. Just my two cents, take it or leave it.

35

Jacen17 -- so far you are among the newbies who actually took comments/criticism of your itinerary into account (I just looked at your original post) and then came back with feedback.

Do you even realize how uncommon that is? Not unwelcome, but uncommon.

So, hang around. Answer questions when you can. And we'll see how long it takes before you start getting frustrated/amusing/snarky.

36

Here's what I hope will be a helpful litmus test. Please show me one example of an OP who followed the "simple tips about looking for information" from the FAQ sticky thread and was treated anything other than warmly and cordially.

I have five shiny euro here that say it cant be done.

37

I'm not a very patient guy bjd, so I won't give it much time before I'm in the same boat as the rest of you.

And I won't take that bet clementis, I know that would be a waste of my time. :)

38

I'm not sure that slightly modifying a Contiki itinerary meets the criteria described in the FAQ "simple tips."

Frankly, I rather doubt that person has researched any of their 25 proposed destinations, let alone all of them.

But with legal tender at stake, and given my inability to pass myself off as a dispassionate observer, I'll gladly accept the opinions of the floating panel of judges who happen to, um, float this way.