linarch2284

To notamermaid - yes, Mainz to Amsterdam is our intinerary.   We had an e-mail from a travel company regarding this trip and then booked through our own travel agent.    We are in Canada, so maybe the company is trying to expand into the North American market, even our agent hadn’t heard of them.

Thanks for the information.

Thank you both for your replies...yes I have looked at the website and the ship looks very nice after refurbishment!    I just hadn’t heard the name of the company before and  wondered if anyone had ever cruised with them...regardless, I’m looking forward to river cruising as it’s been on the bucket list for a few years!

We have just booked a  7 day cruise called the Radiant Rhine on the ship Crucevita, which we haven’t heard of before , or the cruise company,

which is Spanish in origin and is called Crucemundo.   Has anyone heard of them or cruised on one of their vessels?    We are going to be in Europe anyway and thought this would be more relaxing way to see a bit more of the country.     We did book through a reputable travel agency, but I do have a niggling concern...just to give myself something to worry about!

Thanks Kelsey.smiles, I think we'll just try showing up and see how it works out, glad to hear it worked out well for you. Our cruise is quite port intensive so having to show up at a certain time for dinner might be a challenge, that is the reason we chose MTD. We weren't necessarily looking for a "large" table, we just didn't want to dine alone! The grouping of tables sounds fine to me.

Appreciate your replies, everyone...thank you

We are cruising for the first time with Royal Caribbean this October and we opted for My Time Dining because we enjoy meeting different people each evening. On our previous cruises with HAL, we have just shown up at whatever time we decided to eat, and were seated within a short period of time at a larger table as requested. Looking at the boards, it seems that on RCI it is requested that you book your time online well ahead of the trip, and that is your time for the rest of the cruise. My questions are ....if you do book a time online and you don't add other guests, will we be seated by ourselves(Oh No!)or will they add you to a larger table? If not, how do you request that? Has anyone had experience of just showing up and have trouble being seated?

I'm sure others have written about this subject, but doing a board search didn't help.

Thanks Rocketman, found themecruisefinder.com which looks like it may be of some help

Sorry if this has been answered already....but how do you find out if there is large group on your cruise? We just got off a HAL cruise earlier this month, and apparently a large group of 1200 or so people were on the previous week's cruise, and this caused all sort of disruption in the dining room, theatre and other venues. The ship held about 2500 passengers. There was, according to a CC poster, friction between the group, other passengers and the staff. We are booked on an October RCL cruise(our first with RCL), and I would hate to have the dining room and theatre restricted without knowing in advance.

In defence of the cabin stewards during turnaround, our cruise started March 5th on Niew Amsterdam and from reports on CC, a large group of appox. 1200 were on the previous cruise and created a lot of misery for crew and other passengers alike. I can understand why something so insignificant could be missed....just thank goodness we weren't on the previous week's cruise!

The bag we paid for does not have a drawstring, just handles, and I can't remember ever seeing one with drawstrings, but we never sent out any laundry so wouldn't have noticed. I'm thinking that the "laundry bag"was never in our cabin in the first place, otherwise we would have come across it at some point on the 1 week cruise.

Anyway, water under the bridge, the tote did come in useful on the trip home.

Thanks everyone for your input.

Thanks for your replies. It was the HAL rep who called it a "laundry bag" and not a "tote" bag. Since the bag was placed on our bed by the attendant , I had assumed it was for our use! As it turned out it came in really handy on our trip home as the zipper on our backpack broke, so we managed to stuff a few things in the "laundry bag", so all worked out well. Worth the few dollars they charged.

Yes, 3rdGen, the bag looks like the one you pictured!

Anyway, lesson learned....

When did HAL start charging for those blue bags(the one's with Holland America written on them)? Since one was sitting on our bed one evening, I started using it to carry my book and water around the ship. Almost threw it out when we were packing because we had used it, but decided to stick it in my backpack instead. We had paid our account in full with cash, even leaving a little credit on it, so we were quite surprised to see a charge on our Visa a few days later. It was an odd amount, $5.76 or something and my husband was curious. So he phoned HAL, and an embarrassed employee told us that we had been charged for a laundry bag! It's not a problem, just curious why I didn't see anywhere(not that I thought of looking)that there was a charge for the bag. We do have one from a previous cruise, but that's a few years ago and I'm positive it was complimentary.

Thank you for your replies...we will be travelling in Florida a few days before our cruise, so will probably get a better idea of the area by then. I think what is stressing me most is getting to an unfamiliar airport during the early hours of the morning, but obviously other flights will be leaving at the same early hour so there should be folks around! Frankly, booking a hotel and getting a taxi sounds like a much better idea, but now have to talk hubby into it.

Bit nervous about dropping a rental car off in their parking lot at the airport at about 3 a.m. and having to wait for a shuttle bus to take us to the terminal....has anyone had experience of the Fort Lauderdale airport at that time in the morning? Our flight is at 6am. We return from our cruise the day before, but couldn't get a flight that would get us home the same day, so thought staying in Fort Lauderdale would be a good idea, rent a car and see a bit of the area. Looks like it might be a very expensive choice! Between renting a car and getting a hotel that we will only use for a few hours , then driving to the airport in the middle of the night is starting to stress me out! I doubt if any hotels would have a shuttle bus running at that time of the morning, so we thought the car rental was the best idea...at the time

Now I'm thinking we should scrap the rental car, just rent a hotel that is reasonably close to downtown then take a taxi to the airport at 3am. Any suggestions?

Zip lining is on my bucket list, but I have a weight issue too coming in at under 90 lbs, and some of the companies I've looked at recently have a 90 lbs limit.

I wouldn't be concerned normally, I figure I could wear enough clothes to add a few pounds, but years ago while visiting a Safari Park in Britain we had to cross a ravine on a very primitive short zip line and about two thirds along the line, I got stuck. Luckily it was close enough that with a long, long rod they could pull me in....bit scary, but embarrassing too!

Not sure if I would want to try it if I was several pounds under the recommended

weight.

I just checked with the BC Ferries website and there is a bus from Downtown Vancouver to Downtown Victoria run by Willson, though it doesn't say where pickup is. They provided a phone number.

We will be doing something similar, but will be catching the local "Blue" bus to West Vancouver ferry terminal to the Island. Friends have said it is walkable from/to Canada Place to where we pick up the bus(we'll check that out when embarking!), and we won't have much luggage so it might be doable.

Linda

We travelled the Med a couple of years ago on Celebrity, it was in October. We were in an inside cabin on the 8th deck near the front of the ship. Around 2 a.m. we were awakened by a high pitched whistle and is was so bad we went out of our cabin to find out what the noise was. No doors were open, but this high pitched whistling sound was coming from one or more of the verandah cabins...it was almost impossible to get back to sleep. This continued during the next sea day, and we asked our cabin steward what on earth was causing it, and he said that someone was leaving their verandah door open and that was creating the whistle effect. There was also the smell of cigarette smoke. Enough people must have complained, because it did stop after a day or two, but it was not a pleasant experience while it lasted.

We are just about to go on another Med cruise, different ship, different line and I do hope our fellow passengers will consider the comfort of other people as well as their own.

Our first cruise was 20 years ago on Norwegian, can't remember the name offhand. It was one of those times that things go wrong at the outset and it multiplies from there.....delayed flight to begin with, then we get on board and I swear we are down in the bilges and I burst into tears when I saw the cabin.

The ship was full and we couldn't change. Next I ate a candy that our TA had sent along with some wine, and broke my front tooth! We sailed out of LA on our way to Mexico and later that night we heard that L.A. had had a big earthquake, and of course, we had a lot of Californians on board who were frantic.

We had asked to be seated at a table for 6 or 8, but were stuck by the kitchen door(it seemed) just the two of us and I felt like crying again! Luckily we were moved the next night to a table of 8 and had wonderful dining companions.

Next our closet started leaking water, pretty scary when you are down in the bowels of the ship and water is coming from somewhere above. The toilets plugged up next, and that took a while to fix!

I ended up really enjoying the cabin, it was quiet and I slept really well.

Took me a while before I had the desire to cruise again, but in May we will be going on our 6th and am so looking forward to it.

Not free, but may be of interest to you

http://www.veneziaunica.it

I haven't used the Computer facilities on board before and wondering if I can do an online check-in, then print my boarding passes for my flight while on the ship(we are overnighting in Venice). Is this a service that can be done on the ship(at a cost, of course!), or does anyone know if there are facilities in Venice which would allow me to print.

I normally wouldn't concern myself with this, but after reading the reviews of Marco Polo airport, I want to help speed up the process if it's at all possible.

Just wanted to say Thankyou, VR for your post on disembarking in Venice, you have put my mind at ease….I was fretting about our 10.30 a.m. flight from Marco Polo and what time we could get off the ship,etc.,etc……We will be booking a taxi, but I doubt we will use Click.

Those photos were WOW!

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply, most helpful.

The only reason I thought of using the cash(or travellers cheques, as advised)was because our 2-3 month trip to Arizona was cancelled this year and I have the U.S cash available. No point in paying the exchange rate on a Canadian credit card if I don't have to! will apply the funds ASAP after boarding to the on board account...great advice.

Thanks for the info.....it's been so long since we used traveller's cheques, I had forgotten all about them! We'll be carrying some euros and British pounds with us, so travellers cheques for the US funds sounds like the best plan.

Just a quick question to anyone who might know…..can you settle your onboard account in cash, or do you have to use the credit card they have on file. Due to currency conversions and our low dollar( we're Canadian), and the fact we can take U.S. cash with us, we thought it might be an option.

Would checking in on-line and already having our boarding passes help with the horrendous lineups, and if so, can they be printed on board. We overnight in Venice and can do this off ship if we can find somewhere. This brings me to my next question.....we are going to order a taxi for around 7a.m., but now with the Venice port being a bit of a question mark as to where docking would be, has anyone any ideas where the alternate port is. I'm sure this will be a headache for the taxi companies too.