sleepingcat

On 7/10/2024 at 9:39 PM, Priya2 said:

We’ve booked a terrace cabin (on Borialis). I know some love these and some hate them.

We have been on Fred several times but not recently (2019 last time) on these newer ships with the terrace cabins. Looking at photos, it looks as though they would be rather dark inside? and how about not being able to sleep with window/door open? I will be really interested in your report back. have a good cruise. 

On 7/8/2024 at 6:16 PM, Lady Meer said:

After putting the credit lock on with Experian, did your credit card still work?

I was also caught in that Capita breach. and used Experian credit lock. Credit lock did affect insurance renewals.  I found subsequently that the automatic renewal of vehicle and house insurance policies did not go through automatically, as apparently an insurance renewal involves a credit check. in both cases the company phoned me and I used debit card to renew  via the phone call so not really a problem though it took me a bit of time to work out why the auto renewals had failed. 

sorry, didnt see your post earlier. Kent's cavern is not walkable from harbour in Torquay, you would need a bus or taxi. 

best fish and chips on the harbour, people keep telling me, is Rockfish. 

happy sailing!

spot on advice from @terrierjohn. we arrived back after a world cruise on Arcadia on 6 April.  Getting off was fairly speedy but the baggage retrieval was chaotic, at least 400 passengers were from Australia and NZ coming to Europe for the summer and had loads of stuff.  We had masses of luggage as we d done a motorhome tour of NZ before boarding in Auckland, and had sent a suitcase with all our evening finery unaccompanied to await us when we boarded. 

So we had prebooked a rental car to get all back to Derbyshire and it took an age to pick the car up because lots of the aforementioned Aus and NZ colleagues were also getting rental vehicles. 

Have a great time, I m really envious, we might even look to join you for the half of the world we havent done yet. best wishes

Some info here which I researched earlier this year, then our port call was changed to Vigo because of rough weather....

https://www.caminosantiagocompostela.com/ferrol-visitor-guide-start-camino-ingles/

I had a look on the relevant website and could not find the answer to your qu, but here is their contact info. Website is available in either French or English. 

We ve been to this museum, as my dad in a British Navy LST landed Canadians at Juno on 6 June, very moving and a beautiful museum. greatly recommend. 

https://www.junobeach.org/practical-information/

Centre Juno Beach
Voie des Français Libres, BP 104 
14470 Courseulles-sur-Mer, France

Tel: (33) (0)2.31.37.32.17
Fax: (33) (0)2.31.37.83.69
Email: contact@junobeach.org

GPS Coordinates:
49°20'11.52"N / 0°27'42.52"W

The hop on hop off buses in Cape Town are well organised and various routes intersect, allowing you to see pretty much everything, so that could take care of the day.

I would advise leave plenty of time to get to the airport and extra for check in etc, we found the airport crowded and slow to get through, only just made our flight. 

Hi Doc, I am so sorry you had this bad experience in Lisbon.  It's one of our favourite port calls (from/ to the UK its often on itineraries) and we ve always had a lovely time and felt pretty safe doing our own thing around the city or using local transport. (as no doubt you did until things went wrong)

Your warning is timely though, and a reminder that no matter how experienced any of us are as travellers, we can always get caught out, so thank you for sharing. 

Lanzarote is a volcanic island, so it's pretty much brown sandy soil and rocks everywhere, apart from where there is cultivation. so driving around to sightsee is not a great idea. that said there are (at least) three really good things to do, depending on your preferences.

the top attraction is the volcanic area, which has active hot outlets (ok not the right word!), and is a national park. we went on an arranged tour, but I think any taxi would take you up there for a pre agreed price. you'd want to be there quite a while. 

we were in Lanzarote on a port day this January. We went to two places, the Cesar Manrique cactus garden (amazing, pretty, interesting, nice cafe and views), a very short drive from the port. Followed by the Cesar Manrique foundation, interesting museum/cultural centre, lots of personal history about the artist and his work. This was about a four hour ship arranged tour, but I felt we were rushed in both places, so doing it yourselves would allow you to spend the time better. 

Apart from that the island has beaches, catamaran trips, the kind of thing you could do on any of the islands. Personally my least favourite of the Canaries, though most cruises have a port call there, so we ve been a few times. 

In case it's your first visit, be aware that the islands are very different from each other, despite being so close. La Palma and La Gomera are our favourites, green, lovely nature , lovely scenery. 

Agree totally and we would nt go on a  cruise ship that didn't have a prom deck.  Sailing from the UK we have plenty of choice as all the Fred Olsen ships, P and O ships and Saga ships have prom decks.  (there will be others, these are the ones I know about).  Fred has fairly recently acquired two ships from HAL and renamed them. 

its years since any of our family were there, but it look like the Hotel Lion d'Or is still the classic place to stay in Bayeux, right in the middle and with lots of charm, but nicely updated by the look of the photos on TripA. 

In Lisbon which we have visited several times on cruises, the cruise terminal is walking distance from the historic centre. You can travel around by tram also. The area around the Castle is walkable from the ship. 

Be sure to be on deck or your balcony for the sail in, it is in my opinion one of the best in the world, and some of the best sights are visible from the ship. 

Dont know Oporto, but I do know that the cruise terminal is not in Oporto, its at a distance. Scroll down this board to see previous discussions about both Lisbon and Porto. 

Re BHX, Looks like I was truly sleeping when I posted that completely incorrect information, apologies. thanks to others for the correction.

Have a look at the' Northern European ports' forum, loads of posts about tour companies and the ports. if necessary repost your question there you ll get lots of useful advice. 

scroll down on this spain board and you ll find plenty of other topics which cover these ports. Also repost on the board for the cruise line you are going with. (there is a way of searching within a forum but I dont know how to do it, please could someone post this again, thanks)

generally once in middle of city in spain its easy to make up your own day , the historic centres are compact. have a great time .

On 3/7/2024 at 10:29 PM, YYCJim said:

Unfortunately they will not give you the details when you book, your flight arrangements are only released 45 days before departure. The fact that we saved 2000 plus booking it through the cruise line is worth it

oh, it appears very different in the UK.  we ve only done this once, we flew to NZ from Birmingham a month before  boarding our half world cruise in Auckland. I agreed every single detail of the emirates flight, including all the timings and a one night stopover in Bangkok, with the TA before I booked.  then we paid a package price to P and O for the whole thing. I ve no idea whether it would have been cheaper or more expensive than booking the flights myself, but at that stage I wasn't confident to do the flights myself. Your saving looks great - and enjoy the trip. 

btw an aside, I notice cruisers from other side of Atlantic usually fly into Heathrow.  consider Birmingham as its just as well connected for the UK. I avoid Heathrow at all costs as it is so busy.

We ve stayed pre cruise at all the hotels mentioned above. Holiday Inn a great location, but we didn't park that time as on the train, so cannot advise about parking. 

did not rate Chilworth Manor, and the transfer to the ship is quite a distance.

Elizabeth House is much closer and you can walk out to find somewhere to eat. It was noisy though, its on a busy road. 

its a while ago now... we boarded Arcadia in Auckland for half a world cruise (ie back to the UK). P and O booked and supplied the flights as a package, we flew to NZ a month before the cruise started and did a motorhome tour (which we arranged).  It was emirates, we chose a great flight time (8.30 pm from Birmingham), so it was breakfast in Dubai, and we had a 36 hour stopover at a hotel in Bangkok. because I agree, 23 hours straight is too much. 

I booked with a certain well known Derbyshire TA who were very helpful and efficient. 

as others have said above, it will be an individually booked scheduled flight, so you could choose to arrive in your cruise starting point a couple of days before your boarding date, a chance to rest up, and also explore a bit. Especially if you are boarding in Singapore I would recommend that, we loved Singapore and hope to return to see what we missed last time. And Sydney is one of the best places in the world to visit. 

There has been previous discussion on various CC boards on this. As far as I know, all cruise ships on world cruises at present have rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope. There is no way they would take the risk of the Red Sea.  And that is very sad for the region and for we fortunate world travellers. On our RWC, I went to Petra from Aquaba, absolutely one of the wonders of the world, and currently not possible to visit. 

On 3/4/2024 at 12:04 AM, Joebucks said:

There is a very common misconception about travel insurance that it moves the sun and the moon, and squashes your every inconvenience. I never travel without my credit card, that includes many travel insurances, 0% foreign exchange fees, reward points, and a sizable credit limit.

I agree with the above, but in fact when we had an emergency, our travel insurance did take care of everything. We did not pay up front. On a world cruise in 2014 on P and O Arcadia, DH required an emergency op (also for kidney stones, coincidentally), which was carried out in Singapore. Liaison between P and O UK, our insurers (for you UK readers, It was Nationwide included travel insurance with your bank account) and the hospital meant that when my husband checked out I was only asked to pay the insurance excess which was £200 British pounds. The operation cost 10,000 Singapore dollars as far as I remember and the hospital was first rate and the care excellent. 

Also praise for the customer care of P and O, every day I was on my own in the hotel in Singapore, a lady from P and O phoned me to check if everything was going correctly.  After the operation, with agreement of the ship's doctor, we flew to rejoin the ship in Colombo and did the rest of the cruise back to the UK while DH recuperated. The purser on the ship phoned me also. And in Colombo we stayed in the Hilton from which  P and O 's port agent collected us and took us through the port departure formalities and saw us onto the ship. When we reached our cabin, there were flowers waiting......

It was a bad experience, but everyone involved did their best to support us, so it did not spoil the many happy memories of that cruise. 

DH and I sailed last month with another UK cruise line. As my mother in her care home in Cornwall is 98 years old,  and in poor health, we always need possible emergency contact.  That line gives the 24 hour number of a 'duty officer' and I think P and O will have the same. If it is an emergency I dont think anyone would be paying for the call.  

btw my mother is still with us and will be 99 next week!

I hope it's not fussing to remind you that such an emergency may have travel insurance implications if you think you might need to cut your cruise short and return to the UK.  before I even booked our cruise I had a lengthy phone call with our insurers to check exactly what we would be covered for in the event we needed to either cancel, or return home during the cruise.  

Here's hoping that all is well. 

5 hours ago, John Bull said:

Finally it's worth repeating your question on the Northern Europe board https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/116-northern-europe-baltic-sea/

and btw, if you read down through that thread, there is plenty of advice and discussion about different itinerary and port calls. and especially about Flam, which as JB says, is a must for many people.  I have done that rail trip and it is well worth the effort. 

spent a week on that coast a while back.  its not just that the coast road is busy, its also terrifying.  it was built in the 18 th century for carriages. so there is no possibility for two tour buses to pass each other. the local authorities employ traffic managers at the narrow sections to sort out the traffic chaos and after they go home in the evening it is a riot of arguments and horns blaring. 

Having said that, the area is absolutely beautiful, Positano delightful, and dont forget to sample the Limoncello.

btw also, I dont know, but I would check exactly where the ship is tendering.  When we were there we saw several cruise ships,  arrivals visible from our hotel, and they all tendered into Amalfi. 

The same thing happened to my brother and sis in law last year and it was 2 days before they left for holiday.  Sis in law had a cut stitched at minor injuries and they thought they should tell their insurer, who promptly cancelled on them.  I am pretty sure they were able to arrange something quickly and easily with Staysure. so give them a try. 

 also found this link

https://www.comparethemarket.com/travel-insurance/medical-conditions/

We were in Funchal last month on an overnight port stop.  As far as I remember, most of the local taxis are cars rather than the accessible type which we now have many of in the UK.  We got caught in a rainstorm and took a taxi back to the ship and it was a Mercedes car. 

since you ve booked your tea direct with the hotel, I would ask their advice about an appropriate taxi firm and then prebook your pickup to be sure to get what you need.

Also I found the link below.

https://www.motion4rent.com/guide-funchal-in-wheelchair

"Many taxis in Funchal are wheelchair accessible and can be a convenient option for getting to the city center. Make sure to specify that you need an accessible taxi when you request one.

Here is the contact information for a company that does provide accessible taxis.

Contact information:

• Madeira Accessible Taxi
• Phone: (+351) 964 399 287
• Email: info@madeiraaccessibletaxi.com
• Website: https://www.madeiraaccessibletaxi.com/"
•