CHEVSTRISS

On ‎8‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 2:43 AM, 2islandhoppers said:

 

SuzCruise, we embark from Nuremberg on October 3.  We are actually taking the Medieval Treasures from Basel to Nuremberg on Sept26 on the Ama Dante, and then doing the back-to-back to Luxembourg.

 

 

We are on the first part of your cruise!  staying in Basel on Sept 25 then meandering onto the ship Thursday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

leaving tomorrow to get on AmaDante thursday out of Basel.  so excited!  our tour is called Medieval Treasures. I'm turning 60 tomorrow and we are usually pretty athletic, but I am still nursing a torn hamstring from April so I will be doing the gentler walks.

most people advise taking trains and public transportation from the airport into Basel but with an injury toting luggage I'm not sure that is a good idea.  I think the cost of a cab will be worth it to try to save my walking ability for tours.

Stranger than fiction story, at the ripe old age of 60, NCL invited me to a dance audition.  I aced it and think I stand a pretty good chance of getting an offer.  So it appears there are old ladies in both Footloose and Kinky Boots that I am right for.  The usual MO for cruise lines is to put a grey wig on a 35 yr old and hope no one notices.  Maybe audiences are now expecting shows to be more like the Broadway versions and cast age appropriate?  Hard to say what they are thinking but I know most cruise ships have a 35 yrs age limit on entertainers.  I have been tossed out of Disney offers at age 45 because in addition to playing Cinderella's stepmother, on other nights you have to perform in the bee-bop 50s type review and nobody wants to see a women in her 40s dancing in a cutesy review.  So this really only makes sense if BOTH of those shows are on the same ship (they don't like giving you a lot of nights off). 

I'm counting my chickens before they are hatched but I have a 71 yr old husband and 93 yr old mother I would have to make arrangements for before taking a yr long job at sea.

A last minute March opportunity might come our way.  The itineraries are identical, dates are identical.  Pearl leaves from Tampa, while Break is outta Miami.  Tampa is a shorter drive for us.  We don’t care about waterslides much.  But Break would run us $100 less.  I have been on Gem and Epic, which I think are sister ships to these 2.  Pearl was refurbished in 2017. Can anyone argue pros/cons on these 2?

we are looking at Paradise Cuba/Cozumel next month. Never been on Carnival, just HAL and NCL. anything we should know that is different on Carnival? we will prolly drive to Tampa from TN.

finally got our cabin assignment - the excursion booking agent had it before we were notified! and we got a window (albeit with a big lifeboat next to it) but we were only listed for inside, so its good

is there a Holland America # that won't try to sell her something? she has my cel, but she's 90 and if it doesn't work first time she'll panic and want to call HAL.

This is just in case she has to reach me for an emergency.

ahhhh,, easy enough to pack a tie. and who'll notice if he wears the same tie twice?

I'm still a HAL newbie dummy, but where/when will the HSC be applied? just booked a last minute and can't find that anywhere. I am used to pre-paying tips on NCL and always choose to go ahead and do it, will they offer this when we board? I did notice some $660 pre-authorization, which I assumed was for charging stuff to our cabin.

so we got our boarding passes but still no cabin assignment, will they wait til we actually board?

WE GOT IT WE GOT IT! The email arrived at 5:50 pm est and I saw it 30 mins later and jumped on the cel sitting in the parking lot to finalize it

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Zuiderdam to Panama Canal on wednesday Dec 27

i'm guessing they are closed now til tuesday?

against my better judgement I gave a deposit to be put on a waitlist for a sailing Dec 27. Has anyone ever done this or it worked out? I've booked less than a week out on NCL but this is my first HAL experience, these dates worked out but started showing sold out 2 days ago when we finally decided to go for it.

We would have to know by Monday as its a 12 hr drive to the port.

received a snail mail flyer today featuring Havana. Absolutely no mention of the new rulings from Nov 7. I'm still wondering if I could tour:confused: with Blexie, haven't committed to the cruise yet.

I

 

Whatever you do, don't try to drive & park to a cruise at this port. The downtown streets are hard to navigate, with all the foreign sounding street names and one-way directions, and parking is hard to find and not secure. It's best to take a taxi or public transport.

 

do you find the cruise/park lots with shuttles not secure? thinking about driving overnight to NOLA and parking and getting straight on the boat. been driving thru NOLA many times, don't need to spend time there

no laundry facilities on the Epic. can't vouch for other ships.

the tap water is safe for drinking. they say it is the same that is in the water stations. I bring a refillable empty hiking bottle, and one of those MIO squirt bottles to flavor it.

in March,we self-disembarked Epic in Canaveral. Our ride was picking us up shipside at 10, so we waited til 9 ish and meandered off. Hubby had grabbed a few pieces of fruit from the buffet to pack for later, I slept in., and we were off in less than 5 minutes. I'm pretty sure we went down in a big freight elevator thing

take it with a grain of salt, but Blexie-Havana Tours has posted on their fb page that their tours should be compliant with the new rulings. Honestly I don't think anyone really knows what is going to happen. I have a bad feeling some people are gonna find out when they dock.:o

RCI has posted page after page on the new rulings but so far NCL has not made any mention - they need to.

this past week new restrictions were placed on Americans traveling to Cuba. Will this affect any NCL sailings? I wouldn't think so, but the legalese is hard for me to interpret:confused:

Recently completed this cruise in April. Did so much research here on CC that was extremely helpful. I finally finished my Blog that may help you in your planning process too. Happy to answer any questions!

great blog - one question - the waiver you emailed 30 days before cruising - can that be done last minute? They still sell the Cuba cruise just days before sailing, hoping they don't make you stay on the ship? maybe I'd have to talk to NCL about this?

to clarify, doing the B2B you didn't have to pack up and change rooms? just take passport, key, disembark, and get back on with new keys?