Savoyard

3 hours ago, takemewithyou said:

@SavoyardHave you considered coming in a day early so you can just go to hotel and sleep overnight and then have late check out the next day?

DW has a work conflict (she works weekends). Otherwise we'd love to spend more time in Dublin. Fortunately we have an overnight onboard and a second day.

3 hours ago, takemewithyou said:

Yes, Azamara should have those transfers.  Your TA or you can pre book them or book them onboard,

Boarding should be starting at 2 pm.  You may be able to drop off your suitcases at the pier and them go off sightseeing for the day.  If you book an airport pick up with Azamara, there may be an included sightseeing tour offered ……we have had that before when we came in early (to use up some time).

I am on this cruise and there is a roll call started where you can come over and meet others on your cruise.  Please join us!  here is the link to the roll call.

 

Thanks! If boarding is at 2 rather than 6, it's more in line with what we're used to.

And thanks for the link to the roll call. I thought I had checked and not found one, but that may have been for a different cruise when I was shopping.

Just booked the Ireland Intensive Voyage on Pursuit next June 13-24, leaving from Dublin and ending in Southampton... our 8th cruise and our first on Azamara. I have some questions:

1. Does Azamara sell ground transfers between airport and ship in Dublin and Southampton/London? I don't see any information on their website. There's a shore excursion on the 24th that goes to Stonehenge and then to LHR (requiring an evening flight), but I don't see any straight transfers. If they don't sell them, do you have a favorite means of transport, particularly from Southampton to LHR or LGW?

2. Most Boston-Dublin flights arrive in the morning. I think I read that boarding isn't until 6 pm on the first day, though I can't find it now. Does anyone have experience or advice on this scenario, where there's lots of time between flight and boarding? Do we go straight to the pier and sit? If not, what do we do with our bags?

Granted, #2 may be more appropriate to post in the Ports forum. But since #1 is Azamara-specific, I thought I'd give you a chance to weigh in on #2.

On 10/24/2022 at 1:53 PM, diskids2 said:

Anyone have a go to cruise line for british isles or a go to itinerary.  We are looking for a heavy focus on Ireland.

I'm looking at an 11-night cruise on Azamara Pursuit, starting June 13, from Dublin to Southampton with 7 ports of call in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland: Warrenpoint, Belfast (overnight), Londonderry, Donegal, Galway, Foynes, and Cobh/Cork. It also includes an overnight aboard ship in Dublin before sailing. I've never been on Azamara, but they get excellent reviews. Their current promotion includes a balcony for the price of an inside and $1,000/cabin of OBC.

Like dreams_of_travel, I don't know what they did in drydock as this was my first time on the Crown. I will say that the engines seemed to be functioning normally.

Service was generally excellent. Cabin housekeeping and waiter service were exemplary. In the buffet, our free beverages were fetched about half the time; no one seemed to mind when we fetched our own.

There was one customer service snag: US Customs took place in San Francisco due to our having missed Astoria. We were assigned a 10 a.m. slot, which would have interfered with our attending church in the City. I went to the front desk the night before to request a change, and the clerk was adamant that we couldn't show up till 10 (I think -- she had a heavy accent). In the morning, repeated PA announcements said they were ahead of schedule and anyone could come at any time -- so it was much ado about nothing.

The Michelangelo dining room was closed (obviously due to sailing 2/3 full), and the Salty Dog Gastropub, which appears to be a pop-up inside the Wheelhouse Bar, never popped up. Other than that, I didn't notice any discrepancies between the deck plans and reality.

One pool and some of the hot tubs were empty. Due to weather, I didn't see anyone in the pool, but a few folks used the hot tubs. I think the poolside burger and pizza stalls were open, weather permitting.

I think the empty cabins were primarily insides. In our hallway, most of the inside cabins had no passenger names on their screens. Also, I checked a couple of days before we sailed, and balconies and up were showing sold out, but insides were being offered at $329 pp and oceanviews at $399.

DW and I were on the Crown, Vancouver to LA, this past Nov. 2-9. We're retirement age, infrequent cruisers. This was our first Princess cruise and our first cruise since pre-Covid times.

First off, I got Covid. I'm hoping it's OK to mention this; apparently a similar thread got deleted while I was in the middle of reading it. I'm hoping no one jumps on this to debate the merits of cruising, various approaches to Covid, etc. I'm just stating the facts.

We heard, at about the time we booked, that Princess had dispensed with all vaccine and testing requirements; we were not overjoyed to hear this. We planned to mask up while indoors except in our cabin, and to take our meals in the buffet, masking while serving ourselves then finding an isolated table. The latter was easy, but the food wasn't great: Hot food came off the steam table at room temperature. After a couple of tries we gave up and took dinner in an MDR at shared tables (the only way to get seated immediately). We disembarked Wednesday; I tested positive Saturday morning. I was able to go on Paxlovid immediately, and my symptoms have equaled those of a common cold that progresses quickly. DW has cold symptoms but has repeatedly tested negative.

Other matters: We sailed with 2090 passengers, and the crowding/lack of same felt about right (we're used to 2000-pax ships). Our cabin (standard balcony, Aloha deck 12, port side, aft) was in excellent repair and very clean. We missed Astoria, OR due to weather. In the other ports (Victoria, San Francisco, Santa Barbara) we mostly walked by the water and ate in local cheap places.

Feel free to ask questions about the ship and the cruise. We didn't take in much entertainment -- one production show, Encore, which was good if over-miked.

Remember that, between upgrades and cancellations, many cabins open up some time after being booked. So if you've decided you definitely don't want Cabin X for whatever reason, and it's not showing as available, you can't assume you're safe from getting it if you opt for a guarantee.

"Guaranteed cabin" means the opposite of what someone new to cruising would expect. Granted, you're guaranteed the category you paid for or better... but "better" by the cruise line's definition. The way to assure yourself of a specific cabin is _not_ to book a GTY.

AKStafford, I appreciate your input, especially since you've seen the packaged option firsthand. Do you have any favorite portals for choosing and booking one's own components, particularly lodging? The TripAdvisor reviews of properties near the Denali entrance are more negative, on average, than I'd expect from folks in a holiday mood.

Has anyone done a cruise with packaged land tour on both Holland America and Princess? If so, can you comment on particularly the land portion?

Background: We are 70ish, reasonably healthy, moving slower than we used to but still without canes or walkers. We were on the Celebrity Millennium Vancouver-Seward a few years ago and loved it. We like nature and culture (e.g. Native) more than either high-speed excursions or glitzy entertainment (though we don't mind an occasional corny dinner show). We've cruised with NCL, Celebrity, RCCL and HAL. We like the 2,000 passenger ships and loved the slightly smaller Rotterdam VI.

I'm looking at June 2022 for our 35th anniversary. HAL and Princess appeal because they've been in Alaska long enough to have it down to a system, they both go to Glacier Bay, and they both have several options for Denali. We're pretty good at DIY, but after reading reviews of the lodges by independent travelers, I'm really tempted by Princess's Connoisseur option, where you reportedly get the best rooms everywhere. Also, after looking at meal prices, the Connoisseur price doesn't look outrageous considering all breakfasts and dinners are included. The only thing I don't care for is that most of the Princess options seem to include only one leg on the train; we'd much rather ride a train than a bus any day. (We visited Anchorage on our own once and took the train RT to Seward for a Kenai day cruise; we also opted for the rail transfer after our Celebrity cruise.)

So... is there anything I should know about either HAL or Princess tours that I might not have learned from the company literature or recent trip reports?

You are lucky to have a travel agent who notifies you about upsells. I always have to find out about upsells on my own and then I have to contact my travel agent.

Our new TA is the wife of a business associate. It's sometimes said that it's dangerous to do business with friends, but so far she's been great. We got three upsell offers for a Neptune, at $449, $349, and $199 pp, and she notified us immediately about all three.

The final offer came as a text yesterday; I was near the end of my evening commute, about ten minutes from home, when I felt a buzz in my pocket. I pulled out my phone and read the message, but there was no safe place to pull over and return it. All I could think of was "Please let the suite still be available when I get home."

You want a laugh? My TA just texted me and offered an upsell to a Neptune Suite for $199 pp -- a ridiculously low amount, especially considering the Vista Suite was a GTY for a low fare. Of course I bit, and it turned out to be one of the two Neptunes with an asterisk for "shower only."

The TA said it was the last Neptune available. If it's shower only, I can see why HAL has trouble selling it.

I have no idea why two Neptunes have no whirlpool tub; it seems out of keeping with the level of luxury one expects. But it's still a better than decent upgrade from our Vista: midship vs. far forward, and of course the extra perks including the Neptune Lounge and free laundry.

My face is red. I just printed our revised boarding passes (our TA had sent us some before our cabin was assigned), and under "Category" they clearly read "BQ." So I guess the deck plans showing our cabin as "shower only" are out of date.

That's what I'm hoping. I'm thinking it would be a lot more likely for HAL to install tubs in a bank of suites during a drydock than to rip them out.

A few days ago I received our cabin number for an upcoming cruise on the Rotterdam. It's on Deck 6, port, forward -- part of a group of Vista Suites numbered 6106 to 6124.

I've looked at deck plans for this deck from a dozen sources; judging from the typefaces used, all of them look like they originated with HAL. But on half of them, these numbers are shown as category BQ, Spa Suites, while on the other half they're shown as plain B's with an asterisk to indicate "shower only." I can find no indication of how recent any of the plans are. The one I can see on HAL's website is showing them as BQ, but I'm positive I saw an official one a couple of days ago that was different.

Does anyone know for certain whether these are spa suites or shower only? I can try calling HAL, but it can be tough to find someone who knows the answer to a nitpicky question like this, and I figured I'd try the collective experience of the forum first. Thanks to anyone who can help.

You can easily pick-up some Euro at the airport ATM when you arrive at Schiphol - that way you will get the best exchange rate. Just get enough for tipping purposes. You should be fine with credit cards in the Netherlands - if memory serves, the only places that didn't accept my card were some smaller cafes and grocery stores.

Thanks. After searching some more on the Web, I agree that using an ATM at the airport makes the most sense for us. Suggestions I've seen are (1) look for an ATM run by a Dutch bank, not by Travelex, for a better exchange rate; (2) specify an amount that is not divisible by 20 or 50, in order to receive at least one 10-euro note. If we want to end up with a 5, we can then buy something small with a 10 or 20.

I totally get that a porter would prefer to be tipped in euros. I just thought that with dozens or hundreds of Americans dropping bags off (and many of them not having the foresight to bring euros), the porters might have a source for changing large amounts of dollars into euros. But the question is academic for me, as I plan to get some euros at the airport.

Wise to get a few Euros from an ATM's machine. It just depends if you have a contactless debit card , as this is the best for small items like a coffee, rather than a cc.

A contactless debit card? Is that a card that you hold near a pad in order to activate? My office building pass and my transit pass are like that, but I've never seen a debit card that works like that. Our credit and debit cards each have a chip; I'm hoping that will be good enough.

We're cruising the Norwegian fjords out of Rotterdam, flying in and out of Amsterdam Schiphol. We're trying to decide how much currency to exchange beforehand -- or even whether we need any.

We've decided not to buy any Norwegian kroner, as several posters have said that nearly everyone in Norway, particularly in tourist areas, takes cards -- that even the locals seldom use cash.

However, I haven't found any similar information for using euros in the Netherlands. Can anyone tell me if we'll be OK with just credit and debit cards? Offhand the only time I can think of that we'll need cash will be when the porters take our bags at the cruise port. I'm assuming they'll expect a tip; will they be OK with a US banknote if it's a big enough one in new condition?

Thanks!

This may not help the OP, who already bought Flamsbana tickets through the Norwegian Railways website... but another option is to do the whole "Norway in a Nutshell" loop: boat, bus, and two trains. It costs more (NOK 1270, about $150), but you get a reportedly spectacular fjord cruise in addition to the Flamsbana. You can buy tickets in advance from Fjord Tours; they have a dedicated website at www.norwaynutshell.com. Both on my date and the OP's date, they're showing availability for the whole loop. Make sure you specify that you want to begin and end in Flam (if that's where your cruise calls). The trip leaves Flam at 10:00 a.m. and returns at 4:55 p.m.; hopefully that's adequate for a 6:00 sailaway.

Jacqui, thanks for all the shots of Versailles. I don't think I've ever seen so much sustained opulence in one place. The colo(u)rs really come through in your photos.

Did you get a sense of what kinds of things were off limits to photography and why?

Many thanks to all who posted about food sensitivities. It's nice to know that HAL chefs and serving staff are so accommodating.

My garlic thing isn't a full-blown allergy: If I take a bite or two of something that's loaded, I don't instantly develop symptoms. But if I eat a whole dish of it, I react unpredictably -- anything from dizziness to depression. I've found through trial and error that I can eat dishes with a little garlic powder in the sauce (some barbecue, most Chinese-American brown sauces) but not fresh garlic or large amounts of garlic salt or powder (Chinese-American white sauces, most Italian-American sauces).

On our previous cruises (NCL and Celebrity), DW and I ate most meals in the buffet -- partly so we could see dishes before ordering and try a small amount if we chose, but largely because we didn't always care to spend 2 to 2.5 hours over dinner. I think we'll do a combination of venues this time.

Someday, Kazu, I hope to cruise with you.:D You have so much fun on your trips! Your interest and enthusiasm for learning about the world around you, have made this thread, and your previous travel threads, a wonderful vicarious experience. I am extremely grateful for your generosity with both time and expense in providing menus, photos, and daily programs for our perusal.

What she said.

I started reading this thread to get an idea of what it's like on the Rotterdam, as we're sailing on her in two weeks (Norwegian Fjords). I stayed to the end, blown away by the photos and very appreciative of the menus and the dailies. The photos were so impressive and evocative that I'm considering for the first time visiting southern Europe, an area I'd never considered.

You invited questions about the ship; I have two.

1. You said you heard good things about the Lido Market buffet. Did you eat there yourself at all?

2. DW and I both dislike garlic, and I see it mentioned in an awful lot of MDR and PG dish descriptions. Did you happen to notice whether dishes on average were quite garlicky or only a little? I ask with some trepidation because some people love it so much and eat it so often that they honestly don't notice.

Thanks again for all your work.

Thanks for the answers, particularly the tip on smoking areas.

I count three votes for starboard, for various reasons. Thanks! This is just the sort of information I was seeking.

I'm considering the Southern Caribbean itinerary on the Adventure out of San Juan: St. Maarten, St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia, and Barbados. Does anyone have a preference for a port or starboard cabin, based on views in port (town vs. open sea), views along the way if any, prevailing sun and wind, noise and/or smoke from other parts of the ship, or any other factor? (Does the ship usually face the same way in each port, or does it vary?) Thanks!

I'm considering the Southern Caribbean itinerary on the Summit out of San Juan: St. Croix, St. Maarten, Dominica, Barbados, and Grenada. Does anyone have a preference for a port or starboard cabin, based on views in port (town vs. open sea), views along the way if any, prevailing sun and wind, noise and/or smoke from other parts of the ship, or any other factor? (Does the ship usually face the same way in each port, or does it vary?) Thanks!

I know I'm a little late to the party, but can someone explain the infinite balconies?

From what I can see in the video and descriptions: The balcony walls are solid and full-height. The floor-to-ceiling windows between the room and the balcony can be moved completely aside, making the room and balcony a continuous space. Another window can be lowered at the balcony rail to enclose that space, which is then air-conditioned.