Milhouse

We're in the same boat (pun not intended) as we're also stopping in Kusadasi again but have done the Ephesus previously and don't feel the need to go again. I'm going to check out the places that MHC and Cruisemom have suggested. To toss around another option: On one previous trip, we took a local bus up to Sirince via Selcuk. The bus was a bit of an effort but maybe there's a tour that goes there? Sirince is a quaint and pretty village that's fairly easy to walk around and explore but hilly. Felt safe, locals friendly. Happy we visited but not sure if we feel the need to go again.

I would agree that a risk to consider is a long line for the cable car back down at the end of the day. During one of our visits, there was a huge line at the cable car at the end of the day to get back down so we also hiked it back down instead risking missing the last tender. It's obviously kind of scary when you're at the back of the line and the queue is not moving very fast and you're trying to make a decision to wait it out or run down the pathway! We look back at it with amusement now but at the time, we had to hike back down in the dark with our cell phone flashlights providing some illumination while dodging the odd donkey droppings. That's approximately how long it took us while taking our time. Obviously bring a hat and liquids as you are very exposed to the sun.

Thanks for the suggestion. I only vaguely recall that market as we were last on Crete over seven years ago and my memory is fuzzy on the specifics of the markets we visited. However, I think Google is showing that market (if it's the one I'm thinking of) being temporarily closed for renos until around Jan 2024 (??).

Yes, I have googled it. I just wanted to see if anyone had a good experience with any particular shops and could provide a recommendation to compare against other reviews.

Any suggestions on where to shop for good locally produced olive oil on Crete/Chania in town? But I'd consider going to an olive farm if easy to get to.

Hi there. Wondering if anyone can also help confirm/clarify what the transfer options are between Ravenna (not Venice) and the Porto Corsini port/terminal. I thought I read that X provides (free??) shuttles from the Ravenna train station to the cruise terminal? Wanted to confirm if that's still the case. Also, does X provide shuttles in the reverse from the cruise terminal to Ravenna? I've also read that a taxi is about 20E between the train station and the port??

It obviously depends on what you are looking for but our fave was Vernazza because we found it to have the right balance of quaintness and services that appealed to us. Monterosso is likely my least favourite because it's the most urban but I still enjoyed it. Not sure if there's enough time during a port of call but we really enjoyed walking the path between towns. Starting from Riomaggiore, it starts off really easy but does get harder during the last stretch to Monterosso.

Just to add another data point: The view from Canada Place itself is great to check out the ships and see the initial sailaway. I did this for the missus and the inlaws and some friends that went on Alaska cruises last year and I found it to be a good spot to say goodbye and watch the ships leave. It's not practical to chase after the ships along the seawall though. 🙂 The missus and I regularly catch ships departing while walking along the seawall along Harbour Green Park which is along the seawall path if you continue "west" from Canada Place to the raindrop/pin statue and past the seaplanes. The ships "disappear" past Brockton Point. The downtown core and around Stanley Park is very walkable. To provide some guidance from a reasonable walk perspective: Walking around the seawall around the perimeter of Stanley Park is a bit of a hike. We do it like once or twice a year but I'm not sure if it's a great usage of time for a tourist because it's a very long walk and I feel there's some boring/repetitive stretches. The missus and I do various circuits of Stanley Park a few times of month. One regular circuit is from English Bay to along Lost Lagoon to the Coal Harbour to Canada Place. Another one we do is from Lost Lagoon to Lumberman's Arch, around Brockton Point along the seawall (where you pass by near the aquarium, totems, nine o'clock gun, etc) and then back to Canada Place. These are shorter than around the perimeter but still a bit of a long walk. But there's more to see IMO. The second circuit would be more conducive for seeing ships sail away. Lastly, a very easy and fairly short circuit is walking along the seawall from the end of Denman street to Canada Place. I do this route a few times a week after dropping the missus off at work near Canada Place and it takes me about a leisurely hour to do a full circuit there along Robson Street and back along the seawall.

We were trying to determine the feasibility of dropping off luggage at the airport and then uber'ing off to somewhere nearby. But our flights after 7pm and I don't think our airline accepts luggage more than three hours before departure. We also considered some form of left luggage/luggage storage at the airport but it looks like all the luggage storage is offsite. Plan B was to head back to our pre-cruise hotel and see if they would consider storing the luggage but I think we're going to have seen all we wanted to see of Long Beach precruise. Worst case, we may even consider heading to Santa Monica directly (that's one of the places we enjoy visiting when in LA) from the port and temporarily storing our luggage with some kind of service (eg Bounce) or hotel that would take them and then picking them up and heading to LAX closer to departure. And the post cruise sightseeing is the default option. 🙂

What I've found for booking two trips in late Oct / early Nov to LAS and LAX from YVR was that flight prices were reasonable about 45-60 days out, particularly with a one day seat sale. But once it got to around the 30 day mark, prices started increasing. Flair prices are generally pretty cheap but I'm trying to avoid flying LCC's. +1 to hotel prices being ridiculous though and even more so booking late.

Another big thank you from me too, @OrcaGirl. Appreciated the thread for both the information and entertainment value 😃in prep for our sailing departing this weekend. We'll likely book the post cruise bus tour just to kill time too.

Free cruise. Some free drinks. $300 Deal, No Deal win... Are you sure you aren't a Celebrity marketing inside plant? 😉

Travel has always kind of given us a bit of anxiety mixed with excitement. Pre-pandemic, I felt we were pretty seasoned travelers and comfortable with most of the typical processes during our trips. However, we always have the fear of "did we forget something," "did we get the time wrong," etc so we're always building in too much buffer and backup plans. Nowadays, our anxiety is about being able to stay on top of ever evolving travel rules and if we caught covid mid-trip, how that would impact our travel/plans. That's why we only travelled within Canada in 2021 and are only dipping our toes with relatively basic trips to US and a simple cruise out of LA to the Mexican Riviera in 2022. The airport chaos this summer didn't help either. I suspect we'll travel further abroad in 2023. For us, life is getting closer to normal. We generally don't wear masks nowadays but it's situation dependent like indoors in close quarters with many people we don't know, meeting with our GP/pharmacists, if we're feeling off, wearing one to reciprocate, etc. We also regularly grab a few of the free test kits so that we can easily test when we're feeling off or before getting together with the extended family. In addition to getting our boosters, we did catch covid about five months after getting the base series. Our symptoms were relatively mild so hoping if we do catch it again, it will be mild again.

May I ask how much the Christmas ornament was? And if there were a few of them or just the single? I like ornaments as souvenirs and wouldn't mind considering picking one up during my sailing.

Wish you and "the fox" a great cruise too. We're sailing Solstice in two weeks so looking forward to reading your updates and would love to hear about everything. I only recently caught wind of this (pun unintentional 🙂) by scanning one of the other roll calls. Upgraded to a major hurricane so hoping for the best for folks in its direct path. PV looking like it might be spared the worst of it tho as Roslyn seems to be trending further north before making landfall. Safe travels everyone.

Airport flat rate for the taxi, not per person. But the fare to Canada Place is likely now $38 (before gratuity). https://www.yvr.ca/en/passengers/transportation/taxis

Not sure if you are meaning this literally but there are a few businesses in Blaine that accept Canadian dollars and Bellis Fair has had promos in the past accepting Canadian dollars. Definitely not the same degree of acceptance the other way around though. 🙂

Wondering if anyone has had success accessing land based cellular service coverage from the ship sailing between Ensenada and Los Angeles? I'm on X Solstice in November.

We're on the Nov 5 sailing. Looking at the menus on the app, it sure seems like Chic Nights are on nights 2 (rack of lamb, steak dianne, etc) and 6 (Beef Welly, Lobster tail, etc).

FWIW, I feel the same way. While we've flown within Canada and driven to the US for some day trips, I haven't flown to the US or beyond since 2019. So I'm trying to get back into the swing of things and also get familiarized with all the evolving travel requirements.

If you are up for a bit of a hike, there's the Southern Ridges walk. Exploring Sentosa Island?

We bank with TD and we couldn't get very definitive answers about ATM withdrawals ourselves so we've kind of had to do our own digging to identify potential fees from: one's own bank, the network and currency conversion, and the local bank/atm. Yes, for more exotic currencies, the conversion fees are annoying because I don't think you can directly exchange with Canadian dollars. It has to be converted to US dollars first and then another conversion. As ridiculous as this may sound, depending on the trip/situation, I occasionally find it more advantageous to just convert Canadian dollars at a local forex stall. That said, if only needing a small amount of local currency, sometimes I just find it worth it from a convenience factor to just pay all the fees to withdraw some cash from a local ATM. As an aside, check out the Wise card. It's a global fintech company originally out of the UK that kind of specializes in forex and transfers. I do not have one myself (yet) as I'm still trying to fully appreciate how it works. I don't think (not sure there are any additional conversion fees when using a no forex fee card like the HSBC WE MC because I think they use their own network. Using a no forex fee card at an ATM used to be advantageous but I think the credit card companies have caught on and many/most now charge a cash advance fee to take out preloaded cash from an ATM. I've stopped doing it myself. IMO, a no forex fee card as a credit card should be the first payment option when travelling. But of course you may run into situations where (small) businesses don't take credit cards or offer a discount when paying with cash. Yes, it sounds like RBC might be interested.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of the HSBC cards but a couple of things to check generically are: When withdrawing with your bank card: Does your bank charge a fee for non-network ATM withdrawals? Does your bank charge a forex fee for the conversion? This is like the dreaded forex fee but kind of hidden IMO. See this page: https://www.hsbc.ca/more-ways-to-bank/atm-banking/ "A 2.5% margin is applied to the CAD amount by Moneris®, a third-party ATM or Payment Network Provider that HSBC Bank Canada uses to give customers access to the Cirrus® network" Does the local ATM's bank charge a fee? We find a lot of ATM's in Thailand charge their own fee. If using your credit card for a withdrawal and you're preloading it: Check to see if there's a fee to withdrawal cash/cash advances from an ATM, even if you are preloading it with cash. I pulled up this doc (https://www.hsbc.ca/content/dam/hsbc/ca/docs/pdf/hsbc-mc-mmwe-rates-fees.pdf) . There seems to be a $2 cash advance fee for ATM withdrawals in Canada and $4 outside of Canada. Not sure if it's still applicable if you preload your card.

Hoping to confirm that the Long Beach Passport bus is still not running per the LBT website? https://ridelbt.com/routes-and-services/

We did this itinerary over a decade ago and one of the few things that I recall is remembering the ride down was very pleasant while the ride back north was somewhat rough. 😆 Was reading someone's review of a very recent sailing and they said it was pretty humid on their balcony. That's my kryptonite. Hoping it eases up when we sail in early November.