yoshi

1 hour ago, ReaderGirl57 said:

Some people dressed up a little more for the concert, but some did not. I wore a casual dress and my husband wore khakis and a collared shirt and we were dressed appropriately. 

Sounds good, very helpful for planning-I don't want to have to pack too much extra but also want to dress for the occasion.

1 hour ago, ReaderGirl57 said:

We took this same cruise on the AmaLea last year and IIRC we just signed up for the musical evening in Vienna on board.

Thank you ReaderGirl57- I am really looking forward to this. Can you also tell me if the concert would be a bit dressier than the typical cruise evening? (dress, sport coat?)

HI Got2Cruise,

We are booked on Ama Lea Danube - Budapest to Villoshofen and would love to add on the concert in Vienna. We did not see any option to add that along with all of the other excursions. Do you know if we can add the concert when we get on board? I didn't really see anywhere to ask Ama questions on the sign-up area.

We all enjoyed our AMA Rhine River cruise during Christmas market season. My 20 year old sons did the biking & hiking tours while we did the walking tours. As was said above, many of the young people actually enjoy tours of historical/art/cultural venues. Sometimes there are also other groups that have events in the evening that us older folks don't go to. Take him along and have an awesome trip!

• thank you for posting the great helicopter glacier tour video-must have been an awesome experience.
•  

• That's the Bird of Paradise fold-I love that too. Dinner looks like it was wonderful! Your glacier pictures are such a beautiful blue. I need to do another Alaska trip. I hope you enjoy rest of your cruise, thanks for sharing your trip with us. 

I love how excited everyone is for your Alaska cruise! Me too, makes me want to go again, soon!

We went 12 years ago on the Beautiful Mercury and had a great trip. We also cruised from Vancouver to San Diego last September on the Infinity and loved Vancouver (another vote for the Pan Pacific-I know it's too late to vote) I will recommend an awesome sushi restaurant near the Pan Pacific called Miku, it was Outstanding, try to get reservations because it will be busy.  We did the HOHO bus one day and it is a great way to easily see many parts of Vancouver. Do the stop with the ferry to Granville Island for the food market to get some goodies. We also did the simulator fly over Vancouver near Pan Pacific cruise terminal area, touristy but fun. 

We did an Orca tour (Orca Enterprises-Capt Larry)out of Juneau and had a great time, not sure if they are in business any longer. Ketchikan we did the Totem tour from the ship plus the lumberjack show, cheesy but fun for my two young sons.

I know people have recommended binoculars, but I would suggest you just get out some of your Zoom lenses and snap a bunch of awesome pictures! I can't wait to see them😉

Have a great trip, I hope the weather works out for you. 

Another vote for AMA. My husband walks with a cane, we went with the gentle walkers group and it worked out very well. AMA gets a taxi or van to come the ship either to get the group to the tour bus or venue.  The regular group often has to walk several blocks to get to the transportation (great if you have no physical issues but difficult for wheelchairs and limited mobility). There are some sights that can't be visited by the gentle walkers because of stairs, hills etc.

We miss special touches like the MDR napkin folding-every night they used to switch it up...

Mexican Fan

Bird of Paradise

Cavern

Bishop's Hat

Soave

Crown

I always went to the napkin folding classes too, I love stuff like that 😊

-They used to staff a server cutting better quality cheeses and meats at the lunch buffet. You could make up a nice charcuterie plate.

-Formal nights used to feel more special with sorbet in between courses and lemons for lobsters were wrapped in netting and waiters wore white gloves.

-Aquaspa café used to serve wonderful special small plates such as prosciutto wrapped asparagus & checkerboard watermelon & feta salad. 

-Daily news paper sheets printed in several languages.

-Playing cards from guest services

We cruised the Rhine on AMA a couple of years ago, my sons went on a couple of the bike tours through the vineyards and enjoyed them very much. I think there may have been about 20 spots available for the included tours. We also borrowed the bikes on a free-time afternoon and rode on our own through the city, Kell Germany. You just request at the front desk, they have the bikes & helmets waiting for you at the dock. It was a really nice option. Have a great trip!

Hi Norris, when you make it back to Fort Rif in Curacao, this is a WONDERFUL cheese shop/restaurant to grab a bite.

They import great dutch cheese. I picked up some of our favorite Reypenear VSOP aged gouda and had a nice lunch out with my son.

I made it to this review after your Azmara-Cuba review. Thanks again for all of your reviews! 

Wow!!!

Enjoyed your review so much! You have convinced me that I will probably love Azamara, may be more like Celebrity used to be 15 years ago. I have found a couple of Azamara itineraries in 2020 that look enticing; Venice to Athens or Southampton to Lisbon. I think I would be happy on either and am anxious to give her a try. We have over a dozen on Celebrity but the past few years have been a little bit disappointed in some of the special touches that they have discontinued. Azamara just might be the ticket for us.

When I finished this review I went back to your review of the ABCs, been-there-done-that but love to read about them again. If I can't be on a cruise, I like to be reading about a cruise and seeing the awesome photographs. You made my chore day much more fun (do a load of laundry-read a couple of Norris pages, clean the bathroom, read some more Bimmer09, wash my floors finish another 30++ pages.) Thank you for getting me through chore, now back to work Monday.

We stayed at Hotel 1898 on Las Ramblas, very nice, clean, comfortable with a great balcony. We would stay there again for sure.

Quotes Per Bimmer09 (not Bummer09 🙂); 

No- but there's a brunch at 10. (she reads The Insider)

seafood

cold meats and pate

Say "cheese"

easy listening music

so elegant, so Azamara

Count me in! We have been mostly Celebrity cruisers but I am ready to try Azmara now.

Thanks Norris

I have never done a B2B let alone a B2B2B, but we have done several 15 day cruises. I am wondering if switching ships mid-way is a good way to feel like you are going even more places? I did like how your doing the 3 different ships took you all over the Caribbean, I kind of like that part. Loved your pictures, you are a beautiful couple. Thanks for the review.

I like a nice leafy cul-de-sac  I live on a nice leafy cul-de-sac!

I have sailed Celebrity many times but am also interested in trying Azmara-ready to read more please.

I vote for the cruise! so comfortable-great service, great food-they do the driving  Stay 1-3 nights at both ends to get more in depth at a couple of cities. When you finish that one, start planning the next...

I worked out on the Sky last month on our cruise and used both types of elliptical machines (4 total), sorry I don't remember the brand. I never had to wait for a machine and they said that our Christmas cruise had a much younger demographic than usual. They also had 3 bikes and I think 4 treadmills, really plenty for the amount of passengers. They had some free weights, balance equip and a half dozen weight machines, mostly for upper body. They have bottled water and a towel placed at every machine, a nice touch.

Enjoy your workouts!

Thank you Peasmith, we probably would have gone on one or two more optional excursions if we had the credit early, not sure why they didn't put it on our account because they sent us notification that we would get the $250pp when they cancelled the port. Our TA is working on it now.

We just stayed 1 night pre-cruise at Hotel 1898, on Las Ramblas. The hotel was very comfortable and clean. The room included a great patio balcony, could have hosted a party of 12. It was a short walk to La Boqueria Market, fun to walk around and eat tapas and get some goodies. We took a cab to Sagrada Familia where we had pre-purchased a skip the line tour. Also took a cab to the Picasso Museum.

My one tip is to have all of the destination addresses written down to hand to the cab driver, we asked to go to the "port" and the driver thought we meant the "airport", took a little detour.

Have a great trip!  

13 hours ago, peasmith said:

We got our credit and used it beforehand to purchase the drinks package and a couple of DIY trips to Nice and Lucca and then what was left was added to our onboard account on our Christmas cruise last week

 

Hi Peasmith,

Did your TA get the credit for you beforehand? We asked before the cruise started and the Viking help line said we would get the credit once on board, then it didn't happen.

When we originally booked our Mediterranean cruise, it included a stop in St Tropez France. Subsequently, Viking cancelled this port and promised a credit of $250 per person because of the cancellation. We expected to use this credit for an upgraded optional tour and tips however when we asked on board they would not honor the promised credit. Apparently there were over 250 guests who were promised the same and it was quite an issue but they said it could not be handled on the ship during the cruise. We will see if our TA can pursue something with Viking but were very disappointed in how that was handled on the ship. For our party four this was $1,000. It also seemed that they didn't add much to do during the extra sea day to make up for no port visit.

Interested to know if anyone on this Viking Sky cruise was able to get the credit?

Just got off of Viking Sky Mediterranean cruise, they will switch out the regular tonic for the no-sugar tonic in the mini-bar. It doesn't say "Sugar-Free" on the label but I did read the details and it stated 0 sugars and 0 carbohydrates. We had them bring only diet drinks, no sugar tonic and also asked for 2 rums & 2 gins instead of one each of 4 (incl whiskey and vodka).

Like Peregrina651 suggested, I also tried to only eat the sugar free gelato each day, it was really very good. I am on a low-carb diet and found it very easy to stick with it. Viking has nice selections of meats, cheeses, veggies etc.  

okay, what is a kringle???