NIX70

5 minutes ago, Pink15 said:

The Gatwick people leave the ship today at noon, they are the last off, it's currently 7 am and we have yet to dock, so I would say no chance. The trip from the ship is an all day one, think it goes at 9 am.

I was afraid of that. OK, looks like we'll have to play it by ear. Thanks Pink15.

Good morning everyone. We're booked on the American Dream cruise departing next weekend (11th June). We start and finish in Port Canaveral and I have a question for those who may have recently done a similar trip. Marella are not offering any disembarkation day excursions online (says ask the shorex team onboard): what do you think the chances are of the ship offering a trip to Kennedy Space Center on the day we disembark? Our flight back to Gatwick doesn't leave until nearly 6pm so I think we've got plenty of time, but I don't want to organise something ourselves if they're likely to offer it. Thoughts please? TIA! Nicola

We have an issue in that we're looking to book a Med cruise with the family at Easter next year. All great, everyone in the family vaccinated, EXCEPT. In the UK, which is where we're from, Government guidance is that children under the age of 16 should only have one jab (and we have a 15 year old). So does that count as "fully vaccinated" for Princess??

Thanks everyone. We're taking a chance booking it, but we had to cancel this year's cruise and this 2021 itinerary overlaps perfectly with the kids' half term so we thought we'd risk it!

Good morning everyone. We've just booked a cruise on Discovery for May 2021 (American Dream) and are in the process of selecting cabins. We have 2 single outside cabins on Deck 3 and were hoping to be next to one another. The only available adjoining cabins are opposite something called Studio 3. It doesn't say on the deck plans what it is and the booking agent seemed to think it might be a disco. This seemed unlikely next to cabins; Studio 3 is next to the photographic studio, so I wondered if it was connected with that? Any help much appreciated! Nicola.

I've posted here several times about the saga of trying to get a refund, and wanted to update everyone on the latest. We have finally, FINALLY, managed to get a refund. After multiple calls and emails (most of the calls just rang out) I managed to speak to customer services on 16th June. They explained that the first 10 days after cruises began to be cancelled were a real problem for TUI and most of the refunds from that period still hadn't been paid. This was because Head Office didn't change any of their processes, so refunds were having to be processed through multiple departments all of whom were starting to close down/be furloughed, work from home. Our cruise was scheduled for 31st March, so was right in the middle of this period. When the customer service lady investigated she said that TUI had tried to send the payment to my bank in the middle of May but it had been rejected. Instead of then contacting me to check why, my refund seemed to have been stuck on the 'deal with it later' pile. It transpired that in the process of multiple departments dealing with the refund, 2 of the digits of my bank account number had been transposed which is why the bank rejected it. I was told that the Finance department would ring me to arrange for the refund to be recredited. That didn't happen, but instead a cheque arrived in the post 10 days later. I didn't want to jinx anything by posting this before the cheque had actually cleared, but now it has. 

So, I thought this might be helpful to those of us who have been waiting on refunds since the beginning of lockdown (Nancyneptune you spring to mind). If you can get through to customer services, have them double check all the bank details they have for you. I'm sure I'm not the only one this has happened to.

It's now 9 weeks since our cruise was cancelled (scheduled to fly out on 31st March) and we still haven't received any sort of credit reference number. Maybe because they agreed to a refund on the day of cancellation? If so, I'd like to know when I'll see the refund, 'cos I'm still waiting..... Have tried to call the customer services lines 4 times in the past 2 days (after trying several times in the past couple of weeks). Can't even get onto a queue, just keep getting a recorded message that they're busy and can't take my call. Infuriating.

On 3/18/2020 at 2:42 PM, NIX70 said:

I posted yesterday when I didn't have very good news, so I want to post today with an update. Tui customer services phoned me at 7.30 last night (after I'd spoken to them originally at lunchtime when they could only offer a rebook). This time they offered me a refund on the spot, which I accepted. It was the same lady I'd spoken to at lunchtime (Heidi, very helpful), she said they were all staying late to try and sort out everyone's queries so that they could start again fresh today. Very sensible approach by Tui. I didn't hold out much hope of getting a call back and had resigned myself to a fight, but this is good customer service.

Another update on this saga, and unfortunately I'm going to take back what I said about good customer service. It was from the individual lady at the call centre, but it hasn't been followed up by Tui. Over a month on and still no sign of my £5k, but I've had 5 generic emails from Tui offering me rebooking. I've also had an email two weeks ago confirming that the refund would be processed but for £500 less than I paid. No reason given for that. I've tried to ring customer services a couple of times, but no luck getting through so far. I realise they're inundated and they're struggling to manage cashflow but IF they survive this crisis they need to take a very hard look at their customer service model (not to mention their PR and their crisis management - both shocking).

On 3/17/2020 at 2:27 PM, NIX70 said:

Just spoke to customer services, won't give me a refund. Due to sail on 31st March on Discovery 2 (round trip Jamaica), which was obvious wasn't going to sail when all the ports are closed to entry. Two weeks out, hadn't heard from them, just rang. Situation changing "minute by minute", "until we're briefed we've been told we can only rebook and not issue refunds". Don't want to rebook at the moment, the situation is too uncertain and I was taking kids with me who are tied by school holidays. Come on Tui, I expect better.....

I posted yesterday when I didn't have very good news, so I want to post today with an update. Tui customer services phoned me at 7.30 last night (after I'd spoken to them originally at lunchtime when they could only offer a rebook). This time they offered me a refund on the spot, which I accepted. It was the same lady I'd spoken to at lunchtime (Heidi, very helpful), she said they were all staying late to try and sort out everyone's queries so that they could start again fresh today. Very sensible approach by Tui. I didn't hold out much hope of getting a call back and had resigned myself to a fight, but this is good customer service.

Just spoke to customer services, won't give me a refund. Due to sail on 31st March on Discovery 2 (round trip Jamaica), which was obvious wasn't going to sail when all the ports are closed to entry. Two weeks out, hadn't heard from them, just rang. Situation changing "minute by minute", "until we're briefed we've been told we can only rebook and not issue refunds". Don't want to rebook at the moment, the situation is too uncertain and I was taking kids with me who are tied by school holidays. Come on Tui, I expect better.....

Good morning everyone. Sorry for posting here, but there doesn't seem to be a roll call for our cruise, which sails from Montego Bay in just over 3 weeks (31st March). One of the stops is listed as Samana (Caya Levantado), but I'm struggling to find any information on whether we are anchoring off of Caya Levantado or not. The shore information on this website would seem to suggest that if we're not, then we won't be able to access Caya Levantado at all. However why include it in the title of the stop, as our itinerary does, if we can't access it? Marella customer service didn't help, just sent me the link to shore excursions which told me nothing! So I'm hoping that someone out there might know....?

Also whilst writing, could I ask about Amber Cove? I believe it's a private resort for Carnival Cruises but we're docking there as well. I'm assuming that we will have access to the resort, or is that a false assumption...?

Thanks in advance for any information, unfortunately my family assume that I will plan activities for every port!

Nicola

Thank you so much for your detailed reviews. We're heading off on the identical trip  on Jade next Thursday, the 20th. Can't wait!

we had heard something similar when we were cruising the Baltic last September on Oceania. We also booked with Alla for the 2 day St Petersburg tour and were so concerned that we might be delayed that we got off the ship an hour before we were scheduled to meet them to make sure we had enough time to get through immigration. As it was we sailed through (make sure you have the Alla paperwork with you to show they have organised your visa) and had to hang around for about 40 mins. Second day was even easier, through in about 10 mins. 

Enjoy your trip with Alla, it was superb. We added on the ballet the first evening and they booked the most dreadful seats so we wouldn't advise that, but the day tours were first class. 

Yes indeed CazV. We confirmed it with NCL ourselves before we added the Free at Sea offer for our trip on Jade in 2 weeks time (yikes!). Of course having paid 150% of the sticker price for the cabin in the first place means we're still penalised for going solo, but hey we grab our benefits where we can!

I prefer a tote bag so that I can carry everything mentioned above, plus a bottle of water and a small telescopic umbrella. You may need both of those in the Baltics in August as you are likely to have both heat and/or a shower. We did it last September and loved it, especially St Petersburg!

Thanks everyone, that clears it up.

Nicola

Please excuse the rather random question but we are first-time NCL cruisers on Jade next month and we NEED our cup of tea first thing in the morning (what can I say, we're English!). As we're in a standard OV, and from reading some of the posts on here, it doesn't look like there will be a coffee maker or anything like it in the cabin. Room service/continental breakfast order isn't ideal as we're not good at waiting.

So my question is: has anyone ever asked NCL for a kettle or coffee maker to be put in their cabin? If so, was there a rental charge? Happy to pay it, just trying to sort out our options.

TIA

Nicola

I don't normally post reviews of individual cruises, but I thought this might be useful to other cruisers who have been on the smaller Oceania ships but not the larger ones. We had done several cruises on Sirena and Regatta, but this was our first cruise on one of the larger ships. All opinions given here are my personal ones, I have no axe to grind with anyone, save your flames 'cos I'll ignore them, etc etc:

• Overall, our experience on Marina was....meh. Which considering the price of the cruise, especially with a hefty single supplement on top, means that we may consider other cruise lines in the future (as well as Oceania of course).
  
• The ports of call were in the main very good, especially St Petersburg which was outstanding.
  
• We liked the bright look and feel of Marina compared to the dark wood of the smaller ships, which is particularly evident in the MDR.
  
• We liked the larger bathrooms in the cabins (and actually having a bath, oh the bliss) - the size of the bathrooms has always been our biggest grumble about the smaller ships.
  
• The spa was very good and I had an excellent massage (gotta use up that OBC somehow ;)).
  
• The food was good pretty much the whole cruise (exception listed below), although I have to say we thought Jacques didn't live up to expectations.
  

However. We didn't like:

• The cleanliness of the cabins. We had B3 cabins on opposite sides of the ship, with different stewards. Both cabins were dusty (and stayed that way the whole week) - I could have written my name on the mirrors & shelves. I complained on the first day as my bath was dirty - an actual ring around the bath (haven't seen one of those since my university days) and somebody else's hairs both in and around the bath. Yuck. To their credit this was rectified that day and the assistant housekeeper followed up with a phone call, but if someone has complained about cleanliness in their cabin, wouldn't you think they would check the WHOLE cabin to see it was OK?
  
• Both of us had a sewage smell in our bathrooms, both of us flagged it with our stewards. Mine seemed to go away. My mother seemed to have hers for most of the cruise.
  
• The Terrace: one of our favourite places on Sirena and Regatta, yet here on Marina the actual food area seemed a lot smaller. The quality of the breads was very poor (very limited supply, rock hard) - we complained about them several times to senior waiters both in the Terrace and in Horizons at afternoon tea (our teeth were at risk trying to eat a scone). On the last night of the cruise we ate in Jacques - the bread served at table there was excellent, so someone in the galley knows how to bake.
  

So, good things and bad. Nothing ruined the cruise, we really enjoyed ourselves, but we were both taken aback by the cleanliness issue (and were explicit about it in the feedback questionnaires).

FWIW we've been on several Oceania cruises now (Marina next month will be my 5th) and always get hit with the single supplement (I love my mother dearly but I am NOT sharing a cabin with her). I've had several run-ins with Oceania about the benefits package and whilst they will normally flat-out refuse to give you the full shorex benefit, we normally get the full OBC. Having said that, make sure you get confirmation in writing....

in my experience, you may run into issues if you try to go to MDR in shorts. We saw a man turned away from MDR on the first night last year (Regatta, May, Alaska) when he strolled up in shorts and sandals.

We had Dottie as our CD on our Alaskan cruise last year on Regatta, she's great. If you're trivia fans as we are, make sure you research phobias as she always throws obscure ones into every game.

i just checked the Magic Navigators for the past several cruises and couldn't find any cruises with repeated shows.

 

Can whoever originally mentioned this say exactly which Disney Magic cruises this occurred on?

 

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I'm just back from the May 26th Med cruise on Magic. Both Tangled and Dreams were on for 2 nights.

Naples: we did DIY and took the hydrofoil over to Capri, which is one of my favourite places. The kids loved the brightly coloured open-top taxis that took us up to Anacapri, and the funicular railway down to the port.

Civitavecchia: we've done Rome several times so stayed on board, but my SIL took my nephew to Rome (used the Disney Rome on your own tour, and then took the hop-on hop-off bus around the city)

Livorno: we split up; my SIL took the kids on the Disney Easy Pisa half-day tour and we did the adults-only Florence & Pisa full day tour. Both were very good.

Cannes: we did DIY again and just took the 'Petit Train' around the town.

Utterly exhausted, but we loved it. Did the May 26th sailing, which was a 7 night Barcelona round trip. We had three generations of the family, ranging in ages from 11 to 71. Every cruise line is different, so here are my tips for those first-timer DCL cruisers out there:

• If you don't want to sit with other people at dinner, make sure to request a private table. We assumed that - as a party of 5 - we would be allocated our own table. Not so. The head waiter Simone did a marvellous job sorting it out for us though.
  
• Don't worry about getting to the Walt Disney theatre before the doors open half an hour before the show starts. We assumed the shows would be packed, they never were. You could also watch the shows on the TV in your stateroom, which I suspect some people did. Wonderful entertainment.
  
• Soft drinks are only free if you get them from one of the drinks machines on deck nine (or in one of the restaurants). If you're at a show, or doing an activity in one of the lounges or clubs, you have to pay.
  
• A lot of people have said the cabins are large compared to other cruise lines. That wasn't our experience (we had standard OV on deck 1) but they are cleverly designed with lots of storage space. My SIL and her two children had no problems in their cabin, with the smart bed arrangement (double, then sofa into a single bed and pull down bunk bed). The split bathroom does help when you have multiple people sharing a cabin.
  
• The bath itself is very small; I'm six foot and didn't attempt it, but the shower over the bath works fine (although at my height I had to duck a little bit).
  
• You are provided with hard soap, shampoo and conditioner. There is no shower gel or bubble bath, so bring your own. Also bring your own slippers and dressing gown if you want them, as they are not provided. There were clocks provided in all of our cabins, along with several USB charging ports and plentiful plug sockets.
  
• If like me you are a planner, it can be disconcerting not to get disembarkation details in advance. On DCL you don't get them until around midday of the last full day of the cruise. Effectively you can get off the ship anytime you want after it's been cleared by customs, and everyone has to be off by 9am. Your luggage has to be outside the door between 8.15 and 10.15pm the night before, if you're not taking it off yourself. You'll be given luggage tags with Disney characters on; look for that character in the terminal.
  
• On the morning of disembarkation you are allotted either early or late morning breakfast slots based on what dining slot you have (so early dinner=early breakfast). Breakfast will be in the restaurant where you eat dinner on the last night. That slot didn't work for us; we were early dinner but not getting off the ship until 9am so didn't want too much hanging around. You can ask your head waiter for a switch but you may be disappointed if a lot of people want to do the same thing. Don't worry - while it's not advertised, Cabanas is also open for breakfast on the final morning.
  
• Finally, if you are travelling with kids BRING AN AUTOGRAPH BOOK. All of the characters are happy to sign and we had to make a mad dash for the shop to buy my niece one before the Princess gathering (and the shop was doing a roaring trade in them at $15 each).
  

Happy to answer any questions you may have if I can; I didn't go to Palo as we always ate with the kids and we didn't really use the bars but other than that I think we did most things on the ship.:)

I've done two different Med cruises on Sirena in the past couple of years. I am NOT a good sailor but I always take meds and unless you hit a patch of bad weather you should be fine. One note of caution - a lot of the smaller Italian ports (and Med ports in general) are tender ports and the tender to and from the ship can be VERY bumpy especially if there is a lot of sea traffic. The tender back from Sorrento last year was truly hideous; others have been like gliding over glass, you just never know. Sirena is a lovely ship, the Italian coast is gorgeous. Go prepared and have a lovely time.