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bluestocking7

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Everything posted by bluestocking7

  1. I got myself on the Waitlist for this. It's crazy that the only detailed itinerary I can find is on this thread! Thanks @History&Wine Just hoping cruise ships can go through the Suez Canal by then.
  2. Thank you! I'll be sure to do this as soon as the cabin attendant comes by.
  3. What's the procedure for getting a mattress topper? Do you request one in advance or do you just ask your cabin attendant once you're on board? A hard mattress is pretty unendurable for me.
  4. Thanks @TER777 and @Keith1010 I will write obgs, though I don't have my friend's booking number, just her cabin.
  5. Does anyone know how you arrange to have dinner with someone not in your cabin? My friend and I each have our own cabins, and we made OO and UU reservations for the same date and time. BUt there was no option to state we wanted to eat together or join a sharing table. I suppose the odds are good that they would put two solos together.
  6. @TER777Is your friend's last time at the beginning of the alphabet by any chance? Or is this just random?
  7. Flew JFK to Istanbul then transfer to Ankara. Business class, with lots of room and sumptuous meals. While in Ankara there was a coup against Erdogan and the borders were closed and all flights were cancelled. We did manage to fly out and back to Istanbul the next day and on to Bishkek, also Turkish. Barely remember the flights as we were just grateful to get out of the country. A couple of weeks later we flew back home Ashgabat-Istanbul-JFK, which was excellent. OTOH my son flew economy Istanbul to JFK and was in a middle seat and miserably crowded.
  8. Thank you. I'll try that. Will excursions be added up to 60 days out, or is what's shown all there will be?
  9. I'm on the Jan 5 Serenity Miami-Miami Caribbean cruise and see that excursions can be booked no earlier than 60 days before the cruise. Can you see what's on offer beforehand? And is booking exactly 60 days before? On OC I remember being able to book a lot further out.
  10. Very useful information, thanks! So if I understand this right, once per cruise there's a solo table in Umi Uma and the new Italian restaurant, but every night there's a solo table in Waterside, but the time alternates between 6 pm and 7:30 pm. Do you have to sign up for all of these in advance?
  11. Interesting that there are lots of solos. Sounds like maybe more solos than the number of solo cabins. Do you know whether there are any programs for solos, or at least a table or 2 for solos at Waterside for dinner, so they can meet each other?
  12. Can you stream TV shows on your computer? Or is the Internet capacity only sufficient for emails, posting photos, etc.?
  13. We disembarked MS Joy in Vilshofen this morning and boarded buses for Prague. On the way the Tauck guide explained that our tour had always terminated in Regensburg--until 2018 when low water meant they never made it that far. So ever since they have terminated in Vilshofen, where they have a good docking position. She also explained that back in the '80s, a lock upstream from Vilshofen was in fact proposed. But opposition from environmental groups put an end to that. I have no idea if she's right or not.
  14. Hooray! We boarded MS Joy today as scheduled in Budapest. We saw a couple of Viking ships - Rolf and Vanar (?) berthed next door. And once we were underway we crossed paths with a couple of CroiseEurope ships, Victoria and another, going south. We expect to dock in Bratislava tomorrow.
  15. Doing a bus tour of Budapest this morning we passed the Amadeus Elegant and another riverboat I couldn’t identify moored in the usual spot on the Danube south of the Chain bridge
  16. I spoke to the Tauck rep in Budapest today and she was confident we would be able to board in Budapest. The cruise terminates in Vilshofen, so we don't have to worry about water levels beyond that. She made the point that Tauck cruises have fewer passengers than other lines like Viking, so are able to sail in lower water. Our particular cruise has only 53 passengers, since more than a dozen cancelled in the past couple of weeks for various reasons (low water, war in Ukraine, who knows?)
  17. I spoke to a Tauck rep in Budapest today and asked her about Tauck ships and water levels--since we were able to get through the Rhine Gorge in late July on MS Inspire when other ships were not. She said that it comes down to passenger load. Tauck has fewer people on board than typical ships, less ballast water, so rides higher in the water even though the ships are the same length. We did go through the Gorge slowly though--took an extra hour, we were told.
  18. I noticed the Uniworld desk next to Tauck's at the reception at the Kempinski this morning (august 29). So they are already on site here. We are supposed to embark Tauck's MS Joy in Budapest on Aug 31.
  19. Took the train from Vienna to Budapest today and we went along the Danube from around Komaron south. The river looked low but still sailable. I guess we'll find out on Wednesday when we're due to board MS Joy. (It was raining in Vienna this morning--a bit chilly even.)
  20. @OwenSmith Tauck includes the Speyer technical museum as an excursion on the Bridges Family Rhine tour we did in July. My son and his four kids loved it, especially the go-kart track outside. (Daughter-in-law chose Heidelberg instead and enjoyed that.) Glad you had a good day there.
  21. @podsnel Music to my ears. May it stay that way until our Ms Joy cruise starts next week. Enjoy your cruise!
  22. @mrschiefopd Thank you for the update. It's encouraging that your ship was able to get into Budapest.
  23. I'm in Vienna right now and the rain has finally arrived here. Rain is in the forecast for the next 4 days as well. Hoping that the rain makes its way to Hungary, so we can board our Budapest-Vilshofen cruise there and not have to get bus'ed to Komarom.
  24. I flew into Vienna today from the north and could see the Danube below--with a cruise ship sailing eastbound, toward Budapest. So this stretch of the Danube is still open. (I couldn't tell from my airplane window which ship it was.)
  25. BBC News has a report today on the Rhine. One of their reporters stands on a rocky former riverbed in Bingen, with (I think) the Mouse Tower behind her, saying you can now wade out to the island the tower is on. You can however seen a barge sailing by. She doesn't discuss cruise ships but makes the point that some of Germany's coal-fired power plants are on the river and rely on coal being shipped in.
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