SantaFe1

You can make a tentative booking and see the times for that particular cruise. Then let it go and don’t pay if you don’t like it. But to put the times on the general webpage would be imprudent as so many things affect them. The Thames, for example, is dependent on tides.

Your invoice shows your arrival and departure times ( usually. Our Douro River cruise doesn’t). Of course, they are always open for change.

Yes! It doesn’t just appear. I always ask for it to post as soon as we make final payment. Otherwise it sometimes doesn’t appear until you board. I like to use it to pay for shore ex. But I bet there are as many stories here as there are travel agents.

It does, and I can do that! Thanks.

Good to know, as I also have to book excursions for our May cruise while on our February cruise. But I don’t know how to do this tethering?

For flights abroad we use Viking Air +. We choose flights as soon as they come available. Then as soon as we pay in full, we ask to be ticketed. Flights for us are hard, because we have to fly to a gateway city and then maybe another stop. So when we find something we like, and Viking has it, we book ASAP.

I like to think of it more as we pick up pretty quickly on people we want to socialize with. Although I must say, we are doing our first River cruise next fall, and I dread breakfast with the masses!

Well, I guess. But if you travel a lot, everyone has a horror story with flights. We had a flight canceled to Lisbon from DFW, then the flight the next day, they lost luggage our luggage. This was with Regent. So we have really have never seen Lisbon, and have booked again for next year. And then this year, we had 17 minutes to make a Delta flight, booked through Viking, canceled and changed at the last minute, and made it!! Flying these days is a roll of the dice!

Absolutely agree. We booked our own flights to L.A. in Feb. on Delta using miles, then used Viking Air for flying to London and especially home from Bergen. We have Viking Air for our flights to Lisbon and home from Porto, next fall, but will probably do our own in 2025 for flights to L.A. again and home from Vancouver once we check prices.

We do this too. On almost all European business class flights we get a much better price with Viking and Air +

We had Viking Air + for our May flights. Our TA told us that they would ticket upon final payment. So we asked her to arrange that and she did. As Peregrina says, there are different reasons to ticket early or wait to ticket. But we like our flights, we have to fly to a gateway airport to go anywhere, and that can turn into a nightmare with at least two stops to almost anywhere in Europe (except London) , so we just get them ticketed as soon as possible

They can and do if not yet ticketed. We have our flights for our cruise in May and they are now ticketed. So at this point, it is only the airlines who can change them. And they do. I have had two changes by Delta to our flights to LAX in February.

We will be there about ten days later. I would be interested to see what you find. Thanks!

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I can well imagine. It would take a lot of wine to get me to eat Guinea pig!

This is so funny. We live at 7200 feet and loved and no trouble drinking lots of Chilean wine on the WC in 2019!!

Well, we ski here at 10000 feet and have never imbibed either. Prefer something a bit smoother. But again…. I need to leave this topic. LOL!

Well, I think that’s the point. That’s why I don’t make mimosas with Dom Pérignon! (But again, I’m a lightweight and out of my league here).

I always make my way right over to the bar when returning from these excursions and order an Irish coffee—light on the coffee! (But I’m a lightweight)

It’s really pretty easy. I doubt stopping at the restaurant desk and the customer service desk both would take more than 30 minutes. Sometimes there is a line, but still, I always seem to need to visit both places the first day, to make changes or to add things, and I’ve certainly never spent an hour.

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I just sent you an email.

Thank you! I will do that soon.

Yes, I know that well. But, for example, when we flew Delta to Iceland, they didn’t use a plane without a Delta one cabin, and we had a five hour layover in Minneapolis without lounge access. Coming back, we were on a plane with a Delta one cabin. We had lounge access. They cost about the same. Just the aircraft was different. I know you think we are all ill-informed, and don’t research, but I am informed and I do research. I just don’t see the logic in this. And, I might add, before we arrived in Minneapolis, we flew through Atlanta, in domestic first, not on Delta One, and the old Southern hospitality kicked in and they let us in. So go figure. Then in June, in business class from Vancouver, we had lounge access in Seattle, on Alaskan. So I guess sometimes you do get lounge access to/from Canada. Don’t know about Mexico.

Deec, this is absolutely a thread drift, but I think you might be back from your Douro River cruise, and I would love to hear about it. Maybe post on the all Douro thread. I have several questions, although we don’t go until a year from now. Thanks.