terrytallent1

These parties are not as good as they used to be but if it fits into your schedule go get a free drink or two. If you like to dance there is live music. If you made new friends go socialize. If the crowd is too big and loud for you just turn around and head to a different activity. We enjoy visiting frequent cruisers and having a glass of wine. See you there (or not). Terry and Mary

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The early booking at full price guarantees your cabin selection. Any discounts that are offered later can be requested by you by cancel and rebook. The reservation folks can look for additional discounts for military etc. Travel agents can help get added perks. You should have a window after booking with the cruise line where you can shop online for a travel agent who can offer the perks you are interested in. I personally play the perks game. I also constantly check for price reductions right up to final payment. You can pay a minimal amount to have an online service do the price checks for you. If you are willing to take a chance you can wait until others get their final payments in and look to get an unsold cabin for a steep discount. Terry

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Yes ..same here.

Same here

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Short answer is YES! Eclipse did it in several venues at various times. Check you daily program or talk to one of the cruise director folks for pre planning to participate.

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You can do shopping in St Maarten and snorkel St Thomas in my opinion. A snorkel trip to Buck Island is my personal choice.

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There is a separate forum for each cruise. Search Celebrity Reflection then sail date. Chances are you will find lots of fellow cruise critic folks already talking on a board devoted to the March 4 cruise. Terry

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There are many options for insuring you vacations. An Internet search can help you understand good better and best trip insurance policies. The better the coverage the higher the price. I personally chose to have a medical evacuation policy for two each year that is good 24/7. 365. I self insure or use a credit card that provides limited coverage for the rest. I did this after buying a policy that had so many restrictions that what I felt should be covered was in fact NOT covered. Buyer beware. Bottom line. Buy you insurance elsewhere. Terry

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You will need to study and highlight your daily schedule. There will be many activities. Try the ones that you like. If you like good wines try to be sure to go to the ones that are riedal or food pairing. Cellar Masters can give you details on special wine options. If you order something in the main dining room you do not like do not hesitate to request another dish. Your waiter wants you to get what you expect. We let them know upfront we expect olive oil and balsamic for our bread and not butter. You should be able to find lots of passengers you can mingle with close to your age. Terry

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Not only would I say book early I say book while on a sailing. I was able to book two open bookings while on Celebrity Reflection transatlantic. WHY?? Because they offered two perks on a future transatlantic which usually has zero perks offered. The offer ran out at the end of the cruise. My travel agent will book my preferred cabin as soon as booking starts. I prefer mid ship balcony. The other open booking locked in perks but not pricing. That said I always check for price drops after booking and look at variables like senior discounts, military discounts, state of residence discounts, free upgrades and perks. The cruise critic boards are pretty good about alerting you to special offers you may want to take advantage of. Bottom line YES BOOK EARLY. Terry

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We are b2b Nov 27 and Dec 11. All the Nov 27 folks will be getting off and getting luggage and going thru customs and getting on their way until well after 9. If you get there before 11 you will have a place to sit and wait. Concierge gets priority for checking in and getting on the ship but there is no real benefit to arriving at 10. My advice is arrive at 11 and unload bags with the porter. Carry one small bag with you. Sit and wait just a few minutes instead of an hour. If you want to meet me at cafe a bacchio we can make that happen. I would be happy to answer any questions. Are you posting on the Dec 11 board? terrytallent1 at comcast dot net

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We belong to multiple loyal cruiser programs and find Celebrity program far and away the best around. Unless that is taken away we still consider any day on a Celebrity cruise is a day of luxury. Terry

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Dear Terry,

We are sorry to hear of your disappointment with the optional tour in Venice. We are interested in hearing more about your experience in regards to this tour and hope you will contact us at tellus@vikingcruises.com so that we may discuss in further detail. Thank you for sharing your valuable feedback, we hope to hear from you soon! Kind regards, Viking Cruises

You have mail:)

We took all the included excursions at no additional cost. Since this was our first visit to Croatia and Montenegro we were very happy with the included excursions. The ports we had visited before we thought we might be less happy duplicating a previous excursion but we found all ports offered new facts and backstories even when looking at the exact same structures. We justified the high cost of Viking by factoring in using the included tours. The one port (Venice) where we paid $129 each extra was very disappointing and we wished we had NOT opted to pay extra for a tour "UPGRADE". Terry

I enjoyed the World Cafe for lunch. They have a small sign for prawns and chicken at the hot food station. You can order and then they prepared it fresh while you watched. It was usually 5 nice size shrimp (prawns) cooked in butter and served hot. Nice touch. Terry

The takeaway here should be an individual choice. When Celebrity is running a promotion like they did with the 1 2 3 GO promotion I booked 4 Concierge cruises. Someone else already did the math and I agree. On Board Credit, free gratuities and drink package made it a no brainer. Do I appreciate the small perks in Concierge? Yes. I like having my shoes shined. I like to swap my bottle of bubbly for Proseco. I like the bedding. I like all the little things mentioned here to include foot stools. Even the canapes I put in a staniding order for Kalamata olives! If there is a perk comparable to what is offered that you want a substitute just ask. Oh BTW I booked a 5th cruise (trans Atlantic) that did not offer the promo so I took the most cost effective balcony. It does help that we are Elite Plus so it is not like we don't get any benefits. Terry

As someone who will be on the Star in November I am glad to see Viking seems to be trying to address problems as they arise. I have always read reviews on cruise critic that were one extreme or the other. When I read one that says the entire cruise was a disaster I think they must have been on the Titanic. I can't help but think to myself "you say you had the worst cruise possible? What did you do wrong?" We try to make lemonade out of lemons. No cruise will ever be perfect. If the cruise is a test you have to give it a grade based on what went right and what went wrong. Most of my grades are in the 90's but no cruise has ever been 100. Looking forward to more reports from onboard the Star as we start preparing for November. Terry

10 May... terrytallent1...Expedition...Galapagos

The 50 day crazies have my undying gratitude for all they have done, are doing and have yet to do for those of us who will follow in your footsteps. Yes it does seem that Viking Star corporate staff is listening and is reacting to problems as they crop up. Looking forward to future progress reports and I feel there will be a lot of "accentuate the positive" feedback which is fine by me. Looking forward to our November cruise being "smooth sailing" thanks to the crazy 50's. Terry and Mary

Those of us on cruises later in 2015 are looking forward to you keeping us posted on daily activities and shipboard life. We are another couple who took a leap of faith based on our experience with Viking River. We expected there would be some growing pains and glitches but the roll out has been experiencing more problems than we expected to see. Terry

I have run or participated in more than a dozen gift exchanges with cruise critic groups on past cruises. Please believe me when I say it is strictly volunteers who participate and non participants are not in any way considered party poopers! I usually give tee shirts that say Virginia is for Lovers. I assume they will be used as night shirts and I buy them in x large. When my local gift store stopped carrying them I switched to team Jerseys from the local colleges University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. They are light weight and easy to pack. I saw the recipient wearing it as a pool cover up later in the cruise. My favorite gift I got was a homemade pottery flower vase. Thank goodness I had driven to the port and not flown. I also got maple syrup, wine, tea towels with the flag of Australia, baseball hat and box of candy from Hamburg Germany, playing cards with Canada Maple Leaf, Texas BBQ sauce. Hope this helps you decide something you may want to bring to the next gift exchange. Terry

In 2008 we took Dawn Princess from San Fran to Sydney repositioning cruise. When we arrived the exchange rate had fallen to 66 cents US bought $1 Australian. My wife loaded up on Black Opals at a 1/3 discount. Then the customs people back in the US could not figure out how to convert to figure the tax and said "just go on through". It does not look like we will arrive March11th with an exchange rate like that. We will just have to pay the going prices for food and drink during our 3 night in Sydney before returning home. Terry and Mary

terrytallent1 will be cruising b2b Auckland to Perth and Perth to Sydney starting Feb 3, 2013 on Celebrity Solstice

The stop is called Ercolano Scavi.

 

It is closer to Naples than Pompeii; I did it coming from the other direction (Sorrento) but I'd say it's about 20 minutes.

 

Can't answer re: the taxi, but the train is pretty easy. Once you get off the train, you'll walk downhill down a major road with the train station at your back. This road basically dead-ends at the entrance to Herculaneum in about 4-5 blocks -- you can't miss it.

 

There's no museum onsite.

 

Yes, you should have enough time to do both Herculaneum and the Archaeology Museum.

 

I have a lot of info on Herculaneum, included notes for a self-guided tour (having just done it a few weeks ago). If you want to give me an email, I'd be happy to send it to you.

We will be there mid october can you email terrytallent1 at comcast dot net please? Terry