bookbabe

These have all been mentioned, but the Dominica river tubing, the Old San Juan walking tour and the Virgin Gorda & the Baths tours were all great. I’ll add in that the chocolate making one in St Lucia was also great.

No issues in any of our deck 5 ES cabins

There is an ice machine at the WC drink stations.

We just got off Trade Routes in April, and had no issues (other than lack of sleep and caffeine) catching a 10:30am flight to LHR via Oslo with SAS. And we weren’t even on the first bus of people to head to the airport.

PayPal works for Canadians, so why couldn’t this “actor” just send her the money that way rather than during an in-person visit. lol. Scammer. You should be reporting the scammer to the cops, maybe a visit from an officer would convince your niece that she’s being duped.

We were on the Glimpse of Heraklion one. However, I only remember the palace ruins portion, I’m drawing a blank on what we might have seen during the town walk portion. Obviously, it wasn’t very memorable. Editing to add that the ruins were interesting, just not to the level of Ephesus or Pompeii. We were off-season, but it was still surprisingly crowded. I remember it being a decent bus ride from the port, not sure I’d want to DIY unless there was no other choice. “Home of the Minotaur and Venetian-Flavored Treasures -- You will drive with your guide to the Palace of Knossos, where an interesting walking tour reveals what remains of this once-sprawling building. This is the fabled palace where Minos’s wife Pasiphaë gave birth to the Minotaur, half-bull and half-man, and where Theseus of myth destroyed the beast. This site was uncovered in 1893 and took 35 years to excavate. You will view the Throne Room, a chamber located in the heart of the palace complex that was built for ceremonial purposes during the 15th century BC. Large and small pitharia, or storage jars, are sprinkled throughout, providing insight into the artistry of the day. Then, return to Heraklion’s Old Town for a walk past its most compelling sites. You will have time to explore on your own before returning to your ship.”

Our pre-stay tour guide explained what was going to happen at the rug demo and gave us tons of info about the various government initiatives meant to try to preserve and revive the art of rug weaving. Pretty much every guide on every subsequent tour in a Turkish port gave us much the same info, so I am relatively confident that the info was accurate. Stops at rug shops are mandated, shipping is paid for by the government, and a whole series of schools has been established to provide girls and young women with free training in the art alongside their regular education.

It’s mentioned in the Istanbul pre-stay tour description, but not in the descriptions for the various port excursions, I just double-checked. I guess it didn’t surprise me to have the rug shops at the end of every excursion because we did the pre-stay and heard all about the requirement then. It really wasn’t a big deal, though. I don’t see it as any different than all of the excursions where your “bio break” is at a gift shop, arranged in hopes that you’ll shop while waiting for everyone to finish. At least the rug presentation was interesting, much better than being funnelled into a tacky t-shirt shop or Diamonds International.

Has anyone stayed at the Great Northern Hotel at Kings Cross Station?

I’m just wondering what this woman’s FB account security settings are. Does she have her account set to Public? IMO, even Friends of Friends gives you too many people you don’t actually know potentially seeing your posts, so unless someone only posts food pics and cat memes, they should probably tighten up their FB settings. My FB security settings are set to Friends Only, so there’s a very limited number of people who could have cancelled a cruise on me if I’d been in a similar situation, and I know them all in real life.

We had a number of Turkish port stops on our last cruise, which had the OP’s itinerary as one of the weeks. We did the rug shop in Istanbul, very informative, no pressure and free drinks. We were easily able to skip the other ones, especially in Ephesus where you can easily see the ship from where they are leading you into the shopping concourse and just detour off back to the ship (we tipped the guide first and let him know we were leaving the group). Istanbul - if you have a smartphone and data, drop a pin at both the meeting spot to get back on the bus (for us it was the rug shop) and at your entrance to the Grand Bazaar. The Bazaar has multiple entrances and is a bit of a maze, it would be easy to get turned around if you aren’t paying attention or don’t have a GPS marker to aim for. Rhodes - I’ll second that the included excursion is definitely not for those with mobility concerns. Lots of walking, hills, stairs. And it’s meh. You won’t be missing much. Ephesus - AWESOME! Best of all the ports. We were there twice, did the included the first time and the excursion that stopped at the museum the second time. DH wasn’t really interested in the Homes of the Elite when we booked, but once we had visited the site he would have been willing to switch to go back and see the homes but it was full. Troy - yeah, it’s a tiny town with not much going on, and the historical site there was okay but not as epic as Ephesus or Pompeii. Crete - the historic site there was okay, it was the Knossos excursion, our guide was channeling his inner “long-winded university prof” so he annoyed us a bit, so that likely coloured our view of the site a bit

We got a good deal on the Mövenpick for this December using AA miles. No idea exactly where our river cruise is docking, but we figure it’s kind of central to the various docks so we’re hoping it won’t be too much of a hike for embarkation. (A bit further to the train station, which is how we are arriving, but it’s still doable.) In April, our Viking ocean cruise docked behind it, with a couple of river cruise ships on either side. The area wasn’t too bad of a walk to things, but we were intentionally walking so didn’t mind if it was a bit further to the main tourist areas. In December we aren’t planning to do much touring since we just did Amsterdam, so the Mövenpick seemed to be a better choice than the Doubletree, which was one of the other nearby options for getting a hotel with miles. Also, online reviews seemed to lean towards Mövenpick having a better breakfast than Doubletree, so DH voted with his stomach. I don’t know if it’s the best use of miles, but we don’t have any AA flights to book in the foreseeable future, and we’ve got a ton of miles from our credit card usage. We did all our hotels for pre/post for that trip using miles, so got some nicely upgraded rooms as a splurge.

I’ll throw a different opinion of the Alhambra out there…don’t stress about getting that excursion, we felt it was a waste of our time and money. We did the Viking excursion there on our March/April 2024 cruise, and it was definitely a one and done for us. Do some reading about the site. It’s got an extensive amount of 15th century reproduction in the Islamic style, and even then it wasn’t a wow for us. Probably one of our most disappointing excursions on that cruise. Long bus ride to get there, very crowded, rushed tour due to the distance and ticket timings, only okay architecture, mediocre lunch at a local restaurant. The gardens were the nicest part. Wish we’d done something else that day instead. Editing to add that we didn’t like the Sagrada Familia either, so your mileage may vary. Then again, our cruise excursions included Ephesus, Pompeii, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, the Colosseum, the Parthenon, Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral, among other stops, so we were pretty spoiled for epic architecture.

Only if you wanted a cabana. Otherwise, you just showed up. No idea how it might work in the future.

They have the regular shampoo from the non-Haven cabins, plus usually a hypoallergenic unscented brand. I have allergies, so always request unscented and they are usually able to provide it.

Ask the cabin steward, they can bring you alternate options.

It’s tight, but if your incoming flight is not delayed at all, you should make it…assuming that you are mobile enough to be a fast walker and your luggage is checked all the way through. My elderly mom wouldn’t be able to, but DH and I could make that. You will connect in the same terminal, so it’s just walking between gates. However, your luggage may or may not make that connection. Make sure you use AirTags and have a carryon with essentials in case your luggage is delayed. And if you have to collect luggage, recheck it (ie a different airline is operating the second flight) and go through security again, it’s way too tight.

In September, it was that morning…but it was EARLY morning, we were on the very first train of the day. I didn’t realize other trips might use later trains, I’m very jealous. FYI, depending on your hotel, you may be walking over to the train station.

Are you on the March date? If so, we’re on that same cruise, but if not, then I can post our excursion lists once they show up.

Our last cruise went in and out of the Schengen Area a few times (B2B Istanbul to Bergen, including Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands). Generally, passports were collected a day or two before the switch, and immigration did their thing behind the scenes, and then you went to collect your passport that evening when you returned to the ship after your first day in the new area. We usually got a card to show or a sticker on our key card as the immigration compliance proof. I do not remember any port where we had to actually line up and do immigration, other than ones where the segment was ending and most passengers were leaving the ship.

Best bet then might be something through the cruise line, there should be a generic island tour. If you see something that goes to the botanical gardens, that’s far enough from town that you’ll get to see a lot on the way there and back, and the gardens are very pretty. Skip anything that mentions the stingrays or turtles, those will be water tours. I think some of the excursion operators might have options, you could always start a new thread specifically looking for island tour recommendations. The other option might be to rent a car and DIY, the island is very safe and easy to navigate, as long as you’re okay driving on the left.

After you’ve talked about the tendering, if you have an idea about what type of excursion you’re all interested in, people may be able to give ideas of operators they’ve used that were fairly accessible. Cayman has so much to offer, it’s necessary to narrow down by interest a bit.

We both have elderly moms that may need calling, or calling about. We just aren’t in a life situation where we can be out of contact, but we also aren’t willing to delay all travel indefinitely. We have to plan for all eventualities.

No way of knowing for sure, since they haven’t announced any details, but on straight nights combined instead of separate, but we’d start the WC as gold and be platinum after, instead of starting as bronze and ending as gold. At the very least that’s an extra hour of phone time, a big help on a long cruise.

We’re platinum with NCL but only bronze on Regent. The combined program would be beneficial for us, since we are booked for the 2026 WC with Regent and would love the “boost” for that cruise. We do Regent as a couple, but do family/friend larger group cruises on NCL. And we do a ton of Viking, where’s there’s no loyalty program at all. The various lines each have their role in our travel styles, going different places in different ways with different groups of people.