Coalman

Its a tough life! lol ...and they will get all of their money back. I trust that Marella would be insured for such an event as the fire, though.

Yes, gsgbrum, it was a bit of a heavy day, wasn't it? You did well to get from Gatwick to Brum in 3hrs. by coach. I see that Discovery is just a couple of hours from Port Canaveral right now..... the 2/7/23 cruisers have had a mighty-fine fortnight, havent they? lol And good luck to them, too! 👏😊

.....did you get the Gatwick or Glasgow return flight ( if you was a Birmingham passenger ) ? How did you fare??? It was an uncomfortably long 24 hour trip using Glasgow as our homecoming airport and that was by using the train to get back from Bonnie Scotland.

We have just returned from the june 25-july 10 cruise on Discovery and to be honest I was a little disappointed at the 'dressing to impress' by the men on the cruise. I would hazard a guess that only 15% of the men wore dinner jackets and probably the same percentage of ladies in long dresses. Although most ladies wore attractive attire in the restaurants on these special nights, probably about 15% of men wore tailored shorts! I wouldnt take 'special' clobber again ( not on Marella anyway ) but I have so many new and unopened bow-ties, I feel that I must! lol

Discovery is back on the road again by the looks of it..... https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9070632

There is a report on FakeBook that NINE passengers were left stranded at La Romana and missed the flight due to their coach transfer being held up in traffic on their long 5hr transfer. Unless their coach ONLY contained those 9 people, I find it difficult to believe. What happened to the other coach passengers? They claim they have to stay at the airport overnight until another flight can be found.....

It appears that the original people from Birmingham on the 25th June were split between the Glasgow and the Gatwick 'repatriation' flights for our return journey. No BHX flight was provided. One lady had driven to Brum from Devon on the 24/25th June and had that journey 'onwards' after her coach transfer from Glasgow! She had no option but to use the coaches as her car was at Birmingham! The passengers who embarked on the 2nd July for their 2 week cruise will be given a full refund. Most of them have opted to stay on the ship until it gets to Melbourne by their scheduled last day of 16th July ( why wouldn't you??!!) whereby they will be flying home as normal. The Captain hopes to be able to stop at some ports on the way back to Melbourne once his paperwork/certification is in order, apparently.

We were on this flight!! Boy, was is a wearisome days travelling! We originally flew out to Port Canaveral on Sunday, June 25th from Birmingham. We were told, by letter that was slipped under the door on Saturday 9th night that we would be leaving Dom Republic on Sunday 10th. The letter stated we would be flying to GLASGOW and coached back to Brum! The transfer from Amber Cove to DR airport, La Romana, took over FIVE hours ( from 1pm - 6.15pm ), 216 miles. The Dreamliner should have departed at 9.15pm according to the letter but by the time the plane was cleared for take off it was nearly 10pm. EIGHT hours later ( 6am DR/ 11am UK time) we arrived at rainy Glasgow with the unenviable thought of a 330mile coach journey back to Brum! ( I have just looked at all the roadworks on this stretch!!!!! https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Glasgow+Airport+(GLA),+Glasgow,+Paisley+PA3+2ST/Birmingham+Airport+(BHX),+Birmingham+B26+3QJ/@53.8839755,-4.0767337,7z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x48884eb90111e0dd:0x24a888b519aa330b!2m2!1d-4.4332077!2d55.8697587!1m5!1m1!1s0x4870b0deff56c9e3:0xd7fab23579355bb!2m2!1d-1.7435093!2d52.4523818!3e0?entry=ttu We decided to let the train take the strain and although not perfect ( 2 changes ) we did get to our home town station by 1.10pm( DR time ) 6.10pm UK. So the whole trip had taken over 24hours to get back home. The trains were excellent on time keeping. Those poor souls on that coach journey from Glasgow to Brum would have had an even longer journey time back...and then they had to get to their homes from Birmingham airport. Marella called the return travel 'repatriation' in their cruise letter to us, I presume that is for legal/small print reasons. My body-clock is awry, hence I am writing this at 12.30am, UK time!

Hiya! I am looking at Cruisemapper and they give the dock as 'NYC...... Bayonne NJ'. https://www.cruisemapper.com/ships/Marella-Discovery-712?tab=itinerary#itinerary HOWEVER!!! Looking at Manhattan Cruise terminal website I find that Discovery is scheduled to be there as well on 28/29th June! 🙂 https://nycruise.com/manhattan-terminal/schedule-mct/

Still looks like 30th April before they relax the rule. https://www.tui.co.uk/destinations/info/cruise-entry-requirements

So! I called into Tui shop on Wednesday. The girl behind the counter told me that Tui would NOT honour their commitments to give your money back if they moved the Discrimination Date further into the year. I asked her that if I asked the other 'Travel Experts' in the shop the same question, would they all give me the same answer. She said they would. So! Whatever Dan had told me over the weekend had to be binned and it looks like we'll have to await confirmation on the Tui website that they are dropping the rule. Sorry. 😪

WOWZER!! I have just rang Tui (sometimes you get differing advice from different 'travel experts' !) and a fella called Dan has given me something to be happy about! So! He told me that they expect the Company to let the 'travel experts' know as early as the end of March 23 as to whats happening from April 2023 onwards. Not only that, but contrary to my previous call to them, he said that if I made a booking today with the April 2023 date being part of the booking conditions then if THEY pushed it even further into 2023 ( gawd knows why they would do that, but.... ) then Tui would let me book another cruise or holiday and I would NOT lose my wonga. I think that I will call into a Tui shop though and button-hole one of their travel experts to confirm . 🙂

You've saved me a phone call, Augustman. I was going to call to see what date they updated the Nov 2022 rule. Before the April 2023 rule it was Nov 2022 and I thought that I may get some indication of how far prior to the end of November they altered it to April 2023. That may give me an indication of how far in advance they would be changing their rules...or not! 🙄

Just a postscript to this post.....Marella RIVER cruises have dropped the jabs rule as from 1st March. RCL, HAL, Carnival Cruises and Princess Cruises have not had these rules in place since SEPTEMBER of last year! However, Cunard and P & 0, both part of Carnival Plc along with Carnival Cruises and Princess are still keeping their dates to drop the rules until at least 1st March 2023. Figure that one out! 🙄

I rang them yesterday and was advised that they hope that ALL vaccination requirements will be dropped by 23rd April ( but it may have been April 2023 ). No one will need to be tested and the Vaccine Free folk will not be discriminated against any longer. If you are not fully jabbed and boosted, you could book cruises for a date after April, BUT, they will penalise you financially if you can't go due to the company keeping these restrictions in place to a later and need a refund/credit.