Coalman

2 hours ago, Jim The Scot said:

Thats Discovery arrived safe and sound  at Port Canaveral

 

Another three days off AI and free food for the passengers who stayed on for the long sail from Amber Cove 

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! 👏😊

On 7/8/2023 at 1:24 PM, Sheera07 said:

 

No bus as far I know , only a 2 hour trip to the beach or wander round the shops in the small port , have a drink in the Daquiri bar , we were at the port 26/ 6 on Discovery.

.....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

13 hours ago, Jim The Scot said:

Glasgow flight eventually arrived back home at 10-58 from La Romana so thats flown from Melbourne-DR-Glasgow

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.

13 hours ago, Jim The Scot said:

Glasgow flight eventually arrived back home at 10-58 from La Romana so thats flown from Melbourne-DR-Glasgow

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! 

On 4/24/2023 at 9:00 PM, Max011 said:

We are on Discovery on 18th June, we dock at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal 28th June over night. There are only a few dates in the calendar where the ship doesn,t dock at Manhattan.

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/

On 2/9/2023 at 7:12 PM, August2023med said:

Don’t suppose anyone has anymore updates on this!? 

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

On 1/11/2023 at 6:45 PM, August2023med said:

Thanks for the update Coalman. Fingers crossed! 

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. 😪

1 hour ago, August2023med said:

Just wondered if anyone had any more updates on this issue? I tried to call Marella about it but they couldn’t tell me when the policy was being reviewed….

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.  

Hello Skills.  We have a Roll Call on here , if you are interested 🙂 

On 9/7/2018 at 11:19 AM, holidayhelen said:

Are you booking tours with your cruise company or independantly? Any advice on any tour companies in the UAE - thanks

Hiya Helen. Sorry it has taken so long to respond to your query.  Denn and his wife and me and my wife have booked with Thomson for  Petra.  Bahrain, the Black and Gold with Thomson.  Abu Dhabi city tour with Thomson and the Heights n Sights with Thomson in Dubai.  We are doing our own tour with Sunshinetoursoman.com for Muscat on the 2nd day. They have good TripAdvisor reviews and then I am doing a Dhow trip with Khourshem Tours  in Khasab. 

I have done a fair bit of on-line searching and I think that I have discovered that the private tours are similar priced to Thomsons trips... so.... I look forward to being corrected, if there are better trips/deals out there that would be great. :-) 

On 3/26/2018 at 8:29 PM, Vitalsign said:

On your overnight in Dubai if you have one do the burj kalifa trip from the ship its fantastic and you jump the queue to go up the tower The sights from the observation floor are fantastic and the speed you get up there in the lift is incredible

Thank you for that information. Just jumping the queue has 'sold it' to me! 🙂

we are going there in november coalman we might see you there and on trips

I've only just seen your reply Denn1. You may very well see us.... espies if you sort them out for all of us! ;-)

Thank you to everyone else for your input and advice....much appreciated :-)

Is there a Roll Call for Nov 22nd 2018 on Discovery for the Authentic Arabia Cruise?

Hi Ellie 17, Thanks for putting the phone number on for marella bookings, Ive just rang them and booked a cabin in the aft section of deck 8 very nice lady, Nothing was to much trouble, Looking forward to november. Dennis

Good morning Denn. Good to see you on here. Guess what, you will be able to tap on the wall in November and ask us to keep the noise down ! ;););). Parrrrtteeeeee!!

Hi Everybody!

We are planning ahead to November '18 when we hope to sail on Discovery and go to Dubai, Abu Dhabi Bahrain etc. Has anyone been to these ports of call and taken any of the tours or used local tour companies? Any information would be gratefully accepted. Thank you

You seem to have missed that Wiltonian posted this question in January 2014

D'Oh ! :)

Thanks! It'll be in October, so the walk shouldn't be the issue it might be in a hot August.

 

Stuart

Good morning Wilts...

What date will you doing the train journey to Herculanium please as we are there later this month after docking at Salerno on the Queen Vic.

If you could email me, that would be great.

Many Thanks.

Paul

Anyorderonline@live.co.uk