Fairgarth

A speedboat ride will take you out to the stingrays.  There you will be standing on sand with water up to your waist (adult).  The stingrays are not captive, they are wild but they hear the boats coming over and show up for food.  The first time one brushes past your leg is frightening but it is as soft as a kitten.  If you snorkel you can swim with them.   The guides have a name for each one and will show you how to feed them.  They don't have teeth but do have a very hard gum so they show you how to offer the food but not get chomped on.  They also show you how to hold one while they take your photo.  Does anybody get stung?  They say never.  Great experience, very memorable I found.

Norris, very sorry to hear that you both acquired the dreaded COVID.  I wish you a complete recovery, presto.  I really doubt that you got it on the ship.  As I understand it, you came off the ship on the 27th and had symptoms on the 1st.  That is five days.  The incubation period for Omicron is less than that i.e. around 3 days, give or take.  It is highly unlikely that you would get it on a flight so I'm thinking you most probably got infected somewhere in San Diego or at an airport, San Diego or Chicago.  Or even at your local watering hole after you got home.  But not from the cats.

On 11/5/2022 at 4:22 PM, Fred&Lily said:

 Ironically the airline kept popping up notices to act quickly because there were only two seats left at this price. I sign in and get two seats and find during the seat selection process that every seat from row 12 right to the back of the plane is available.

Two seats left "at this price".  They didn't say only two seats left.  If you booked them then the next person in might find 20 seats available but at a higher fare.  Here's what I think is happening.  If an airline has a 100 seat aircraft and expects 5% no-shows, they can sell 105 tickets with no problem.  But clearly they cannot allow 105 people to select seats.  So for different fare types, you may or may not be able to select your seat when booking.  I would not be surprised if the airline holds back 20 seats or so to allow the airport to sort everybody out on departure, based on who actually shows up.

On 1/12/2023 at 4:55 AM, TiggerandBart said:

Hello, so we are getting older and have done many carnival cruises. Is there a line more suited for older adults 55+ . Must be a newer ship.

Interesting requirement, why so?  New ships tend to be giants, which we don't care for.  We have had much better experiences on smaller ships but, of course, most of them are older.  We enjoyed a wonderful trans-Atlantic on Jewel of the Seas - beautiful ship, built 2004, capacity 2500 when full, not 6000.  No kids, fellow passengers 55+, we fell into bad company and had a great time.  Love Azamara, 700 pax but ships are now twenty years old.  Not a problem for us.  Rumour has it that if you want to travel with ancient decrepits then go Holland America.  Can't verify that myself and it may be a nasty rumour put out by Princess or Celebrity.

If the flight arrives at 1:00 and the ship leaves at 4:00 you ain't gonna make it.  Your faith in the airlines is touching and totally misplaced.

On 1/14/2023 at 8:35 AM, FlyerTalker said:

 

If you posted again with details, it sure isn't showing up here.

 

My sympathies, FlyerTalker, you are not going blind nor am I.  We can both sleep well tonight.  It's not here.  The OP posed the same question on the "Canadian Cruisers" forum and that is where the flight details now appear.

21 hours ago, Fivelinks said:

Do you recall the cab fee? I have recently been quoted $25 per person total (with 4 or more) to Turner's beach then back to the port at the end of the day.

Per person?  No, no.  You can find current regulated taxi fares on Antiguanice website.  Better to look yourself since they might change from time to time.

1 hour ago, Papa Yoda said:

 

They might have Calends

Well now, if the Romans didn't have January, they couldn't have calends.  Or could they?  These burning, philosophical, existential questions are beyond my ken and I leave it to greater minds to elucidate.

1 hour ago, XBGuy said:

 

Was it the first full moon of March?

Good question, but no.  It was January.  I don't know if Hogmanay has ides you should beware of, I'll have to google it.

19 hours ago, Bimmer09 said:

Did you enjoy sailing with HAL?

We did enjoy HAL, it was an excellent cruise.  It was over New Year's Eve - or more properly Hogmanay - so everybody got dressed up and made an occasion of it.  That was a few years ago so I can't make any claim for what HAL is like post-pandemic.

I notice that they still do parasailing off the beach at Puerto Vallarta but there is a dearth of first person reporting on such by your good self.  I did it.  Two guys, one in the speedboat and one on the beach, communicating by hand signals.  After a brief briefing, I was up, way up.  You are looking down on cruise ships and high rises well below you.  You can look a vulture in the eye.  "Yon vulture hath a lean and hungry look - such birds are dangerous".  As I came down and skimmed over the treetops I was afraid my voice might go up by two octaves but I need not have worried.  The guys were experts and I landed light as a feather on a sixpence.  Whatever that is.  I still sing baritone.

I stumbled over this thread by chance (and at my age stumbling is a not infrequent occurrence).  What a pleasure to follow along a new GSJ and all the great photos!  Thank you, kind Sir.  We did that trip on Oosterdam some years ago so it brought back happy memories.

On 12/12/2022 at 11:34 AM, crewsgirl said:

We are open to HAL, NCL, Princess or similar. Probably not going Carnival. 

We have done trans-At on Seabourn, Azamara, Celebrity, Cunard and Royal Caribbean.  We have done eastbound and westbound.  Some years ago, Seabourn and Azamara had real deals on transatlantic but don't know if that is still true post-pandemic.  FWIW our best experiences have been on smaller ships.  In fact, the smaller the ship, the more we enjoyed it.

You might also want to think about departure and arrival ports.  Do you want to spend a few days there in advance or afterwards?  Barcelona?  Lisbon?  Rome?  Southampton?  Can you fly there?  Fly home?

On 12/27/2022 at 8:05 PM, FlyerTalker said:

Right now, WN is trying to lay out just where each of their aircraft are,where all of their pilots are, where all of their FAs are, and still try to move some aircraft and crews to fly a skeleton schedule.  Crew scheduling phone lines are jammed.

Very interesting, thank you.  It seems like the airline is much bigger and more complex than twenty years ago but management has avoided spending on IT systems to keep up.  Which, of course, would boost their own bonuses along the way.  Or am I being a bit too cynical?  How about all their other IT systems?  Are they able to support today's operation?  If they can't even track their own crews, can payrolls pay them correctly, for example?

1 hour ago, Fouremco said:

I wonder if this would have happened had they checked in online the previous day. In my experience, once checked in you are less likely to be bumped. And if they were advised when checking in the day before that they had been bumped, at least they would have saved themselves the drive to Winnipeg and back.

That's a very good point, thank you.  I'll have to investigate.

Slightly off topic but along the same lines we had a similar experience with Air Canada.  We were booked in Business Class on an A320 and selected our seats at the time of booking.  (We normally ride with our fellow peasants but had not travelled in three years so decided to treat ourselves.)  Online checkin opens up at 24 hours prior to departure.  We checked in online around 6 hours prior and our seats were gone.  We had been moved forward to the bulkhead row which we didn't want but never did fight it.  So how did that happen?  And, yes, the flight was full in both classes.

So it's Monday morning and family members head to Winnipeg airport: Mum, Dad and four kids.  At checkin, Westjet tells them they can fly to Toronto but they have been bumped off their Toronto - Orlando flight.  The earliest they can be re-booked would be Friday, and that would be Winnipeg - Saskatoon - Toronto - Orlando.  Mum and Dad have a week off work so that's no good.  They live way outside Winnipeg and some relative gave them a ride to the airport.  Now he has to turn around and head back there again to pick them up and take them home.

Let's recognize that the airlines have had an absolutely awful Xmas season due to weather.  However, my understanding was that when a flight was cancelled and passengers had to be re-booked, you don't bump somebody else.  They have done nothing wrong and now you would have two groups of people mad at you, not just one.  My take is that they got bumped for two reasons:  a) it was a party of six  b) they were travelling on points.  If they had paid cash, Westjet would have to refund the cash and they will do anything to avoid that if they can.  My sense is that since Onex took over Westjet, it just isn't the same.  Here's the thing my fellow Canadians:  if they had been joining a cruise and missed it, there would be no refund of the cruise fares.

If anybody has a different take or can shed light on this, I would be happy to hear it and acknowledge it.

On 11/16/2022 at 8:36 AM, cruiseryyc said:

Plus duty free prices are not that much of a savings.

It may be duty free but it's not profit free.

Other things being equal, I would always book with the airline that operates the metal.  If anything goes wrong, you are their passenger and they can't pass you on to anybody else.  We were in Florence and discovered by chance that Lufthansa was on strike.  We were two days away from flying LH to Frankfurt then AC home.  We had booked and ticketed through AC so called them and they got us on one of their flights out of Milan so we just took the train there.  Now, if we had booked through Lufthansa or United, would that have got sorted out quite as easily?  I'm dubious.

3 hours ago, NWT Cruiser said:

 

 

Everything worked out ... got to check our luggage all the way through to EWR and no lost luggage.

Bingo!  Remember this day!  Delighted to hear it.

On 10/21/2022 at 3:50 PM, NWT Cruiser said:

 

We are flying from Yellowknife on Air Canada to New York City.  When we get to Toronto we switch to United Airlines 

When you check in at Yellowknife, just make sure your baggage tag says EWR before you let it go and it disappears down the baggage belt.  I'm assuming your United flight goes into Newark.  If it says LGA, then you are flying into LaGuardia and it would be JFK for JFK.

I went to see her when she visited Winnipeg in 2010.

It's the end of an era.  Thank you, Your Majesty, for the last 70 years of duty and dedication.

God save the King!

I'm sorry for the good folks on Eclipse but they got off relatively lightly.  Take pity on the poor folks left behind in Vancouver.  There has been a strike at the BC Liquor distribution centres for several days so the stores are not being re-supplied.  The stock of beer in my local store is getting awfully low.  Methinks I'd rather be on Eclipse!

11 hours ago, blag said:

Actually, using the Trenitalia app, you CAN book and pay for your tickets should you wish!

 

Thanks for the clarification, I should have mentioned that myself.  I was responding to the OP's query if they needed to book in advance.  Point taken!

Service from Bologna to Ravenna is on Regionale trains.  No need to buy in advance, you can't book, just show up, buy at the machine and board.  Don't forget to stamp the tickets at the yellow machine.  In Italy, the fast Freccia trains operate more like an airline where you book in advance and reserve your seat but they don't do Bologna to Ravenna.  Regionale is the local milk run.

We have taken lots of trains in Italy and they work well.  There is frequent service along that coast line so you can just hop on and hop off the next one along.  Stations are only about two minutes apart.  Just watch that the train is longer than one of the stations (can't remember which one) so when it stops and you are in a dark tunnel, yup, you are there so get off.  Yes, there are five of them but in one day don't overdo it.  I would skip Corniglia - it's up high and not on the railway line - and Monterosso al Mare IMHO not as picturesque as the other three.  So that leaves Riomaggiore, Manarolo and Vernazza.  Just my opinion.

9 hours ago, ski ww said:

That is the problem with people & their carry on. They look like pack mules coming on the plane with two/three bags hanging off them, trying to stuff the over heads bins. If I'm last to board I can't find an over head bin by my seat because some one has put their carry on there. I wish air lines would enforce the number & seize of carry on bags. 

Hallelujah!  The airlines should charge for carry-on and take free checked baggage.  I think there is one airline - Spirit? - that does charge for carry-on.  The problem as you found it is that boarding takes so long for everybody to get installed and seated.  Spirit needs much quicker turnarounds.  However.....if you had to go through Heathrow right now it could be a week before you see your checked baggage again so carry-on is a must.  So no easy solutions, then.