princeton123211

Agree with Bruce-- your quickest way to resolution is to contest this directly with your credit card company. The wheels of government grind too slowly with things like this.

Question is way too broad-- there are hundreds of restaurants and hotels. What's your budget for a hotel? What do you like to eat? It's really impossible to make a good rec for either without some additional info from you. Broadly speaking, if cost isn't a concern, my favorite hotels in the Quarter are The Ritz Carlton, The Windsor Court, The Roosevelt Waldorf-Astoria, and the Hotel Monteleone-- in that order. A lot of the best restaurants in town are actually outside the French Quarter. If you've never been to New Orleans before going to dinner at Commander's Palace in the Garden District is a great experience. Take a short Uber ride up to Treme to Willie Maes Scotch House for some of the best fried chicken of your life or nearby to Dooky Chase for dinner. Inside the Quarter jazz brunch at Arnaud's is a favorite with table side flambé desserts. Brennan's and Antoine's are old school classics.

While Insignia is from, I think, the early 2000s she got a top to bottom refurb right before the pandemic so is fairly new inside. Overall she's much more high end than the larger ships at the Dockyard, particularly with food. You are not making any concessions in experience due to her age and as mentioned her smaller size on this itinerary is a major benefit.

A fair point- you’re just paying RCCL a premium commission to take the same duck tour that anyone can book. If you book direct and board/disembark at the NE Aquarium you’re right there at Faneuil Hall which is what it seems like you want to do anyway. You’d just need to take a quick/cheap Uber from the ship to the Aquarium and back. Takes the guess work out.

I would go on the assumption that there would not be. This is a very upscale island that traditionally has not welcomed/supported cruise ships. I would find a tour guide or operator ahead of time and make arrangements to avoid disappointment.

This. Of all the cruises we’ve done to Bermuda Oceania’s on Insignia is the best overall from an itinerary standpoint (and the ship is wonderful too). Docking right in Hamilton and St George’s makes a huge difference and lets you spend more time enjoying things and less time on ferrys, busses, and taxis. It’s really nice just walking off the ship at night in Hamilton and going to the various bars etc,

Either taxi or Uber/Lyft. There isn’t any fixed rate on the taxi from LGA to Manhattan like there is from JFK so both options will be similarly priced when you factor in the fees the taxis charge. Personally I’d Uber here because I think the cars are of a higher quality than the taxis but honestly it doesn’t make a huge difference here.

The short answer is no. You would have far too many variables that could cause you to miss the ship even if you had a longer port stop. And then the fact that you have a shorter port stop. Traffic wouldn't really be the issue here-- the only possible way you could make this work is to take a Cape Air flight from Boston Logan to the airport on Martha's Vineyard. Cape Air operates small twin prop Cessnas and is lovingly/jokingly referred to those who use them as Cape Scare. You would not have time to drive to and take the ferry both ways. I would not attempt this.

Its Newark Airport and its quite close to Cape Liberty-- no need to spend $100. An UberX should be about $35 dollars give or take. A large UberXL will be more like $40-45. Lyft is about the same as an alternative. Do not take the local taxis in New Jersey-- they are awful in quality and overpriced.

It's actually Kahului. One area of the island is a disaster area and even in West Maui the only area that's really destroyed is Lahaina. The major resort areas of Kapalua and Kaanapali survived completely intact. The loss of Lahaina breaks my heart-- so many happy memories there over the years and of course the loss of life-- but this narrative that Maui has been permanently hobbled is nonsense. Pretty much all areas aside from West Maui currently are back to business as usual. Based on what the resorts are saying, and how they are enforcing their cancellation policies, it appears that Kaanapali and Kapalua will be back to pretty much business as usual by September or October at the latest. You could show up right now at the car rental counter and have no issue getting a car. Its Oahu. In terms of the rental car situation I don't know how we've become so alarmist. No natural disaster could have nearly the impact on the rental car market and really the resort occupancy than the Covid shut downs did. I remember landing on the island in Oct of 2020 and it was just parked rental cars as far as the eye could see in the former sugar cane fields around the airport. Again-- this is heartbreakingly tragic especially with the loss of life-- but this is a blip on the radar for tourism compared to the heavy toll the months of shutdown that Covid inflicted. I think this is why you have the Governor already calling for tourists to come back to the other parts of the island as quickly as possible. Their renewed tourism dollars are as necessary to rebuild and sustain as FEMA, our donations, federal assistance etc.

Which is fine, but it will really come down to when the ship is cleared by immigration for disembarkation which can be significantly after that 5am arrival time. It's an hour and a half by car without any traffic to Heathrow from the Southampton Docks. The recommended time to arrive before an international flight at LHR is 3 hours. So in a best case scenario of you getting off the ship by lets say 7:15am (which could be optimistic) and you're in a car service/taxi by 7:30 you'd be arriving at LHR around 9am which would but your earliest flight around noon. So possible but a lot of things have to go right and there isn't much room for things to go wrong. Personally I would look if the ship has a port to airport transfer that takes into consideration your flight's departure time. If so that might be a less stressful, safer bet. Most of the flights I've done over the years from Heathrow after arriving that morning in Southampton were 3/4/5pm and there was zero issue.

Assuming everyone who lost a car wants a Mustang convertible or Jeep Wrangler... which I doubt. Also the car rental companies are not banks. Most of the large national car rental companies are struggling financially recovering from the past few years. I would highly doubt they are in a position to give that sort of float.

You'll have a much more narrow window for St Marks on a Sunday. I think its only 2-5pm due to services vs the normal 9:30am-5pm. Just keep that in mind when planning.

Marriott usually doesn't waive the resort or destination fee on an awards booking like Hyatt and Hilton do. That being said Marriott has some much more compelling award properties the the other two don't on Waikiki such as The Royal Hawaiian, Westin Moana Surfrider, and the Ritz-Carlton Residences.

To echo was Charles said you can't just rent jet skis there-- you'll need to do a tour which times are on their website. You can however rent Boston Whaler motorboats which you can self drive unescorted without a tour guide. We have used BDA Watersports many times over the years and they are a well run operation.

I guess the bigger question is what are you trying to accomplish? As BlushPell said, a rental car just to have one in Newport is unnecessary and can be costly. Uber/Lyft work well and can be a good alternative-- even for places that are a little bitt out of town. If you are trying to go to places far outside of Newport there is the Enterprise they mentioned and also an Avis in Middletown we've used in the past that's a little bit further but easy to work with.

Personally I would stay in Amsterdam the night and fly in the morning. Schipol, while better than it was a year ago this time, is still notorious for security delays etc which can slow you down considerably and frankly with an 11:40am international flight coming off of a cruise, you don't have much room to be slowed down. You are maybe 20-30 minutes from the cruise terminal to the airport if there isn't a ton of traffic. Could you make it? Probably. But it doesn't leave much wiggle room for anything to go wrong and it would be a colossal pain if you did indeed miss the flight. Amsterdam is a lovely place to get a nice hotel for the night, have a leisurely day after your cruise, and then get up and fly.

Why wouldn't your hotel be able to store luggage for you? Its virtually universal that a hotel you are registered to check into would store bags. A very expensive option unless you actually wanted the rental car to go see something in particular like drive around the island or to the North Shore. There are plenty of options/companies (all the major rental car companies) with pickup and drop off in Waikiki- just be warned that parking in Waikiki is very expensive. Have done this a few times in Waikiki-- usually any 4-5 star hotel is willing to store bags for a non guest if you are going for lunch/drinks/etc. Just be sure to tip the bellman well. Have done this at The Royal Hawaiian, Halekulani, and the Westin Moana Surfrider. No issues.

It's safe-- it's its own little development enclave that has the Marriott and Four Seasons Hotels there in addition to some corporate steakhouses and hotel restaurants. Just keep in mind that you are on a little bit of an island where your hotel is. If you plan on exploring the Inner Harbor or Fells Point, while they are physically very close, you do have to walk through a bit of a no mans land to get there. During the day reasonably safe but would be vigilant at night. Baltimore is not a great walking city and you can be on a safe street one minute and make the wrong turn to somewhere not so great. Personally I think the Inner Harbor is a little stale at this point but Fells Point is a lot of fun, especially at night.

I've never heard of an organized tour that does this-- you could always hire a private driver and guide in Baltimore to take you down but I would suspect it would be pricey. Honestly you don't need one-- you can easily get to DC from Baltimore via the train (both Amtrak and regional rail) or by car. Once you are there there are a plethora of touring options from Hop On/Off, guided tours of monuments, all the free Smithsonian Museums, etc. If you are looking at a tour purely from a transportation standpoint the train is easy, faster, and inexpensive.

Pride of America's biggest issue is its labor costs having to employ an all American crew to satisfy the laws that allow it to cruise intra Hawaii. This is unique to this ship and the wages they need to pay are not in line with that a modern cruise ship can operate around. POA is notoriously understaffed because they can't attract US crew members at the wages they want to pay. The ships going to Alaska and Hawaii from the mainland, either from Canada or from the US with stops in Canada or Mexico, can employ an International crew at a much, much lower cost. Hence the far lower rates.

It never hurts but it's not as necessary as the Arizona Memorial which is tightly capacity controlled due to the boats necessary to reach it. I've never heard or seen the Missouri sell out.

I think it will be a wait and see to what Disney and local authorities do in October-- the fact that you are not tendering at Lahaina is most likely a positive here and increases the chances that you'll be able to come to Maui. As I suspected, you can now book many West Maui resorts starting in Sept/Oct on Kaanapali and Kapalua. Who knows if that will change but the Westin, Marriott, Sheraton, and Ritz-Carlton are now letting you book (and I'm sure the rest are too unless they were specifically contracted to house displaced folks). I think BermudaBound had said recently she heard the Ritz planned a September reopening so this makes sense. I don't think that renting a car at the airport in Kahului will be an issue at that point (you can actually rent one today if you had to with plenty of availability). As you said, for better or for worse, the island does depend on tourism and I would think that Kaanapali and Kapalua will be open for business. Obviously Lahaina won't be an option but Wailea will also be (wasn't impacted) and you could still do Hana and stay on that side of the island. The bottom line is that tourism should not impede the ability to get aid, supplies, and help to those who need it but tourism will be required in order to build back the island.

Agree- that's how I would do it.

I agree with you in that they should donate more than $50k given their footprint on Hawaii's tourism. But I would suspect that NCL America looses more money than it makes. Pride of America has always been a bit of a disaster with much higher costs compared to operations in the rest of their fleet.