jonthomas

and now it has vanished....O is not playing nice...have no clue what all that was about...someone doesnt know what they are doing...

yes have to ask for scones and then they bring about a tablespoon of jam and some cream, right on your plate.....

actually deposited....

Well O has deposited $100 into our credit card account for this cruise. I have NO idea why. We made sure we had zero balance. Yes we filled in the questionnaire but that would be OBCs if we won, not a credit card deposit. Wish they had sent an email with explanation. Hey I am grateful, thank you O. Anyone have an idea why we were so lucky?

Please NO kids on O. One of the reasons we sail O and not others. We will take grandkids when they are older on RCL. Luckily we are going to Alaska first week in Sept, so hopefully all kids are in school, but you never know.

I was told by the O ambassador, the rest of 2025 itins will be released in April.

it has been impossible to get a nexus card during the border negations over covid...not sure if all that stuff is over now... will look into it...

yes the trolley takes a while to come around...so you need time and patience...also the scones are not part of the trolley selection and they need to go elsewhere for them....that too takes time...but they are worth waiting for....

" if you want to talk about ships. Boy Marina looks dated. Dark cabin halls and the ship needs to go to dry dock sooner than 2024. " agree...but why so many say it looks great...not sure what they are looking at...of course as long as they say it looks great, O will not waste money refitting it....right now the refit looks like years away....guess many said it looks great on their questionnaires....

thank you for this info....

best wishes to you for Wednesday....

and we fly on jan 3, for a cruise on jan 4....yeah past the rush....staying in hotel one night..should be fine.... its the overseas stuff that has me in knots..... things are not much improved with Air Canada/Pearson Airport, same labour shortage.....as I said before, it was not the plane, it was early....is was not the pilots, they were all ready....it was the baggage handlers....still cant find people to work....until policy of handouts changes, there will be a shortage in the workforce....

Excellent question. and we do have to do it all over again, next November...again a 20 day TA, fly to BCN...same scenario..... so what to do.... hoping that the situation with airports will be better a year from now...but hoping and praying wont make it so....this is our national airline and our national disgrace....things will not change significantly while the same govt is in charge...sorry political and probably most will not agree with me...thats ok... right now we have air with O and with Premium Economy....I have checked it out....so far British Air does not offer the PE on the planes they are using for this date, AC does...so here we go again.... Tempted to do a flight with a 4.5 hours layover in FRA.....and get onto ship...no deviation, no hotel....if we miss the ship, we miss BCN.....have been many times...next port is Cartagena...not sure how easy it would be to get there and if we miss that , we have also been there many times... seems like I am saying, if we miss all the ports, we will eventually get on the ship....I am laughing at my own logic...or lack thereof....

with AC the rule is anything over 2 hours....they make sure they stick to that or a minute under it, so they dont have to give any comp.....also we did not lose any funds over this delay....they did give vouchers for lunch and dinner...

We were fortunate to cruise and see ports of Brazil and Chile. Did Galapagos and therefore saw something of Equator and Peru. Really wanted to do around the horn and complete the circle and then Covid hit and we cancelled. Cancelled again once Covid abated but my contacts said to hold off. Now I am sure we will not make that journey. Be savvy about what is going on in the various South American countries. There is little O can do, except cancel and that brings with it a whole other set of woes.

would you recommend tour company? johthomas100z at gmail dot com yes it is johthomas100z at gmail dot com made a mistake a long time ago....lol

did you do the tour through O?

Some of you emailed me asking how did our flights turn out for the recent TA from BCN to MIA. So here is how it all went down. We originally had a flight with O, but because of our airport ( worst in the world) rated for several months in the summer. We thought that staying with O would give us some assurances but knew that we were taking a big risk in not making the ship. So going in a couple of days earlier, doing our own flight, saving on the deviation seemed our best choice and many of you agreed. We booked Air Canada and two nights hotel in Barcelona. We left on a Thurs night, ship sailed on a Saturday The Air Canada plane was on time, even early, which was unusual, I tracked it for two weeks. Then we sat on the tarmac for 2 hours. The reason, there was no one to load on the luggage. We travelled with carry on only. It is difficult to find anyone to work in Toronto, that is not just for airline industry. The reasons for it, I wont discuss here, too political. Our connection was in Zurich. We missed our plane by 5 minutes. I was prepared for that. The next flight was 5 hours later. If we had luggage, the flight would have been the next day as the small plane was for NO luggage only. Zurich airport was very nice, small, clean. They gave us generous vouchers for lunch and dinner. We arrived in Barcelona by 9 pm...exhausted, jet lagged. Took us 5 days to get over it. The Air Canada flight, seats so crammed together, like a straight jacket for 10 hours, including the 2 sitting on tarmac. A heavier lady in the isle seat, slept on me the whole way, I did not. At one point, feeling a panic attack coming on. Bottom line, had we taken this exact flight with O the night before sailing, we would have missed getting on the ship, which sailed at 7 pm. However, acquaintances of ours risked it and flew with O, British Air, getting onto the ship on time. NO deviation fee, no hotel. O reassured them they had plenty of time, going through Heathrow. We have a similar TA next November and once again, will be wondering what to do. There are No direct flights from YYZ to BCN. Has our airport improved, the politicians say yes but a slight snow storm just recently has thrown this airport into total chaos again.

yeah see the rock...read the history....but will miss the monkeys....lol

we are big walkers..but guess you have to do a tour here...too bad Gibraltar is not being looked after....

yeah that would be a real loss....lol....

we are on it jan 4....so if ports are skipped, does O compensate...it is not weather related....I probably know the answer to that....

thank you for this.....

yes I hear you....and for the most part that is what we do.... one more fact...we dont do room service...dont go to baristas and dont drink...so no bar services... we take our wine that the agents give us and give it to those we play trivia with....our needs in the stateroom are minimal....no ice...towels only when needed and same with sheets to try and save them the work....our stateroom attendants are always appreciative of us...we do all we can to save them time and work....that is also a way to show appreciation....

and you asked because you dont comprehend my position? oh I think you do, the asking is simply to try and put me in a defensive position.... I will repeat in clarification....we are looking forward to having our gratuities included..hopefully O does not raise them the way NCL just has, at least not for a little while...... no way will I be chasing staff with envelopes the day before....it is really quite comical the way some were looking everywhere all over the ship with their envelopes in their hands....one lady dropped them in the elevator and it had to be held up till all of them were picked up....yes eyes were rolling in agreement.... has to be a better way... ciao