EJL2023

Oops, I sure did! Must be the second glass of wine!! Sorry for confusion.

Never been on one of the R ships, but just curious as to why they do Afternoon Tea in Martinis, instead of Horizons?

https://www.commissionegaranziasciopero.it/calendario-scioperi I would suggest you follow the above site. It is from the Italian government and it lists all strikes scheduled throughout the country and is updated frequently. You will note it is in Italian, but first go to the calendar and see if there are any scheduled strikes on dates that could impact your travel plans. If there are, there are plenty of translation apps that you could use to find the specifics. I used this on travels in Italy in May and I have to admit having access to it provided peace of mind of knowing what potential issues were out there. Luckily none of my travel days were impacted by any strikes.

Perhaps meant all passengers who had a realistic chance of making it for embarkation. I feel for those that didn’t, but you don’t hold up the entire cruise for a few. I’m sure they have a cutoff point, so perhaps if 97% of all paying customers have arrived, they sail. Could be any %, but I’m sure they have one.

Thank you for your comments.

🤙🏻

I recently had two tours booked through Viator in Athens. On one the tour guide contacted me and advised if we wanted to push the starting time back a few hours to catch the sight at sunset he would be happy to do so or we could continue as originally planned. On another day we had a guide for our private tour who was amazing. Our scheduled 7 hour tour ended up nearly 10 hours as he continued to offer taking us to additional sites. It was probably the best tour I’ve ever had in my travels. Bottomline, regardless if you go through a third party or not you can still have a great experience if you do your homework. There is no best way, whichever works best for you and what you feel most comfortable with doing and it is not the same for everyone. There is no such thing as a 100% guarantee on a perfect tour every time whether through a third party or directly with the touring company, or for most anything. Happy touring.

I was wondering that too, but thought perhaps they only want the more comfortable arrangements for possibly an overnight flight one way and not as concerned for a daytime return flight??

I have probably an odd question. I’ve never cruised on one of the R ships and am thinking of doing so to see if I like the smaller ships. One of my concerns is just overall size of veranda staterooms and the bathrooms. Because of that I’m leaning towards a PH. At the same time I’d like to get a feel if the standard veranda stateroom would potentially suffice for future cruise considerations. If I booked a PH AND they had a veranda stateroom that is NOT being used on the cruise, do you think they’d possibly let me just check it out to see if ok for future consideration?

When we departed from Trieste on Vista in mid May I checked the Italian state website that lists all strikes on a regular basis before we left since we were taking the train from Venice to Trieste.

Now that you are going as scheduled, I think you will love Kotor! I know we did.

I’ve used them over 40 times and maybe had one or two less than perfect experiences but certainly nothing I’d consider horrible.

Not really. I’ve noticed the companies listed in Viator site as the same as some I’d noted when beginning my searches for a port, etc and they were close as I recall but never actually done a side by side spreadsheet, etc.

I just used Viator three times on a recent cruise. Each of them the actual tour company reaches out after purchase and all my subsequent communications were with the actual tour companies, not Viator. I believe they have changed how they operate from years ago.

I did.

There seems to be an issue with excursions showing for Marina cruises that time next year. Some have none, some have part, some have listed but no price and some seem all correct. But….for those ports, check the London to London cruise on 9/10/24 on Marina and those ports do at least list excursions to the locations you noted. So my guess is they are working through the issues. Now my cruise in July on Marina has all excursions listed with pricing, so seems hit and miss at the moment.

Agree! But that doesn’t stop them!! 😃

You are correct on the Wi-Fi and the excursions. Pretty much spot on with the drinks but actually a bit low as gratuity is 20%. Not sure on the beer list. Not to mention it was pretty common to be out of some of the beers they provided in the venues, so not sure how accurate the list is if too far out from sailing.

We were on Vista in May and barely anybody masked. Didn’t notice too much coughing onboard or on excursions. But……the flight home I think there were 3 people close by who I swear coughed nearly non stop the entirety of the 10+ hour flight! Luckily we didn’t come down with anything.

The current wine list by glass shows 5 dessert wines. Good?? No clue here as I don’t drink dessert wines, but according to the wine experts here on CC they have no good wines by the glass! I, on the other hand, found several non dessert wines I was fine with on the list

Maybe log out and get back on. I mean that is what the IT Department always says to do when issues! And darn, that usually works too!

I’m under the Marina section right now and it has a Wine option under the GDR. I am looking at it as I type.

If you go the section for each ship, click on the culinary experiences. Go to the Grand Dining Room and open it up and they have a Wine list. Perhaps under other restaurants also but I just saw it under the GDR on the three ships I checked.

Yes, you can select any of the wines on the Wine By Glass list, approximately 35.

LHT28 indicated above they made an announcement for April 2024. I have not been able to locate the announcement.