donaldsc

Or perhaps there is a good chance that you might miss your connected flight in Atlanta even though you were supposed to have 3 1/2 hours layover time in Atlanta so you call your TA while sitting on the runway in Las Vegas and ask her to find and hold alternative flights just in case - and she does. DON

Thanks. I logged onto the Viking site today at 8:00 PM (seems a strange time to make Viking restaurant reservations) and got a message for both Chef's Table and Manfredi's and I got a "can't make reservations at this time" message. Now I get a "We're sorry, but our site is currently undergoing maintenance" message. I guess that the site crashed. DON

Will the menus for the Chef's Table dinners on our cruise be available before we board. If not will they be available on embarkation day? DON

I love being in a small town on 4 July. On our last AK trip we were in Wrangell on 4 July. It seemed as if half the town was in the parade and the other half was on the sidewalk watching the parade. Sitka is a bit bigger than Wrangell but it still should be good. DON

I did a cruise once to S. Georgia Island which started at Ushuaia. One of the people on board forgot the charger for his camera batteries and he did not bring a spare camera. The photo store at Ushuaia did not have the proper charger and there are obviously no stores on S. Georgia. He decided not to buy a new camera in Ushuaia and his camera was a common type so he hoped that someone on board would have a camera that used the same type of batteries. He lucked out on that but he came very close to no S. Georgia pictures. DON

Another post said that the problem was a rogue wave and there was no zodiac explosion. I don't see how they could pump up a zodiac enough so it could explode anyway. DON

Also Rome, Paris, Berlin and probably a bunch of other ports that I can't think of at the moment. Before you book a cruise you should always find out where they are really docking and check it out on Google Maps. DON

I am reasonably sure that the referenced response was a joke. DON

It isn't clear if you are looking for actual walking tours, maps of cities or sites that recommend walking tours. If the 1st you can go on line and download or purchase and download tours which take you on city or site walks. They tell you where to go and what you are seeing when you get there. Google is your friend here. DON

You are right - posting TA names on CC is not an option. You will be reported and your post will be removed. The way we found ours was that we have a friend who does lots of cruising and the recommended that we call her. The rest is history. Word of mouth is the best way to find a good TA. DON

Cruise line booking is OK until you have issues. Then you have real problems I will be brief about this as I have told the story recently on other threads. We had flights booked from Las Vegas through Atlanta to Athens. We had 3 1/2 hours layover in Atlanta which should have been plenty of time except for major weather delays in Vegas so there was a good chance that we would miss our Atlanta connection. We texted our TA while sitting on the plane waiting to take off. She texted back that she would make alternative flight reservations and to check into her when we landed. We did make the flight but she also had alternative flight on hold just in case. Do you think that you would get this sort of service from RC? This sort of service is more important to us than saving a few bucks by booking with a TA although the few bucks is nice. DON

We have a DV4 category cabin. We logged onto the Viking site 2 seconds have the tours were opened. We got all the tours that we wanted. If we had waited 5 minutes some of them were booked. When did the OP log on? DON

Took me 5 minutes to find this on the internet when I typed "Is a Passport Card accepted for Panama". "How to Enter Panama Do I need a passport or visa to enter? U.S. citizens traveling by air, road, or sea must present a valid passport when entering or departing Panama. U.S. citizens departing or re-entering the United States must likewise present a valid passport. Complete information on how to obtain a U.S. passport is available on the Passport Information page at travel.state.gov or by calling 1-877-4USA-PPT (1-877-487-2778). Panamanian law requires that U.S. citizen travelers present a passport that has a remaining validity of at least three months or a passport with a Panamanian visa, and the visa has a remaining validity of at least six months." DON

What are planning to do on the balcony that requires total privacy? DON

Here we go again. Yet another "tipping thread". They are automatically getting a 15% tip even if you do not want to give them more. You can't even stop them from getting the 15% which is outrageous if they just pour you a coke or a beer. I would suggest that the moderator kill this one before it gets out of control. DON

They don't have to be close. My TA is in Ohio and I live in Nevada. Calls and computers make all things possible. DON

I am now going through my Global Entry renewal process. I got approved really quickly but scheduling a required interview either in person or on Zoom is ridiculous. I can't get one for months either on site in Las Vegas or Denver or on a Zoom site. Luckily they are extending it for 24 months so my old one will work. What sort of delays are other people seeing. DON

I will suggest what I do for everyone else - find a good responsive TA and dump the problem in their lap. DON

I am 81 and my wife is 79. We did two train trips in Europe recently which were our first European train trips . One from Charles de Gaulle to Lyon (1st class) and one from Avignon to Charles de Gaulle (2nd class). Everything that everyone has said is true. It was frustrating. It was hard to figure out where your car was going to stop. The train was crowded. The luggage issues that have been mentioned are true. We had to argue with someone who was in our reserved seat. Also since we were in France where nobody will admit that they speak some English (at least some of the French people must speak some English) so we couldn't ask anyone a question. I guess that the last sentence is a bit of an exaggeration since we always eventually found someone who would help us. That said - we did get on our trains. The trains were fast and comfortable. We got to our destinations. Our bags were not stolen. Our pickup points and drop-off points were in a city center and not far away at an airport. In fact since we were leaving from Charles de Gaulle and returning to the same airport the train station was actually at the airport. No security checks and we did not have to get to the train station 1 1/2 hours before the train left. It was an interesting experience. Would I do it again - maybe depending upon the circumstances. Who knows. BTW - Cruisemom42 made a comment about 2 wheel bags versus 4 wheel rollers. I agree w her completely. I have a 2 wheel bag. My wife has a 4 wheeler which I hate. The problem is that most of the bags they sell today are 4 wheelers as they have convinced people that they are better than the 2 wheelers. DON

Although this will not help your current problem but this is one more reason to book with a good TA. We have been using our really good TA for years now. I would only have had to call her with the question you are posing and she would have sorted it out. This is an example of what a good TA can do for you. We had a recent trip that started in Athens so we had to fly from Las Vegas to Athens. We had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Atlanta which should have been plenty of time but for reasons that are unimportant it looked as if we might not make it. We called her while we were waiting on the plane and asked her if she could find some alternative flights just in case. She did and had the new flights held if we had to use them. Turned out that we did make it to Atlanta in time so the new flights were cancelled. But if we had not made our scheduled flight we would have gotten to Athens in time to make our cruise with the new flights. Most of the time this problem would never occur but when you travel or when you are making arrangements to travel stuff sometimes happens. To me this is more important than the few bucks or the few perks that you can save by either doing it yourself or using a discount agency.

There is a real advantage that most people do not think about in going on a private tour of Israel that is much longer than 2 days with a maximum group size of 10 - 15 people and of mixed faith. That is that you get to experience how people who are not of your faith view and appreciate Israel. We are Jewish. We did a small group tour with maybe 12 people of different faiths using a minivan for transportation so we could get into places that a large tour bus could not. This was not planned as a mixed faith tour but that was how it turned out. It was fascinating how people of faiths other than your own reacted to visiting sites that you would never think of as important and seeing it from their viewpoint. There was one woman who really wanted to visit a place that we had not planned in advance to visit. It was really important to her and the guide said that she could make it happen if the rest of the group agreed which we did. It was an interesting place to visit but the most interesting part was how ecstatic the woman was to be there. It was probably the high point in her life. They also slightly modified the tour for us. We wanted to buy a specific piece of Judaica and asked the guide if she could take us to place where we could get it. She took us to a small shop where we got exactly what we wanted. We also got to tour the owner's workshop and have coffee and cake with the owner. One more thing. For almost every meal that we had we were the only tour group in the restaurant. We were eating with the locals and not with other tour groups. We also did not have to plan in advance for exactly where we stopped for meals. The guide would just have the van stop and she would check out the restaurant and ask if they could handle a group of 15 people. How much of this would you get on a 2 day tour on a 40 passenger bus? DON

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You might want to repost on the Antarctica board. DON

Libraries do not generate any revenue. Would you really expect them to have them. Azamara used to have a wonderful library on board w comfy chairs to sit in and also jig saw puzzle tables. When they did the renovation of their latest ship they replaced the library w yet another bar. I guess that a ship can never have enough bars. Thank god for Kindles. DON

Any time you book your pre-cruise stay with the cruise line you are being royally sc**ed. I checked that rate by logging onto the hotel WEB site. It took me all of 5 minutes to make a test reservation. You are being overcharged by $584. You might being robbed by Princess but I wouldn't. DON