nho9504

You make a point. My worry is not catching the 9:45 National Express Bus. Missing that the next bus is not until 11:45. Definitely not able to make the 13:25 BA flight.

London public transit system is Very Safe. Tube is the best option in my opinion. If you stay at London for a few days, better learn on how to use Tube and bus, the latter with the double decker is very very good for casual sightseeing. We often just use it to aimlessly going around since we have been in London many times, no need to do any sightseeing, just revisit our favorite places. Last November our flight from Cairo arrived LHR after 10pm. After consulting with our hotel at Vauxhall station and frequent flyer forum Flyer Talk, everybody told us to just take the tube from T5, Piccadilly Line to Greenpark station, then change to Victoria line to the end terminal Vauxhall. From there we would need to make a 7 to 10min walk either on the road or through a community garden to reach the hotel. Well, when we emerged from the tube well passed 11pm, the street were Full Of People! The surrounding environment has changed somewhat with new building so at first we did not find our bearing towards the entrance of community garden. A kind young lad led us to the zebra crossing, pointing the other side - That is the beginning of the path. Total costs? about 6 GBP per person. But if you are willing to shell out big bugs for peach of mind, that is fine too. Though I honestly think you are way over cautious.

Before Covid we passed Zeebrugge at least 3 times. On EACH Time, there was local tour company set up booths on the main road that you walk from the pier to get to - selling round trip coach tickets to Bruges for about 20 euro per person. Very frequent coach services on both ends. There are plenty of people looking for sharing a taxi on the ship when it was a day or two arriving Zeebrugge.

The contactless Tap On Tap Off payment is CAPPED. It will never go over the daily maximum as using Oyster card. You can read all that on the Transit system website. In fact, your bank card is NOT charged until 4am next morning, so the system can tally up your total cost, then only charge you the lower of usage or daily cap. No transaction fee, and if your card has no foreign transaction fee, there is ZERO fee to use the contactless credit card. A HUGE improvement for we who come from US! Very very convenient, no need to buy any ticket in advance, works on ALL public transportation modes, from train to metro to bus to even the expensive ferry.

The last time we did that was several years ago. We took a taxi to the National Express coach station for a bus to LHR leaving after 9am, and we still had over 30 min wait at the bus station where there were very few seating. Relatives were to Victoria London and they bought the bus leaving after 11am fearing not enough time to catch the bus. They could not exchange their tickets to earlier time so had to wait almost 3 hours for their bus to London. We plan to take the Sky Transatlantic to Southampton. Disembarkation time on Princess website is 7am. I am trying to figure if it is enough time to catch the 09:45am bus, arriving LHR at 11:30 so to catch the BA flight at 13:25 to MAD. Or to be on the safe side, use the BA flight leaving at 15:00 instead. In that case I might have to get the business class even though it is only a 2.30hr flight, so we could have lounge access to kill a couple hours wait time. (redeeming Avios so is 11750 vs 20000 only 8250 Avios difference. Tax and fees are the same at $1 (the benefit of flat fee benefit which name I forgot). Econ You can select when paying 11000 Avios + $ 11.00 9750 Avios + $ 21.00 7250 Avios + $ 31.00 4650 Avios + $ 61.00 2900 Avios + $ 76.00 Biz You can select when paying 19250 Avios + $ 11.00 15000 Avios + $ 36.00 13500 Avios + $ 51.00 10000 Avios + $ 106.00 8000 Avios + $ 136.00 Opinions welcome! Thanks!

We will disembark from HAL transatlantic at Civitavecchia on Apr 29. Have booked a Europcar for 7 days pick up at Civitavecchia location at 10am. HAL schedule shows arrive at 7am, I thought it is kinda late. To be on the safe side I booked the rental car to pick up at 10am, as the office only opens at 9am. My confusion stems from what is the transportation options now at the port? Europcar location on Via Tarquinia 19/27 from Google Map is right on the other side of the Fermata Bus Navetta Civitavecchia, the port shuttle terminal. The Avis and Budget are also nearby. So the ideal situation for us would be there is a shuttle from the shipside goes to this shuttle terminal, then we just walk over to Europcar.

Agree, the "better location" often is nonsense to us. You can put "Do Not Upgrade" on your booking. When we have a desirable cabin (larger size in the same category, or very little obstructed view, etc) we put that notation on our booking. For the upcoming cruise, the Lady of Luck does not smile at us... We got what we booked for, at the Forward - it is a blessing in disguise because it would mean we would walk the whole length of the ship minimum 6 times a day on 21 days - good way to make sure we have enough exercises! :)

Never expect an upgrade. I just want to let @dianeh know sometimes you get lucky booking a guarantee but in certain situation such as an obstructed view is a possibility, better not to book a guarantee. What is your problem, that you do not agree with such?

If an obstructed view is possible I generally would not book a guarantee. About good luck on booking guarantee, we once received an upgrade from an inside to an obstructed balcony - what was obstructed was the elevator bank's wall is totally blocking one side of the balcony's view. Of course we had no issue with such upgrade, LOL. Another time on Regal Princess we were also upgraded from an inside to a regular balcony. My agent called me, "What have you done? You got a Very Nice Upgrade!" Well, I did not do anything and was not aware of the upgrade until she called. Far more often though, so-called upgrades are just better locations nothing more. Though we have not had anything that is worse than what we are promised when booking a guarantee. I feel it is a fair game, a chance worth to take.

Oh, our agent forwarded a notification that our check in time has changed - now it is 2pm at Port Everglades. The ship departure is at 3pm... Though I have read that the assigned check in time is not necessarily enforced, i.e. most people arrive earlier than their assigned time. Sadly being only a 3 Mariner, there is literally zero benefit on HAL. Our cruise agent said HAL gives nothing to most, being loyal to it does not pay... That is from our agent's own words. LOL.

Where do you actually see the cabin number on HAL website? We have not cruised HAL since 2014, while we cruised with Princess and Royal Caribbean up till 2020 massive cancellation. I notice that HAL does not even have a tab called Travel Summary or that sort like Princess has. There is no where I could see the cruise details only when the Itinerary tab occasionally works but most of time it does not react despite I click on it. Our Apr 9 to 29 on Nieuw Statendom seems sold out but we still have not had any assignment, nor our agent said no Move Over call so far.

Just checked some estimates online - taxi fare from Livorno port to train station usually runs 25 euro but the taxi drivers often try to sell you a longer tour, or inflate the fare... Need to negotiate hard I guess. Bus to Livorno center is 1.2 euro https://www.iqcruising.com/ports/europe/italy/livorno/basics/train.html

Actually the idea of cruising with the luxury lines is a good one because many items are included in the fare. A friend was asking me a self-driving to see the D Day beaches on their Seabourn 12 days cruise that are visiting historic sites on the northern coast. It is a Veranda Suite at $6200 pp, with no tipping, all drinks included, wifi is free, and some other things I forgot, also included in the fare. I suspect if you book similar cabin size on HAL and pay the "have it all" packages, your cost would not be much less than the Seabourn but the things you get from HAL would most likely several grades below Seabourn. Before the Pandemic I was looking at Seabourn's repositioning cruise from Florida to South America then back and onto Europe, 30+ days for less than $7000, with almost $2000 taxes - the per day cost was still not bad. Then Pandemic hit...

@Hlitner I only ask the questions how the shuttle situation is - be it free or pay I do not care. My goal is to find out if there is a shuttle or the port authority provided a bus (which happened at least 2 times in the past and I was pleasantly surprised by such amenity!), so we can get to Livorno town proper. From where we take the train to Florence S.M.N. station - the main station at Florence - for the purpose to check out the surrounding streets and the ZTL situation - so that we we much later at the end of self-driving land trip, returning the car to Florence we know how to avoid ZTL. Thank you for bringing up the shared taxi idea. Now I remember we have done this back in 2008... It was the year we took our neighbors to do a Fall Transatlantic on Princess, a total of 4 couples (the other 2 couples just joined us) find a minivan at the pier to head to the Livorno train station. Once we were all onboard the driver suggested he could do a "private tour" to Pisa and to Florence. The per person cost was very reasonable and we, our neighbors and another young couple agreed to take the deal but the 4th, older couple thought they were ripped off by that and insisted to just go to the train station... I will keep this in mind and see how this might work. HAL has Florence on your own type of excursion (8 hours - and we definitely dont need this much time as we do not plan to sightsee Florence) that costs $139.99 per person. I feel that is much more than what we would spend even including a taxi ride to Livorno train station and back. Train tickets are very cheap.

The very last time when we were at Livorno we did not even bother to head out (been at this port many many times) and just stayed at the terminal to use free wifi for catching up. However I do remember each line operates differently, most provide shuttle either free or $5 ticket something like that. Though at least one or two times the port actually operated a free bus but there was a distance to walk to the bus station from the docking pier. Anyone has any knowledge on this? We plan to take a train to Florence, not for sightseeing (been in Florence many times also) but to take an actual look of the area of Florence S.M.N. station because after finishing our Tuscany land trip we will need to return our rental cat to a garage near the station. I would like to check out the location with this opportunity so not get into trouble with the ZTL and then incur large fine.

Thank you thank you. Keep your experiences coming. Even before the March 1st price increases (never saw such a warning when it was still the old price which as mentioned, still a gauging pricing to me.) I feel with our very sparing usage of internet and the first week being Transatlantic, we probably do not need to buy the package. Once we hit ports, a few euro can get all the wifi you may need... After reading the inputs it does seem we do not need to do this internet purchase especially all we need is not to miss changes on our land trip arrangement after getting off the ship. We have an EasyJet flight MXP-AMS on May 11th. EasyJet allows check in 30 days before flight. Too bad that would be Day 3 on the voyage. Bigger concern is if EasyJet would change schedule or cancel flight - that would be one of the reasons we need to check our emails periodically. The flights returning to US are on LH and UA on a UA award. It is on May 16th. I doubt anything would happen on those, except if we have internet access I could check if better routes become available - this is already the 4th change on the itinerary - each for a slightly better routing / schedule. UA does not charge for changing / cancelling an award booking, so we can keep optimizing it as new availability shows up.

Thanks for the inputs. Right now the only plan available to purchase online for our voyage is a Premium Pkan for $299.99 as 21 to 25 days voyage. 2 weeks ago it was at $239.99 which I already felt it was expensive comparing we paid $75 for 15 days Transatlantic on Regal Princess last Nov ($10 a day preboarding pricing with 50% elite discount). I think I would pass the HAL’s gauging internet pricing especially the dump classification they used, more sites versus higher speed which is far more important to most users. I prefer to use iPad versus Smart Phone for online stuff as tablet screen is much larger than phone screen, much friendly to the eyes and easier to type on the virtual keyboard. Though I would think about the Orange SIM option. My phone does not support eSIM therefore need to use husband’s phone to do the swap as my phone’s number is tied to all secondary authentication settings. As long as there is wifi, my phone can receive text messages from US or anywhere in the world. That is why I think spending a few euro at a cafe for Wi-Fi access is much cheaper than paying HAL for the rip off internet pricing.

Hi We will be on Neuw Statendam Apr 8 to 29 for 14 days Transatlantic + 7 days Europe cruise. Booked in late Feb when HAL offered Mariner discounts on the sailing, as a mean to go to Europe versus flying. (Cheaper than a business class ticket if only the Transatlantic portion, though the add-on 7 days in the French and Italian coasts have made the itinerary no longer a bargain. LOL). I did the online check in this afternoon. On every single area, after I finished and saved/continue to next tab, the site would give me an ERROR message, declaring something is incorrect in the "Occupation" box - OTHER. Yet there is no such box to fill in, plus every tab generated this same error. On top of that, each tab after I filled out the information, turned from a Red exclamation mark symbol to a Green tick mark symbol. What the hell is the HAL site behaving?! It is even buggier than the infamous Princess site that kept pushing you to use Medallion... I have not download the Navigator App yet. Seems not much use of it except for making dining reservation, given shows on HAL's ships are pathetic. The premium internet package is rather expensive at almost $300. It lumps 21 days to 25 days together. A month or more ago I saw it was $240 that was already too expensive for my liking. Unlike Princess or Royal Caribbeans, HAL does not offer breaks for higher tier loyalty members. We do not need internet access everyday, except periodically check emails and travel arrangements post cruise. On top of that during the 7 days Transatlantic portion, my experiences on many of such voyages in the past, internet access was very iffy. Once we start seeing the land, far more often than not, there would be wifi access on land, I remember many years ago Cadiz already had internet cafe with terminals to use at like 2 euro for the first hour and then 1 euro for subsequent hour... Almost all ports the Cafes on land usually provide wifi access. The bigger ports like Livorno has strong free wifi at terminal building. I once spent a good part of the day to use the wifi there cleaning up email accounts and took care some stuff. (Been passing thru Livorno at least 10 or more times, no need to go visit the usual shore excursion places) My husband said that should be more than enough to suit our needs. My inclination is not to buy the internet package but just do the pay as needed - does HAL have day pass? Or only the blocks of time to purchase? Do they usually have sale on internet service on the first couple days of the voyage, and then periodically offer such during the voyage? Sorry for these questions as the last time we sailed HAL was 2015. We are more Princess passengers mixed with some Royal Caribbeans and Celebrity. IIRC HAL once partnered with NYT and in the Explorer Lounge, NYT site was free to access and hardly anybody used it. We spent some time reading the digital version of the newspaper and quite enjoyed some featured articles. Is NYT still available for free access? If this not the case any more, that would be one MINUS factor for us to sail HAL again. Thank you for those who provide information.

It is gone. Enough people have added the offer that reached its allotment. I saw it available on each of our Business Blue Plus, not on any personal card. Did not add it cause we would want to sail on Royal Caribbean's new ships next year. Upon seeing this thread, went back to check, thinking about just adding it but may not use it - they were gone from both cards... About the OBC purchases - in the past it worked but the languages in the T&Cs of this offer is extensively detailed and restrictive, unlike any of the previous AMEX offers (the old under Carnival's umbrella, or the specific ones under each brand that started to pop up last year). So dont be surprised if purchasing OBC turns out not working,

I dont understand why the Medallion App does not recognize log in credentials which work perfectly fine on Princess website. On Medallion App I can log in with booking number but I cannot log in with email address / passwords on either my or my husband's account. However both credentials work perfectly fine on Princess website. Anyone can provide possible reasons?

Based on my experiences, I would suggest doing everything on the Web that is possible - from passenger profile to making dining reservation. Then go to the App to upload your picture and vaccination records. It is much easier than doing all on the App which quite often load very slowly and error out. Now I am trying to buy the internet on the App due to the elite discount. The app would not use the CC on file because I use my husband's CC to cover both our accounts. The App wants me to add a new CC if I were to buy the internet under my own profile, DESPITE it also tells me another passenger's CC is in file to cover all shipboard charges for both passengers... I guess it does not matter the purchase is under whose account? We both are elites so the price does not differ. On the one device plan, it only means you can use a single device at any given time, and if you switch device you need to log out first, then log in with a different device? Do I understand it correctly?

Do the Dine My Way reservations actually work? I have serious doubt on it. I booked every night. within a 20 min window between 7:00 and 7:20 because I want to be at Concerto and not Allegro because that location is super annoying, also to ensure we have "private" table. I guess that means you would be at Table of Two if only 2 persons, and Table of Four if you have 3 or 4 persons, when opted for Private Table.

Here is something new - both good and bad. I went to the phone app. This time no need to log in, the app automatically display the cruise and the info I put in thru the Web Version, but ONLY I am in it. Went to download the app to my husband's phone, thinking once he logs in the account, his Ocean Ready would also auto-populated because online it is all done for both person, and his credit card takes care both account. Nope, the app gave unrecognized credentials error. Just like yesterday on mine. He can use the Booking Number to gain access. But that is CRAZY!

I dont know how to create a photo with both the front and back - it is not like making a photocopy that you can do one then put the other side on the paper then do another copy. They can see the paper card at the pier if they need to.

One more thing to add - It is much easier to access web-version of Medallion app, thru that little blue box. It loads in reasonable time. However after I logged out and decided to log back in, it gave me the Ocean Ready screen - that took forever and ever and still with the dreaded circle. After 2+ min still only the circle churning I shut it down. I dont know what is in Princess management's mind to insist on this crap. RCL's app is a breeze to use and they do not have this crazy RFID device. Their profits still surpass Carnival's. Give the customers something that is efficient and easy to use, not something you need a hundreds and hundreds pages online discussion to figure how to jump thru hoops. The ONLY thing it seems Princess still is keeping her customers, is the pricing. That is not the right way to run a profitable business long term.