nerysj

3 hours ago, Hopo84 said:

Hi there. We are are cruising on the Marella Discovery but will be on the Journey to Arabia 2 cruise from India. I didn't think that we would be picking up passengers in Dubai on the 11th April. To answer your question, we haven't booked any independent trips but https://www.whatsinport.com has some good advice on independent trips.  

Thank you for the information. Have you had any directive as regards visas. From what I gather, it should be the ship arranging a blanket visa for all travellers (not the India portion) Have you heard any different? 

Many thanks 

Anyone else on this cruise?

Thanks for your reply Project_gal .....I was hoping that someone had actually done this already....but perhaps not!!

Thanks again

Nerys:)

If bying OBC in the UK, would I be able to cash out part of this at guest relations at the beginning of the cruise? We have prepaid gratuities, would use some of the bought OBC to pay for wine etc, but would want to cash some $ out for private tours which need to be paid in $

I understand that you can cash out at the casion for a 5% charge, but I am wondering if I can do this at Guest relations without fee?

Many thanks:)

Dear Dubrovniktravelady

We are arriving by Grand Princess (pretty large ship) in Dubrovnik this summer. I am presuming we will be docking in Gruz port. My question is...how far is it from port to Pile Gate...is it 'walkable'...how far would it be...or do we need to resort to transportation?

Many thanks

Nerys

Our sons were in this cabin.....fantastic value! E210 on Emerald deck.

We booked with SPB MANY months in advance and had direct emails from Victoria. As the tourist season got closer, Victoria said she would be hiring assistants to answer email as she would be busy meeting the groups each morning and making sure all is right during the day. If however, her assistants can not answer the question or if there is a problem, then, from my experience, Victoria will respond to email personally even during tourist season.

Perhaps you began your email correspondance after the tourist season began when her assisitants are handling the routine emails.

Ditto....we booked nearly a year in advance, and when the season was quiet, and had many, many emails for Viktoria, but as it approached the busier summer season, her assistants would communicate.

Please don't worry - you're going with a fantastic set up!

One member of our party is a student, and has an ISIC card. For the 2-day St. Petersburg tour, would there be a discount for that individual?

 

Thanks...

Our 2 sons had discounted prices - they were 16 and 15 with SPB last year. Fantastic 2 day tour (also Berlin with SPB)

I'm also looking for pics of E210 and E208..........anyone have any??

Thanks

Hello

In July 2009, I arranged for our roll call (Constellation) a tour for Berlin with SPB. I could go on, and on about how good Viktoria from SPB is, but I am sure you have gathered that from most postings already.

The ONE thing you must realise before arranging any trip to Berlin from Waramunde (be it by private or ship tour) that, yes, it is a long journey, BUT how often will you get the chance to visit Berlin?

Our group consisted of 20 people....all very, very happy with the tour. Our guide was American, married to a Berliner and living in Berlin for the last 16 years. She was incredibly knowledgeable about everything German....all aspects. With any guide.....one of the most important factors is their accent...and I have to profess that the American accent is very easy to understand (I AM WELSH)!!! So, in my opinion having an American guide was a bonus, especially one with an anbundance of facts. She knew her stuff and was very accommodating throughout the tour.

We also did the St Petersburg 2 day tour with SPB...and again this was magical. Our guide Elena was a dream....very accommodating. They are such knowledgeable people.

If you retrace my postings nerysj back to May/June/July '09., you can see my arranged tours for St P I arranged via our roll call for July 25, 2009 Celebrity Constellation. The St P tour was so popular we eventually had 4 or 5 groups of 16 passengers!!! The Berlin tour had approx 20....others wanted to join, but we limited it to this number.

To summarise.......SPB were fantastic for Both Berlin and St Petersburg...both these trips were the highlight of the trip, made even more wonderful by SPB. I have no qualms about recommending SPB as a tour company.

Nerys Jones

North Wales

We have booked 2C 6106 on Constellation (one of the sweet 16s) as our kids are in 6010 (ocean view)and is this closest to their cabin. Having looked at this picture - is this a good choice?? as it seems enclosed. Others to the left look better/less enclosed. Would these be better? We are on a Baltic cruise in July 09.

Many thanks:)

Having done RCI and Princess with our two boys - do you think they will be catered for as well. I presume that there will be less children (not all bad) but what facilities are there for the older kids? We are on Constellation i25 July 09 visiting Scandinavia and Russia. Anyone else going? If so join our roll call?

Many thanks

Lisa..........yet another tip about the conversion!!

I have heard that although people tick the 'box' about RCI NOT converting your on board account.............please double check when you check in...........and also on the last night before you leave. Finding out after you've left the ship is too late. Ours was ok, but just in case?

You know it makes sense!!

Regards from your friendly financial advisor!!!:p:p:p

Lisa ..............I see you're sailing 28th August .....no time for an Abbey Zero card!! I did mention this card on CC months ago......you probably missed it!!! we've only been back a few days.......we already have the CC bill!! Hey ho!!

Nerys:)

Nerysj

 

That info is much appreciated - very helpful.

 

We have a Nationwide credit card and I believe there is no charge (or a small fee) for withdrawing money, so thanks for that great piece of advice.

 

I forgot to ask one thing - the letter recently received re MTD encourages that reservations are made via RCI no longer than a week before sailing. If we do go for this option, would you recommend this? I was hoping to make the arrangement once on board, but if this may prove to be risky, will book our timeslot(s) ahead.

 

sorry- and another question please - (I am on a real roll now!). We are pre-paying our gratuities, but would like to leave tips for crew members and the cabin steward - will they be happy with payment in Euros??

 

 

thanks again

Lisa

Hi Lisa

We also have a Nationwide CC ..........ALWAYS use that to pay at the end of the cruise...........I hope you have registered it as your method of payment at the end of the cruise. PLEASE make sure that you tick the box on the online Setsail Pass that you DO NOT want RCI to convert your onboard account to GBP for you...........otherwise you will loose your 0% CC conversion fee. RCI will charge 3% for the honour!!! Henny Penny (Sue) is also right in saying that cash withdrawals will incur a charge. When are you going? Have you got time to aply for an Abbey Zero C card? It took my DH 2 weeks!! On my advice of course!!!

MTD

We were contacted several times in order to make a standing reservation for the same time every night - and as I pointed out to them, this did rather defeat the object of 'My Time Dining' ........it would therefore be 'I've set a fixed time dining'!!!! As I mentioned previously, turning up without reservation (as you are perectly entitled to) worked for us as a group of 4, but I have my reservations (excuse the pun) that you would have as much luck in securing a table for 7 without delay. I may well be wrong, but I have a hunch?

I think Euros would be OK, but I would think perhaps that dollars might be their preferance? As I said you could withdraw dollars from the casino's cashier in order to pay the staff - without charge. The pound has considerably weakened agains the dollar in the last few days.......bad news for those going away just now on US ships. Typical!!

Hope this helps.

Nerys:confused:

Hi all

 

Sorry if this has been covered before, but could you help with a few questions please?

 

We will be taking credit cards, but would like to know what money/ currency you took with you? We are doing Gibraltar/Barcelona/Lisbon/Vigo.........

 

Is it best to take a few Euros? Can you withdraw cash from the Casino? Was it a fair ex rate on board?

 

We are also debating about the My Time Dining.......I have read some reports on this thread and they all seem to be positive - any further comments about that would be helpful too.........we will be a party of 7.

 

Thanks Nerys for the tip about the power strip - that will be going in the case :D

 

thanks all

Lisa

You will not need dollars - only if you are going to spend money in the casino (if so go to the cashier in the casino and you can withdraw money on your sea pass) NO CHARGE. Don't use the onboard ATMs as they are not a good exchange rate. If you don't have any Euros now, then I would get a few before going, but the best way/cheapest is to withdraw from an ATM at the first port of call. We had an Abbey Credit card - which does not charge ANY fees for withdrawing cash. If you have time - get one!Your bank card will charge about £3 per withdrawal, so take out as much cash as you are happy with and keep it in your safe, otherwise you will be charged for multiple withdrawals.

MTD ...........worked well for us - 2 adults & 2 teenagers. As you are a party of seven, I am not sure if the system will work quite as well. If you make reservations for the whole 2 weeks for a designated time, then it will probably work well. We turned up between 7.00 and 7.30pm nightly and were seated imediately, I am unsure if you would be so easily seated with seven....I might be wrong? Service was always good.

Hope this helps??

We took an extension strip (multi point) and it was really handy. One tip, if you are not taking one, many of our plugs would not fit into the ones in situ, both 220/110v as they were too low against the vanity mirror and would not accommodate the plug. My straighteners would have been useless without the multi point. A word of warning to all the ladies out there!!!:p

The food debate is always subjective. All I can do is compare it with Princess last year, which was like eating out at a four star restaurant every night!

The steak debate ..........one steak I had was mostly grizzle..........for which the server kindly apologised, when she presumed (having seen that I had left most of it) that it was definitely not up to standard.

The staff were very good at dinner - very friendly and accommodating. It is just that it was not on a par with Princess. Perhaps our next visit on Princess would not be as good? Perhaps it varies from ship to ship within the same company? I will have t find out!

The promenade cafe was wonderful.. ....24 hours of sandwiches and cakes!!:)

Hi Lauram

 

I was wondering since you have been on the ship recently if you could tell us what tier of the restaurant they used for My time dining. Our interest in this is because we are back on board in September and would have liked to have the same table and waiters that we had in May, but this may not be possible now.

They used the top tier................King Lear for MTD. You can if you wish book the same time every night, and that should mean the same waiter every night. This was the first sailing for the IOS with MTD, and it did have a few teething problems at the start. All was good by the end. The food was hit and miss..........sometimes good and sometimes lnot so good. Unfortunately, the food was not up to par with Princess Cruises that we were on last year. But, we didn't starve!!!

The Windjammer offered a variety of very tasty food (especially the curries) but was almost always jam packed and difficult to find tables.

Hope this info helps.:)

Welcome home to everybody from the July 26th sailing on IOS!!

I think a good time was had by all. I will do a full review tomorrow after post cruise blues have cleared (slightly)!!

Laura, Catrin, Sue, Phil, Gail and Amy..........it was lovely to meet you all. Hope the journeys back to the US were uneventful.

Skovggard.......Suzanne, I managed to polish off the wine..........it was hard work, but well worth it!! The wine package worked out a treat. I highly recommend the Pinot Grigio!!

Off for some beauty sleep (boy do I need it)!!

Regards to all

Nerys xx:)

We were on the 21st May cruise on Indy and, like others, we cannot believe that some of the posters here were talking about the same cruise. For us the food was excellent, best we've had on RCCI because it had flavour! Taste is always subjective, but the variety and quality of dishes in the Windjammer at lunch and in the dining room in the evening was very good, with perhaps the exception of one evening in the dining room. It was definitely better than Infinity, whose food made us determined not to go on an M class ship again (Galaxy and Century were much better than Infinity). AND our waiter (Elena) managed to produce real English mustard when we asked, not the squirty sauce that goes on hot dogs.

 

Given that the kitchens produce 2,000 meals twice an evening I believe that the quality is pretty good. Not the Ritz, but then again we paid the equivalent of $250 for a dinner for two in a London restaurant this week and Independence compared very favourably. That restaurant had a water view too, but when we woke up next morning we were still in the same place as when we'd gone to bed.......

 

Vortigern

Great to hear some positive thoughts on RCI food. Having not travelled with RCI before I was getting slightly worried about all the negative posts! As you say - it's all subjective.

Thanks for your perspective.:):)

I have a favour to ask.....:o

 

If anyone is sailing on the Indy soon, would you be kind enough to save all the daily compasses and scan them and email them to me when you return from your cruise? Or even better - if there is anyone who doesnt want to keep the compasses as keepsakes and would be willing to post (snail mail) them that would be fantastic :D

If someone is 'in the know' as how to scan & post, they could possibly post on here and we could all print them at home? I would also be interested if anyone could post on here the Mediterranean Treasures cruise dining room menu.

Many thanks:p:p

You would have thought so wouldn't you. Definitely a lesson learnt and it's the last business this particular TA gets from me.

I'm on a bit of a learning curve here...........so if you book through a TA (as I have, here in the UK) and I have had quite a bit off the RCI brochure price, where would I find a reduced price (if there was one) Unlikely on our 26th July cruise, but I am just curious?!!

Gixer............we are on the Independence 26 July to the Med and we have booked early - simply because 8.30-8.45pm is too late. A nice compromise would be 7.15pm!! It's a pitty the don't introduce My Time dining in one of the dining levels for those of us who would prefer to be more flexible? A very subjective topic I know, but last year on Princess, we thought it was marvellous. We are travelling with two teenagers 15 and 14 (boys)

Not sure if this helps!:p:confused:

Thanks guys. Think we will go for the credit card conversion.... Also, good idea about Nationwide Credit Card. I have a Nationwide flex account so may apply for a nationwide credit card too. Hope theres time.....

 

(Doesnt she look beautiful:D )

Getting a card is a breeze ........apply now, It'll take a couple of weeks max!

Good luck.