rool

I did a bit more research. If you type in Giusfredo Santini the following option should appear

I don't want to come across stalky 😁 but by pure coincidence I just this minute had an email from booking.com taxi that quoted €60 for us from GRU direct to our hotel in Santos.

I ran your dates for 2 people in a standard taxi and it returned a price of €74 from port to airport. It can be cancelled up to 2 days prior.

I have to say I am tempted by that.

15 minutes ago, travelberlin said:

The bus station in Santos is not at the port. You will need to take a taxi from the port to the bus station. Another possibility is to take a taxi directly to the airport. It costs more but it is more convenient.

This is true and what I did last December on my arrival in Brazil but it cost R$400 which was around €100 at the time.

I appreciate everyone has different priorities and convenience over cost can be worth more to some.

You pays your money and takes your choice 😉

Edit to add that the R$400 was for a Mercedes 7 seater with 4 people and a lot of luggage as we were moving to Brazil so I wouldn't have considered the bus at that time.

This is the bus company direct:-

Search Santos Bus Station to Guarulhos all and put the date in.

The service appears to run hourly.

https://passagemcometa.com.br/deonibus/passagens

Good luck

Hi Toby

I have been looking at the reverse situation as I will be travelling from GRU to Santos on a repositioning cruise next March.

From what I can see the buses are frequent and cheap. About R$31 per person. I live in Brazil and the buses are reliable, comfortable and very affordable.

The company I am looking at is Cometa bus which appears to have a frequent service during the day. It doesn't have schedules more than two months in advance though.

I'll try to find a link for you in the next day or so.

Regards

Just to add we were on the Navigator sailing which was in St Petersburg on 9 & 10 June.

I too was watching closely the situation prior to sailing and had read that those travelling on Brilliance a week or so earlier didn't appear to have the issues we had.

It may just be a Navigator issue but it's a heads up anyway.

If you are not on a ship tour be prepared for a battle to be let off on day one.

This was ours and many others experience on Navigator in St Petersburg.

You will be bombarded with information and surveys prior to the first day asking about your arrangements etc. You will be told that the ship's tours must be disembarked first due to local laws and that other tours can only leave 90 minutes after docking. We were advised by Alla Tours that this, in fact, is only the case if there are 5 or more cruise ships in port and that here were only four on the day we arrived.

After reading on here the way to go is to just present yourself at the gangway and you'll be let through I just wanted to warn that it might not be the case.

Our tour was at 08:30 so we confidently went down to the gangway at 07:45 only to be met by RCL staff telling us we must go to Studio B and wait to be led off the ship. so we went up to Studio B where 2 officials were waiting at the entrance.

We were asked if we had a visa. I explained we don't require a visa as we have a tour ticket which is in fact our visa as stated in the previous days Cruise Compass. 'Oh, oh, I don't know about that I'll have to make a phone call' said one of the officials.

After 2 minutes another official came along, looked at our passports and Alla Tour tickets and told me we required an official document to leave the ship. I told them the tour ticket is our official document and that they didn't know what they were doing.

After a few minutes and getting very agitated with them they told us to go into the studio and wait with group 1. This was at 8am already.

When we got to group one there was already some people arguing with the RCL official in charge of leading group 1 off the ship. we were then told that we may as well sit down because we won't be going off the ship for 40 minutes at least anyway. At that point there was almost mutiny.

After she then went away to talk to another official she was told she could lead us off the ship straight away and we did manage to make our tour on time. Others didn't as it was taking approximately 3 minutes for immigration to pass each person.

After talking to many others over dinner that night the feeling was that this was all to inconvenience non ship tours as much as possible and the stress of the whole situation was totally avoidable.

Everyone was tense about day 2 but it was a completely different experience and we were let off the ship without challenge.

Most of the information on the Europe boards for this port are quite old. I hope some people who have been there in the past couple of years can give me some information. There is nothing listed for shore excursions yet for the BR TA next May. I have no interest in seeing the Waterford factory. But am interested in castles, countryside and daily Irish life.

I believe the Waterford Crystal factory closed a few years ago.

If you are considering hiring a car you can get to these places fairly easily.

Sent from my SM-J710F using Forums mobile app

*cough* erm, excuse me, do you know where erm, the err friends of cruisecritic meetings are held?

Sent from my SM-J710F using Forums mobile app

This is a charter cruise. Back to the 80s. The music is fantastic. The entertainment is being organized by the charter company.

It’s a different experience to a ‘normal’ cruise.

The ship and crew are great.

You will have a great time. Enjoy your cruise.

 

Cheers!

Sounds fantastic, just my age group too. I was wondering what kind of charter it was and was thinking maybe one of the alternative lifestyle ones that happens on Navigator occasionally.

Enjoy the rest of yours too. So looking forward to going.

Be thankful you weren't lathered up in the shower when the water went off. :rolleyes:

Sent from my SM-J710F using Forums mobile app

Goodtime are you still there?... Been following along because we are in GS 1600 on the 28th. Really enjoying you port tips.

Sent from my SM-J710F using Forums mobile app

Hope it get's sorted for you soon but apart from the water issue how's everything else on Navigator?

We're on from 3 June.

Many thanks in advance.

Sent from my SM-J710F using Forums mobile app

Thanks for your posts, we are on Navigator on 3 June for a Baltic cruise so watching closely with interest.

Interested whether you have ship or private tours in St Petersburg and particularly interested in whether there are any delays in getting off the ship for those on the private tours.

I booked my upcoming Navigator cruise on the Uk site with no issues at all. I just paid online using my Irish debit card.

Irish residents seem to be hit way and beyond exchange rate differences at the moment. I have recently booked an MSC cruise via the UK as the cost via MSC Ireland was almost €950 more for 2 adults on the same cruise which works out at 45% more.

It's called rip off Ireland for a good reason.

Hi bit late to the thread but returned from neoRomantica last Wednesday.

There are really only 2 dance areas on this ship. The Grand Bar Piazza and the disco. Both are rather small.

I spoke to the English rep onboard about the difference with the 'neo' ships and one thing was less entertainment. There is no theatre on Romantica but there is a kind of cabaret venue where shortish shows are put on i.e. there was a Burlesque set on one night, a ventriloquist on another.

The only other Costa ship I have been on is the Fortuna which appeared to have more and larger venues but it is a much bigger ship of course.

The entertainment had a kind of sleepy feel to it in the evenings with two bands rotating sets. A lady and man set singing mainly waltzy type middle of the road music and a group of older (not old) gentlemen doing a mixture of 70s/80s stuff.

If push came to shove I'd probably skip the neo ships in future unless the Itinerary and price really suited as it was possibly the least fun cruise I have had.

There are indeed no gala nights on the neoRomantica.

I didn't really impact on my enjoyment of the cruise but glad I didn't take my penguin suit.

There were other themed events though. There was a white party by the pool and also a masquerade 'ball' for which they were selling masks a couple of days before the event. Ultimately it was a bit of a disappointment as it turned out to be just a 45 minute event in the Grand Piazza bar but the masks were only €7.99 so not the end of the world.

The food was so so to be honest, I'm not sure the open dining works as well as on other cruise lines and has quite large queues waiting for various size tables. We got over it by turning up around 9:15 and was usually able to get a table straight away. The staff are quite busy locating tables, changing tables and serving meals to be able to keep a proper eye on topping up drinks.

Overall though we had a good time, took advantage of the drinks package and ate plenty. The staff appear to be quite a happy and friendly bunch which compares favourably to my last couple of MSC cruises where the bar staff were mostly miserable and the security guards were just downright rude bordering aggressive. It possibly reflects the working conditions, I don't know, but I couldn't fault any of the Costa staff for their willingness and pleasantness.

The ship is very nice. Easy to navigate, good size cabins, looks well maintained. The buffet restaurant was the same as any other ship in as much as there aren't enough seats for the most popular times but there are a few overflow areas you can go to and eat. There didn't appear to be any self service tea and coffee machines but I may have missed them. Instead you had restaurant staff pouring coffees at tables or stations from insulated jugs.

Would I do it again? Absolutely, at £199pp for a 5 night cruise why wouldn't you? But not at the original price of £1,019

What has happened to the Gala Night and the Italian Night? Have these simply disappeared on this ship? No singing and no waiters dancing ? I ask as we just love these dining experiences and wouldn't like to lose them.

Has anyone traveled on this ship recently?

I am packing for embarkation this Friday and wondered if there are no gala nights and other themed nights as suggested in the post above?

Many thanks in advance :D

I had the same question and glad I didn't ask now as other thread headings weren't immediately obvious ;)

Here's a link to the aforementioned thread:-

http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2256783

My problem has not been resolved by Stuart Chalmers and he says he cannot fix it because it is a TA booking ??

 

Time to try Sidari's contact me thinks.

 

I have emailed Roxanne. Unless they fix it, I cannot complete the Web check in ??

 

Annie

It's very frustrating I can imagine. My booking is still 7 weeks away and I was flapping so if the departure is imminent I'd be beside myself.

I booked direct with MSC and still having problems adding my reservation to my dashboard to book onboard drink packages etc.

 

Currently awaiting technical support.

Fixed by the above mentioned Stuart Chalmers.

Impressive service :)

I booked direct with MSC and still having problems adding my reservation to my dashboard to book onboard drink packages etc.

Currently awaiting technical support.

Hi,

We did a 4 night cruise from Hamburg to Southampton last September and there was just the one formal/gala night.

Hope that helps :)

I am currently trying to work out the same.

I'll be going on a 4 night cruise that has two whole sea days.

I reckon, without knowing the individual prices, the break even number of drinks is about 5 at the all inclusive rate of £18.80 per day which is easily do-able. Add to that wine at the dinner table and I think the package represents good value.

I think I saw somewhere that bottled water is €3 so add in 6 of those in a day and maybe some coffees and I still think you'll get good value.

Lara, thanks ever so much for all of that, I am departing 16/8 on the exact same cruise and the information you have posted is invaluable to a new MSC customer.

Can I pick your brains on a couple of things?

I intend on taking a dinner suit for the formals. You mention you saw a few but I just want to know if it looked over the top compared to the rest of the diners?

For the White and Green/White/Red nights. Were these events held after dinner in the disco and was there a big participation in these. We want to take part as much as possible to get in the mood of it all :D

Thank you