wheezedr

Used ours on the Sapphire last May, no problems.

Really entertainment as a factor should not rank at the top of the list for a Med. I have to agree with Hank that both port stops as well as length of time in port is the key factor. My last Med cruise was heavily driven by the desire to go to Istanbul and Ephesus. Thank goodness we snuck into both just before a series of bombings led cruise lines to cancel their stops

Have not been on the Majestic but have sailed her sisters Royal and Regal. Princess does it’s muster drills inside in bars, theaters, etc. there is lots of seating but not always one for each cruiser so some people end up standing. On our last 2 cruises last year Princess had stopped asking people to bring life jackets to muster. Do not know if cruises originating in Aus or N Z have any different requirements but doubt it.

You do not need any vaccinations for your cruise. It is wise to keep your routine vaccines, a category to which both Hep-A and Hep-B now belong, up to date . Yellow fever is a situation which confuses many people. You are not traveling to locales where you are at risk of contacting Yellow Fever but those locales want to be sure that you have not been someplace else where YF is endemic. It is because they do not want to run the risk of someone bringing YF in.

Real problems can also occur when the seas are relatively calm on arrival in the AM, so it looks to be a simple tender and then the chop intensifies by the time passengers return in the PM. This happened to us on a stop in Newport and the extended time it took to offload to the ship lead to a significant delay in departure. It left many passengers uncomfortable with the tender process, but was really a function of Mother Nature.

In fact the thread was moved from the Princess forum where I first saw it. Cruise Critic never says that a thread was moved from a different forum so it appears confusing when you see comments as you did above suggesting it be moved. The OP then started a second thread on Cruise & Maritime.

For your time in London, you are going to want to use the tube. It is convenient with stations virtually everywhere you would want to go. It is much faster than surface transport because of the unwieldy London traffic. I highly recommend National Express for your London to Port leg. Leaves from Victoria coach (not train) station. Makes a stop on the way and then you just grab a taxi to the dock. We paid £5 pp for the bus portion. Hard to beat.

A balcony is of much less value to us on a river cruise than on an ocean cruise. We had one because it was the only category available when we booked,but I would have taken a less expensive French balcony had one been available. You are off ship much of the day, you can’t use the balcony when rafted and there was plenty of space elsewhere to sit with new friends or get out of the room. Hope that helps.

In fact as a courtesy Canada allows US customs to maintain stations at major Canadian airports. This allows the flights to land at domestic terminals when they arrive in the US and saves a lot of time and effort at that end. However you are still in Canada when you are in the airport. US CBP is greeting you but the land you are standing on is Canadian, the people in the stores are in Canada and most of the businesses are Canadian so you should not be surprised that they would want to be paid with Canadian dollars. You also would find CC use much easier with either Visa or MC, as many businesses do not like dealing with AMEX and its excessive fees.

You seem to be describing Perry Grant. Very popular among certain cruisers. Not one of our favorites. Not sure where he is now but he moves around on various cruise lines.

If you book a car service like Smith’s to pick you up at 7:30 you could easily make Heathrow by 9:30. Of course a disaster on the road negates anything I say. We had a similar situation last year with a 1:00 PM flight out of LGW and they had us there with extra time to spare. By the way only one word and one H for Southampton. Otherwise can be a problem looking at rail & bus schedules.

Yes there are irons and boards available in the laundries.

I am not sure what NCL charges for its transfer but last year we used Smith’s and had a pleasant trip for £105. We actually changed time of pickup the day before when we had a flight time change and Smith’s acknowledged that and was right on time. We might have been able to save a little if we had found another couple but were unable to do so on our roll call.

Go to Florence on Wed after the cruise. Spend 2 nights there. Because of early flight take afternoon train to Pisa and spend rest of evening there , then fly out in AM. The gem of these cities is Florence.

I have sailed on HAL out of FLL and have seen HAL ships there on many occasions