jpalbny

NH probably means "not helpful" 😉

Amazing, DW. Enjoying the pictures immensely. We saw a glimpse of this in our week there. Agree that you're getting a much more immersive experience!

Enjoyed reading about your adventure so far! Good luck crossing the Circle and hope for more landings. Glad you are enjoying our favorite ship!

@Host Jazzbeau, I think Lirio is on a self-guided land trip. We visited Chrishchurch in 2008 pre-earthquake, on Oceania. We docked in Lyttleton where it was easy to get a public bus to ChCh. We also visited the Antarctic Center on our own. When we visited, they had a shuttle bus that would pick you up from downtown and take you to the Center. It ran in a loop on a regular basis. I don't see any info on their website about this now, though. You might ask them if they still offer that service, if you have another way to get to ChCh. Or perhaps take a public bus to the airport and walk 5 minutes to the Center. Otherwise, Google says it's 1h28 from Akaroa by car. Sounds like a pain - hope you can work something out because it's a fun place to visit. It set the table nicely for our Antarctica cruise the following year.

Agree w Stumble. And w Fauxnom. When Chris got Covid in September she was immediately positive by antigen test. I had symptoms too but tested negative for 5 days in a row. Finally gave up and got a PCR. Positive. So get the virus and get your positive PCR ASAP. If you wait and get sick later, you're sunk.

Bumbles bounce!

Guess they mean business...can't have those carry ons multiplying unexpectedly! Glad you're having a fun time so far.

Add in the fertilizer for an additional fee?

If anyone wants to chip in for the plane fare, I'll hand-deliver a few cases to Whisper

Cause for mutiny.

Sorry rojaan, we're at ALB, not ABY. And there are no flights from ALB-JFK! We usually drive there (about 3h) when we fly out of Kennedy. So JFK-LAX-SYD-MCY?

Having met all 4 of you in person, I can say that you'd have a fantastic time together! Too bad we couldn't be there too for that meeting.

Great perspective. We have been to the other 3, just have not visited Stockholm yet. If that's the best of the 4, we will hope to visit soon! We spent 3 days in Berlin on our own, and still could have used more time. So I'd be frustrated with a long bus ride each way, for a short overview in return - if it were my first visit to Berlin. You could certainly do a targeted visit to a part of the city in that time frame. But just as I wouldn't try to pretend that it's adequate to "see" Paris as a day trip from Le Havre, "seeing" Berlin from Warnemünde seems challenging.

We could bring tons of luggage, if we wanted to (missed Diamond status on DL by $27 this year, but Platinum is very nice). It's just easier not to. No waiting for baggage at Heathrow last week while the baggage handlers were on strike. Easy to take the tube to our hotel. It does come in handy when we want to check a few suitcases full of wine on the way home, though! But the luggage allowances are over the top. When we flew business class to Helsinki in November we could have each brought 3 checked bags of 32kg, plus two carry-on bags, plus a personal item. I'd have to buy more clothes in order to have that much to bring! Apologies to Mysty for dragging this way OT.

We bought smaller rollaboard bags recently. Just so we could enjoy the challenge!

On a SS cruise, that's like every 2 hours?

I can tell you that Helsinki was great to visit. We were just there in November and spent 3 nights. Compact and cute city with great restaurants and a pleasant sea front (even in the chilly weather). There's an offshore island Suomenlinna, a 10-minute ferry ride from the harbor, with pleasant walking paths and the ruins of an old fort. The town is easy to cover in about a half day. One of the days that we were in Helsinki, we took the ferry to Tallinn and spent about 5h there. Plenty to see and do, and I wouldn't have minded another hour or two. Charming medieval old town with city walls, great architecture, and nice viewpoints from the upper town. Copenhagen is well-known and worth some time exploring. It would take more than a day to do so, or at least one very long packed day. We spent a few days there independently back in 2018. We will be back in Helsinki in June to embark on our next SS cruise. Very much looking forward to a little more time there, in a different season. I don't know the other ports on your itinerary. I have visited Ronne once, in January (21 years ago) for a wedding. So my memory just may have been clouded by the amount of intoxicating substances which were consumed. I do remember my siblings deciding that it was a good idea to swim in the Baltic. I stayed out!

Once you let the Albanians in, no telling what happens! (PS nothing against people from the country of Albania; we here in Albany jokingly refer to ourselves as "Albanians" too). Also sorry to hear the news about rkacruiser. Lois, thanks for sharing.

It's a three-pie minimum, I hear! 🥧🍷 🥧🍷 🥧🍷

Two expedition cruises booked - Bali to Singapore in March, with Ponant. Stops in Borneo (orangutans) and Komodo. We were supposed to do a similar itinerary in November 2020, so we will be excited to have a second chance at it. Then Helsinki to Hamburg in June on Silver Wind. No other large cities besides the embarkation and disembarkation ports. Small islands in the Gulf of Bothnia, and some small towns off the beaten path. Will be interesting to see Finland in the summer, as we were just there last month for the Aurora! That sounds great! Have looked at that itinerary many times. We were in Milan last June and it was a very fun trip. Enjoy!

Definitely. I have it. LMK if you need a copy!

1. You will go through passport control in AMS upon arrival. Have been through Schipol twice recently. Once 15 minutes. Other time, no line at all. 2. Both Hungary and Czhechia are in the Schengen zone. No passport control required. Not when you disembark, nor when you leave for Prague. 3. On the way home, you only go through passport control once, and that's at the airport where you board the flight which takes you out of the Schengen zone. For example, if you're flying direct from Prague to the US, you'll go through passport control in Prague. If you have a connection in Paris, you'll not go through passport control until you change planes in CDG.

You are correct. They did charge back when we first started doing expeditions (2009), but they stopped charging by 2017, I think.

Where is @les37b when you need him? Must have been great to be there. And such beautiful weather! Thanks for the picture.

If you're used to DIY, then yes you can almost certainly do more, and pay less. We've visited Prague on our own, not from a river cruise. Pretty easy to do, and the public transport was easy to use to get around. Have fun!