Cruizer Diana

Hi Linda, I’d heard about tea at the Ciragan Palace Hotel Kempinski and wanted to know if others had done this and would recommend it. I noticed that Shoreexcursions Group offers this as a private tour (with Dolmabahce Palace for $358/pp for two… $158/pp for a group of 12. This seems a bit pricey if we can’t get a large group together. Did you do this as a private tour or did you make a reservation and take a taxi to the hotel? If you booked yourself, what did the hotel charge? Thank you for any suggestions! Diana

We are just about ready to book a 2025 river cruise with AMA, embarking the ship in Nuremberg. However, we would like to spend time in Prague on our own and book our own hotel. We would like to take the transfer to the ship from Prague, along with those booking the Prague pre-cruise package. I've read posts in the past indicating that this can be done, but can't find any confirmation on the AMA site that a "transfer-only" can be booked....and at what price. Any recent experience or a pointer to this information? Thank you for any help you can offer. --Diana

Sorry for the bad weather. Hopefully the weather improves. We leave for Auckland tomorrow morning. See you all on the 15th. Diana

Thank you. I guess I should have remembered that! Diana

White Night for Segment #4? Does anyone know when the White Night will be held for the Auckland-Sydney leg (segment #4)? Thank you. Diana

Jumping into the water is the best cure for the heat there. We were initially a bit hesitant to swim with the sting rays and especially the sharks. We loved the experience. The black-tips sharks are not dangerous. They seemed very curious and swam around us in swarms. We hope to repeat French Polynesia and swimming with the sharks.

Sorry your swim didn't work out. We visited Fakarava in 2019 and had a wonderful snorkel and picnic. It does get hot, though!

Thank you for the security update suggestion. I just updated a few days ago. I checked again for updates just now. My Mac says it is up-to-date and I can't upgrade to a newer OS. It wasn't the newest model available at the time. I preferred the ports offered on this model of MacBook over the newer version and so now need to decide when to bite the bullet and get a new Mac. Love this Mac and it hasn't given me a lick of trouble....unlike the replace-every-two years HP laptops (and awful Windows) I've had in the past. The spellcheck on Safari was the culprit. Don't know what turned it back on recently, because I always set preferences to suggest--not change spelling. But, thanks to you on this forum, the problem is resolved. Thank you. Diana

I think the auto spellcheck in Safari got turned back on--perhaps through an update. I had it turned off. Still odd that it only became a problem with Cc. Hopefully, this fixes the problem.

MacBook Pro, Monterey 12.7.3, Safari. However, I never have spell check automatically change text as I type on any online or offline situation--just CC.

It is turned off in MS Word and Excel. I only have this happen with CC.

How do I turn off the automatic spellcheck (auto change spelling) feature when typing a reply? Words have been automatically changed up to three times after i changed them back to what I wanted. Diana

Excellent. Thank you for the info. Counting down.... Diana

So glad to hear that you are enjoying a perfect cruise! We are sooo looking forward to segment 4!! Will Martin and Roy be on segment 4? Is dress onboard the usual or a bit more dressy? Thank you for the update.

We are sailing on the Onward on 11/30/23 from Ft Lauderdale and have a few questions. Has the M&M still been happening in the card room/living room at about 5pm at sailaway and posted in the daily newsletter? Is the patio open in the evening? We've had open/closed at random in the past. Is Windows, in the evening, a buffet or served? Is the menu similar to the dining room or themed? How are the included cocktails? Last few cruises we've been on, the cocktails were a "bit off" in flavor. Do the "virgin" cocktails taste better than those with alcohol? Any word on how many passengers will be aboard on the 11/30/23 sailing? Thank you for any information you can share! Diana

Thank you for the suggestion. Could work!

We've ocean cruised a lot, but haven't cruised on a European river yet. We plan to book an AmaMagna Danube cruise for next year. We haven't booked yet because we notice that the deposits are not insignificant amounts and are non-refundable. How would I find out about future Ama flash sales? Diana

This may have changed since our February 2023 cruise, but at that time, we could not purchase or use FCDs on a cruise purchased at the "non-refundable deposit" rate. While onboard, we attempted to book a cruise at the less-expensive "non-refundable deposit" rate and use FCDs for the reduced deposit. (We'd seen a much less expensive rate for this sailing on an online booking site and discovered that it was based on a non-refundable deposit.) The HAL Future Cruise Consultant told us that we could either: Book at the higher "refundable deposit" rate and purchase or redeem FCDs for that cruise. OR book at the less-expensive "non-refundable deposit" rate, but could not purchase or redeem FCDs. (FCDs are not usable if you plan to book with a non-refundable deposit.) So, we had to decide: how likely is it that we would need to cancel and are we were willing to eat the deposit.... OR, did we want to pay more for the safety of being able to cancel until final payment. We chose the non-refundable deposit because the savings was considerable and the deposit wouldn't be a huge burden. We also have travel insurance, which diminished the risk. Of course, an expensive cruise would require a larger deposit, which would be a big loss if one had to cancel and lose that deposit. By the way, the published rate was the "refundable deposit" rate. We had to specifically ask to find out that there was a "non-refundable deposit" rate, because it wasn't shown as an option.

Jazzbeau, Thank you very much!! This is what I was looking for. Please post the 2024 & 2025 brochures when available. We are booked for the Auckland-Sydney leg of the 2024 World Cruise and it would be nice to be able to see the excursion options offline. Diana

I'm trying to find this feature on the new Azamara website. I fear it is not available now that Azamara separated from RCCL. Any suggestions for getting an e-brochure for my sailing? Thank you. Diana

Question for those who have been to Grand Turk recently: We will be at Grand Turk on the HAL Rotterdam on 2/17/23. The Carnival Magic will arrive 30-minutes before we do. We originally thought we would get off the ship early, go to Jack’s to snorkel and hang out a short while on the beach—preferably in the shade. But, we have read that it is crowded even at Jacks and Jacks now charges $11 for an umbrella and $6 per chair. We’ve also read that the food and drinks at Jacks are expensive and of low quality. So, we are looking at our options. We've heard that the DJ music is extremely loud. Is there a place near the pool at Margaritaville that has shade, is a bit removed from the chaos, and is away from the DJ noise? Is there an area of loungers at the back of the beach (away from the water) in front of Margaretaville, that is shaded and doesn’t have the loud DJ noise? Or, is the beach area to the south (opposite direction than Jacks) better for shade? Does this area have umbrellas and/or free clam shells? (I saw clam shells in a video from 2018, but haven't noticed any mention of them in recent posts.) Where is the best snorkeling? In front of Margaritaville, or at Jacks? Thank you! Diana

Jazzbeau, Thank you for your advice. I always appreciate your experience and recommendations. We will ignore the testing requirement on the US passenger boarding document.

I agree. For the average, non-techie, T-Mobile cell service is absolutely amazing--at no extra cost! We have used it in French Polynesia, Buenos Aires to Santiago, Norway (even in the fjords), all of europe, the caribbean. Sometimes we even get cell service way off the coast. They also have a feature that will block Cellular at Sea, to avoid accidental charges.

A friend just emailed and expressed confusion about testing for boarding in Miami. The boarding docs say testing before boarding is required, but the website says no testing--except for a handful of ports. We had the same situation in Amsterdam in September and there was no pre-boarding testing--as the website said. I hate to even consider that we will be returning to the old protocols. My question is: Would you ask the current Onward crew if they anticipate pre-boarding testing to be required in the near future? Masking? Thank you! Diana

We were on the Pacific Princess (now the Onward) in the Med in 2018. We did not have elite status, so did not have the free laundry perk. Our ONLY option was per-piece pricing... like $4 for socks or underwear. While I did not ask why this was the only option, I came to the conclusion that an increase in volume was an issue for the ship. Why else would they charge outrageous prices and never offer a bag-of-laundry option? Just a thought...