Cruizer Diana

On 9/9/2022 at 11:46 AM, Linda VH said:

We took tea at the Ciragan Palace Hotel Kempinski every time we were in Istanbul. Lovely view of the Bosporus and great food.  We had a private guide who was a historian the first time we visited Istanbul and it was his recommendation for a “chill out” time.

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

4 hours ago, laurieb said:

It's not usually known ahead of time as weather plays a big part; it's usually one of the later nights in port though

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

15 hours ago, Roel94 said:

It was hot but still below well below 32C.  Only bad near tender ad no cover.

one had to remember beach shoes and to be careful in the islands. I was in the water a good hour.

moorea was great.so lots of sharks and string rays.

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. 

On 1/31/2024 at 4:20 PM, aliaschief said:

Our Azamazing Day in Fakarava, French Polynesia was not so amazing but the locals were friendly and happy to see us. It was hot so we went for a swim. That was refreshing but the small coral scrape I got on my leg attracted a shark to arrive and check out what was bleeding in it’s lagoon. That was the end of swimming. We really did not have enough time here to plan much of anything.

Marty the piano man onboard did a great tribute to Sir Elton John last night with the ships orchestra. That show was followed by a couple of songs from the guest chorus then Roy Asst. CD put on a great show of old time rock and roll classics.

Having a great time no matter where we end up going or not going.

 

 

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

17 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

Yep, if spellcheck is turned on in Safari then Safari will spellcheck. By the way MacOS is currently on version 14.3  Perhaps your MacBook does not support older versions? Security updates are still issued though for some older versions. There was a security update 5 days ago to for MacOS 12 to 12.7.3 for those who are using an older version. Very good that you updated. Possibly that icould be when it got turned back on but spell check is not turned on by default in Safari so that is not what is supposed to happen.

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

14 hours ago, Cruizer Diana said:

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

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.

14 hours ago, broberts said:

 

Not knowing the device, operating system, or browser used it's not possible to answer the question.

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.

1 hour ago, gnome12 said:

That isn’t part of Cruise Critic. It is your computer, tablet or phone that is auto-correcting. You have to turn it off there. 

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

16 hours ago, aliaschief said:

Martin and Roy should still be here. I believe Eric returns in April.

Dress has been the usual country club casual.

Looking forward to seeing you and Bill again. Bruce & Susan

Excellent. Thank you for the info.

Counting down....  Diana

9 hours ago, aliaschief said:

If I could use one word to describe our 1st segment of the world voyage it would be perfect.

We enjoyed our overnight in Lima and are now on our 2,300 nautical mile sailing to Easter Island.

Martin Lawson and Roy our Cruise Director and Asst. CD boarded yesterday replacing Eric. 
When we started the cruise there was sadness onboard with Captain Carl and Eric both losing their father’s right before the start of the World Voyage. Their loyalty to duty prevailed.

Our census has increased this segment from 530 to 597.

Off to trivia. Life is good on Onward.

 

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

39 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Can't guarantee this will work, but try this:  go to the cruise you want on the AMA website and click on the link "Get Quote" – in my experience, AMA will have one of their preferred TAs contact you via email.  Explain to them that you are waiting for a flash sale and see if they will monitor it and contact you.  Can't hurt...

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.

12 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

If your cruise is in 2023, this pdf has live links to the brochure for every cruise [but for 2024 and 2025 nothing has been published yet AFAIK]:

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

On 6/6/2021 at 4:21 PM, Host Jazzbeau said:

This is the link:

https://www.azamara.com/ebrochure/

 

It seems to allow you to change the currency [drop down menu] but when I tried selecting AUS it still came up priced in USD.  But at least you get to see all the descriptions.

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

1 hour ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

The boarding document has never been updated. Ignore it. 

On 11/22/2022 at 7:50 PM, Host Jazzbeau said:

Why is this better than T-Mobile cell service that includes international data roaming and let's you use your phone as a hot spot.  That's what I did on a recent Baltic cruise, and it worked fine (and cost me nothing because it's an included feature of my regular cell plan).  [I didn't try connecting more than one computer to my phone, because DW is part of our T-Mobile family plan so she can use her own computer as a second hot spot.]

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.

9 hours ago, kool kruiser said:

Our recent cruise on Onward had about 570-580 passengers. Good news, the Patio was open in the evening, although not on embarkation day.

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

13 hours ago, pyrrhus said:

I don't fully buy that (I buy the system can't handle it) but do they often turn folks away if everyone is willing to buy the second bag and pay for unlimited internet for everyone in every cabin?  

 

Hopefully they will consider starlink soon.

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...