Wayfairers

2 hours ago, terry&mike said:

I have not had any problems with Klook, or my bookings with them. 

Thanks!  Glad to hear that!

40 minutes ago, Dobby36 said:

Im stopping there next month too, on Celebrity and following this thread, hopefully someone has some advice.  Seems like a very beachy vibe from our initial searches online.  

Hopefully someone will educate us before your cruise.  I would appreciate it if you would let me know how your visit goes.  

Has anyone done a day tour to see Mt Fuji from the Tokyo cruise port?  We have an overnight in Tokyo and I am thinking of doing the 11 hour tour from Tokyo. 

Anyone?

Anyone spent a day wandering around Naha?  We are booking a tour out of town for one day on our overnight stop and thinking of doing something in town on our own the other day.  Any suggestions or tips?

On 7/13/2023 at 8:04 AM, terry&mike said:

I have used Klook several times in different countries in Asia for different types of tours, it's kind of like the Asian version of Viator but more popular in that area of the world.

I can't make a comment on the Singapore Pass though, as I did not purchase that. I did a Hop On/Hop Off bus in Singapore, and a food tour, and then walked a lot. 

Any issues with Klook?  I am thinking of using them in South Korea

We are taking a ship excursion while in Ishigaki but will have a few hours after the tour before all aboard.  Looks like the ship will dock in town.  How is the town for walking around?  Any must sees in town?

On 5/8/2023 at 8:17 PM, LEppedio said:

Sorry to say we did not get to go to Saipan because of weather.  In Guam we went to the Valley of the Latte park for their boat tour and lunch.  It was very nice.

How did you get to Valley of the Latte park?

Has anyone booked a rainforest tour from the dock in Scarborough?

1 hour ago, BruceMuzz said:

Tokyo officially has 6 International Cruise Ports / Terminals.

5 of those ports / terminals are used regularly by international cruise ships.

All of them have public transport available at the port.

6 Cruise Ports?!?!  Wow!   Thanks for letting me know they all have public transport.  Guess I need to figure out which one the HAL world cruise is going to use.

2 hours ago, sippican said:

 

Sorry, no. We did Tokyo and Seoul on our own. Used a private guide on Jeju Island, and I don't recall the guide in Kobe. Just read the reviews for the guides/tours that are of interest to you. I've found them helpful, then correspond with the guide through the site.

 

I agree reviews and corresponding with the guide through the site is the best way to figure out which guide is best for the tour.  We’ve used Tours by Locals all over the world, usually on a custom tour, just not in Japan or South Korea yet.  

On 5/8/2023 at 8:09 PM, Expat Cruise said:

Japan is such a tourist friendly country, no guide is really needed. Have been to Japan about a dozen times, (real trips, not airport stop overs). So much information is online that it is easy. The public transportation system allows you to go anywhere.  English is common, and many visitor centers on the ground that will help you.  

 

Good info.  I’m trying to determine whether to use a guide or DIY on our Japan stops.   I’ve found DYI is easier on land trips.  When cruising, I’ve  found  the short time in port is sometimes better spent with a guide than fumbling around trying to figure out public transportation.  Also a guide with a car is more efficient than public transportation if you want to see places that are far apart. 
 

In Tokyo is public transportation available at the port?

On 6/22/2023 at 8:46 AM, sippican said:

Check out the Tours By Locals website, We have used them extensively for shore excursions with great luck.

I’m looking at them for Japan (Tokyo, Naha, Omaezaki, Kobe, Fukuoka) and throughout South Korea.  Do you have a favorite guide at any of these?

On 7/2/2023 at 9:43 AM, 5lvcruise said:

I'm researching on this topic and found the following if anyone is still interested.

 

1. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/SouthKorea.html

TOURIST VISA REQUIRED:

No – From April 1, 2023, to December 31, 2024, the Korean Electronic Travel Authorization (K-ETA) is not required for US citizens traveling for short-term business or tourism purposes.

https://overseas.mofa.go.kr/ie-en/brd/m_23773/view.do?seq=761699

 

2. https://overseas.mofa.go.kr/ie-en/brd/m_23773/view.do?seq=761699

 K-ETA will temporarily be exempted for 22 countries from 2023.4.1 to 2023.12.31. Please check the attached "Notice on Temporary Exemption of K-ETA." 

(the notice is under the FILE section toward the top of the Page)

Thank you!   Great info.   

On 6/28/2023 at 3:14 PM, Maria63 said:

In Hambantota, I would recommend the Bundala national park for wildlife spotting. It´s less crowded and more easily accessible than the more famous Yala national park. You are guaranteed to spot a lot of wild elephants, and the scenery is quite nice.

 

Frankly, I do not know why they recommend Sri Lanka as a beach destination because the beaches, though nice enough, are not comparable to those in the Caribbean or in some other Southeast Asian destinations. The hill country and the tea plantations are very beautiful though, and the tea you get to taste & buy if you visit the plantations is usually extremely good. If Silversea offers a train excursion from Colombo to Kandy and the hill country, I would suggest you do it instead of spending time in Colombo which is a very hectic city with lots of traffic. Colombo has some nice heritage sights like Galle Face with its surroundings, but getting around the town can be a hassle and you will inevitably spend a lot of time in traffic. If you have a chance to visit Nuwara Eliya, it's very beautiful too with some spectacular waterfalls. 

 

Though the distances in Sri Lanka may look short on a map, the road system is not very well developed and the traffic can be very hectic indeed, so travel by car or bus takes a lot of time. Going by train is much better and more comfortable, and the scenery is lovely too.

 

 

I was going to recommend Yala National Park for Hambantota but will now make a note that for a future stop there go to Bundala.  Thanks!   
 

we loved Yala in 2016 seeing so many wild elephants, a leopard, monkeys, boars, jack rabbits, a ton of birds.  

On 6/2/2022 at 5:00 PM, Mary loves to travel said:

That much planning & research can feel overwhelming.    While I’ve yet to do a World Cruise, we do have 49 day trip coming up this fall: a week in London, a 14 night cruise, a week in Rome, then a 3 week Med cruise - 
the result of the past 2 years’ travel getting rolled forward.   Maybe sharing how I approach this trip can help you. 
 

I’ve worked on the planning in chunks, with an excel workbook for each big piece.   That allows me to have a Schedule tab (looks like a calendar page, one column for each day, then times down the left).    As I research and start filling in plans, I can see if we have too many “very busy” days in a row and make adjustments.   
We also like to have time open to wander, so certainly every hour is not planned 😊

I often create a tab for each port, where I can put in pertinent info, list excursions that look interesting, etc.  
 

I get Fodor’s and/or Rick Steves guidebooks, read these boards, look on TripAdvisor.   Eventually things change from feeling like I’m looking into a kaleidoscope to having some clarity about each part of the trip.  
 

It is a lot of research and planning, but I mostly enjoy it.   Our trips have worked out really well; we waste little vacation time trying to figure out what to do.   
 

For me, the key is working on one part at a time.  
 

Now, I have friends who are not planners - they may have a very few things they know they want to see, but otherwise prefer serendipity.  
The important thing is to know which kind of traveler you are.  
 

Enjoy

Mary

Very similar to how I plan trips.  I tried traveling without planning once and got home to find we had missed some things we would have loved.  So….don’t do that anymore.   Planning is part of the fun, but can easily be overwhelming.  I have to step away every so often and remind my self that it is ok if I don’t find the perfect day in every port.  We do a combo of ship tours, private tours, planned self guided walking tours and wandering on our own.  When we are doing land travel I’ve learned to put in a or parts of a couple of days about once a week to relax, catch up on paperwork, do laundry, etc.

Found a great barber shop in Corsica for my husband when we wandered past it and he liked the cut the barber had.  $15 later her had a great cut.  I stopped at an interesting looking salon in Nova Scotia and got a great cut.  We’ve also done that in Louisville KY, various places in Mexico and a few other places and never been disappointed.

On 6/2/2023 at 12:11 PM, cfkm1 said:

I went to Agadir on a cruise in March. It is an industrial port but not very far from town (about 15 min) but you might have to find transport again going to the souk or some points of interest. It is probably cheaper to get a private tour . The 5 hours tour I took only cost 20USD and saved me the hassle of finding points of interest.

 

 

I appreciate the information.  As I said, I have a private tour booked.  I am wondering if anyone has taken the shuttle and where it drops everyone.

On 5/24/2023 at 8:29 AM, Fluoroman11 said:

Hi, everyone. We are regular HAL cruisers but leaving this week on our first back-to-back booking on the same ship. Does anyone know how that works? We did not get the same room assignment. Can we leave our luggage on the ship? Are we allowed to disembark? Are we required to disembark? Do cruisers treat the dis/embarkation port as a port day and spend most of the day ashore, or do you need to board early as in a typical embarkation? We will be on the Zaandam in Montreal. Thanks for any advice and expert knowledge!

We did a B2B in Montreal last fall. We didn’t have to meet anywhere on the ship that morning and we weren’t required to disembark.  HAL gave us a good instruction sheet in our room with detailed info on what to do.   Luggage stayed in the room.   We left the ship that morning as other passengers were disembarking and walked around town for the day.   We were given “In Transit” cards that we showed to the people in charge of getting new passengers onboard when we were ready to reboard the ship and we skipped the checkin lines, but not the security check line.    It was seamless and easy for us.

Maybe those that have already sold their houses and possessions could just turn to another cruise company and book it for all of most of the time they were planning to be on this ship.

We have cruised the Caribbean over the holidays - not Hawaii.  I don’t know if the ship offered excursions on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day or not.  We are cruising again this year, but are at sea those days.

I do know most of the towns were shut down the whole week between Christmas and New Years and I’ve checked on Curaçao for this year, Dec 26, and the bus service is limited and many places are closed.  I just checked the HAL website for that day, no excursions are available - but it is early.

You could check with private guides to see if anyone is willing to do a tour those days

10 hours ago, bcummin said:

Glad that you got your HAL tour.  Wise choice.

I had better luck than some with Across Africa Tours, and I would still do business with them because of the good prices.  In retrospect, I think that they are a good company.  Some African ports are not used to many tourists and organized tours.  You will be seeing raw, unvarnished cultures along your journey.

Barbara 

Thanks….good to know you would still use Across Africa.   It did seem like some of the problems they had were people setting expectations too high for the area.  My biggest concern was when they didn’t refund for missed ports.  

Looking forward to the raw, unvarnished culture…..we are those weird people that want way off the beaten path areas and have found ourselves to be the only tourists in an area not set up for tourists numerous times…..hoping to see more of what we experienced in Myanmar and other places in Southeast Asia when we asked our private guides to take us where tourists don’t normally go.

21 hours ago, bcummin said:

I was in Abidjan last fall on the 2022 Grand Africa Voyage.

I would guess that your waitlisted HAL tour will happen, considering all the changes that happen during the voyage.

I would call Abidjan unpredictable and full of surprises, not yet fine-tuned for tourists.

 

First the ship docked at a different place than originally planned.  Friends noticed that dock workers had to scramble to make it ready for us.

From my journal:  "I met my Across Africa Tour leaders onboard.  The ship docked about 7am, and we were to meet our guide about 8am.  Some in our group wanted to go stand in line for leaving the ship, so all ten of us joined the long line already back down a hallway.  It was a long wait.  The ship was not cleared until 8:30am.  We made it off the ship and joined the crowd of people on the dock.  Nobody from AAT in sight.  We heard that they were still

Wayfairers, I hope that this is helpful to you.  It was the worst but best tour imaginable, considering the hospitality of the one village that we got to visit.  I remember finding a similar Viator tour online, but I do not see it this year.  You might be smart to stick with a HAL tour in Abidjan.

You have an amazing voyage ahead of you.

Barbara

 

Thank you for the information - very helpful.  I followed the GA2022 board and saw how unhappy several were with Across Africa so have chosen not to book any of their tours.  I did get on my waitlisted HAL tour almost 2 weeks ago - very happy about that - especially after reading about your experience!   I am using HAL more than normal and making sure those outside of HAL are fully refundable if HAL decides to skip the port. I am definitely looking forward to this cruise!

I have enjoyed your blog - thank you for taking the time to update it so often.  Looking forward to doing the trip myself next year!

5 hours ago, Alphen said:

A bit related to this toppic, just wondering what happens if you have a wine package (8 bottles) which is not finished on the first segment of a booked B2B cruise, but with 2 seperate booking numbers (was not possible to book as one cruise). Can you continue on your wine package on the second segment of your cruise?

Great idea.   We have an upcoming B2B2B (same ship) and I never thought about continuing the package from one cruise to the next.