Lirio

7 hours ago, Catlover54 said:

 

I always have to smile when Europeans traveling to another part of Europe for a cruise complain about having a "long and tiring start".  Just add another 13-15 hours to that, (not even counting the run-down feeling from jet lag) and you can imagine what a Californian has to go through on his "start".. I'll take your day getting to a cruise over mine anytime!

You are *so fortunate*  to live so close to so many wonderful ports, and I envy you.

 

Have a wonderful journey -- and if it doesn't go all that well, remember it's not that hard to come back!

From Brazil as well, adds more 15 to 18 hours of travelling.....

5 minutes ago, frantic36 said:

 

Gorgeous photo but I hope you have brought lots of warm clothes 🙂. It is cold here in Perth so it is likely a lot colder in Auckland.

 

If you get a chance to go over to Wahaike Island, about a 20 minute ferry, and do a wine tour, there are many great wineries there.

Yes it is cold here. Wahaike is on the list. 

@ Auckland.

Skytower last night, from my hotel room.

1 hour ago, QueSeraSera said:

Any tips on places to visit or places to dine in Dublin, Cork, Galway Ireland would be appreciated.  Taking my beautiful wife there in July on a tour with lots of free time.

I was Cork in 2019 while in a cruise and we had lunch at The Farmgate Cafe. It is inside a market and we had a great time there.

Thank you all! Great suggestions. I will share with my husband. We are still planning what we will do.

For this weekend we have the Grio d'Italia final (cycling) + Champions League final, a lot of beer and good food.

5 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

The other star chef that is making his mark on Padstow in Cornwall is Paul Ainsworth.

He is a great chef and I think he already has four venues in the area.

He's worth a look.

My UK e-friends, I have 2 nights in London next August after the Greenland cruise. I am looking for suggestions of a restaurant to dine, British food, for a special occasion. Any suggestion?

2 hours ago, jpalbny said:

@QueSeraSera. I can't like your post but I appreciate your sentiment. This is discouraging to say the least.

 

Thought I'd poke fun at certain members of my profession. Myself included!

 

We are very lucky that today most all prescriptions and instructions from doctors are digital!

5 hours ago, woodburc said:

Trying to find out that airlines Silver Seas uses for flights from Santiago to Punta Arenas. Also trying to find out what time flights are for their 5 night bridge cruise. Just wondering if we should try and stay in Punta Arenas area before or after the cruise. Also trying to research flights from the US to Santiago before and after cruise. Should we try to arrive a day early in Santiago in case of delay, etc. Can anyone offer any advice?

Latam Airlines flies from Santiago to Punta Arenas. It is about a 4-hour flight. Punta Arenas is a small town and you can see everything in 1 day. Isla Magdalena  a half day tour from punta arenas has lots of pinguins and an old lighthouse that worth visit. Nearby Punta Arenas there is one of the best chilean natural park Torres del Paine (300 km) but you will need at least 3 to 4 days to cover it.

On 5/22/2022 at 7:01 PM, Lirio said:

I went to Manaus last february and stayed at Villa Amazonia. We loved it. Juma is just a block away from Villa Amazonia. Both hotels are in front of Opera Amazonia Theatre and near by some good restaurants. The restaurant at Villa Amazonia is great as well. 

Hotel lobby, restaurant and pool view from my room balcony.

On 5/16/2022 at 5:31 PM, Dalcrew said:

Will check out the Juma Opera.  We were thinking of booking the Villa Amazonia Manaus but they aren't booking beyond January 2023.  After checking the out the one SB recommends, The Quality Hotel which looks pretty bad.

I went to Manaus last february and stayed at Villa Amazonia. We loved it. Juma is just a block away from Villa Amazonia. Both hotels are in front of Opera Amazonia Theatre and near by some good restaurants. The restaurant at Villa Amazonia is great as well. 

On 5/16/2022 at 5:08 PM, mysty said:

I'm going to hustle to post before we lose internet access.  Our excursion was to the Norman Abbeys outside of Rouen.  First up was Abbaye de Jumieges.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next was Abbaye Saint Georges de Boscherville.

 

 

 

 

I had other pics I intended to post.  However, CC is definitely having issues with portrait as opposed to landscape shots.  I refuse to jump through hoops to get these to post.  CC kindly fix your issues!

I visited it in my last cruise 2019!

On 5/13/2022 at 9:05 PM, QueSeraSera said:

Hey, we've often discussed the beauty of Iceland here.

Has anyone ever visited &/or seen Skalholt?

I'm enjoying this video after some wine (was it 3? its Friday night & I've been called back to work for a month or so, so losing count on this Friday evening).

Love watching the expressions on the artists playing strings in this video filmed in Skalholt.

Maybe a 3rd visit to this Scandinavian isle is in order...

Very good. We will be there next August.....

2 hours ago, Lois R said:

I believe  the ship holds 728. Don't know how many cabins.

SS ships are getting bigger and bigger.....

5 hours ago, jollyjones said:

 

Now that I have been thinking more about the Nova and her deckplans, I have realised one thing that makes me uneasy about her, despite having a cruise booked (which I have booked mainly for the itinerary).

And that is that the passenger cabin decks are just that - all passenger cabins. Thus there will be the looooong corridors with just cabins stretching way into the distance, making the ship more reminiscent of much bigger ships.

One of the charms of the current ships is that every deck has cabins to the for'ard and other spaces - restaurants, bars, etc. - to the aft so corridors are shorter and the ship feels more intimate.

 

I wonder how this will feel IRL? Personally I think this will have more impact on how big the ship feels rather than how many pax she holds.

 

How many cabins and how many guests on this new ship? It seems big than the current fleet.

Hi Mysty wishing you a great trip!

In a corner of my office......JP waiting for the pix....

22 hours ago, QueSeraSera said:

just a little music?

just a reminder that it is always nice to see you here

 

 

 

LV it!

On 3/26/2022 at 2:23 PM, TLCOhio said:

 

Good luck to those with their summer cruising.  Great comment and follow-up from JP.  We can hope for the best, but it will clearly be different and evolving.  

 

From this top newspaper in New Zealand, they have this headline: “International tourism is coming back, but a return to 4 million visitors is years away, and some say that's a good thing” looking at their re-opening after their long, long shut-down  for tourism. 

 

Here some of their story highlights: “No one is pretending there will be a swift return to the 3.9 million annual international arrivals pre-pandemic, and some think that is no bad thing, including Tourism Minister Stuart Nash, who says we cannot afford to fall back into our old ways.  While Australians will skip across the Tasman to visit friends and family and ski over winter, the reality is that we won't see many long-haul US and European travellers until summer, says Tourism New Zealand chief executive Rene de Monchy.  'It gives the industry a runway to scale up, but it will be a challenge ... how many rooms can I open or how many boat trips can I do will be a bit dictated by the workforce.'  After the border opening announcement, online searches for international flights to New Zealand jumped 41 per cent, more than half of them Australians, and there is no guarantee all those searches will translate into bums on seats.  Tourism Export council chief executive Lynda Keene says overseas agents are cautious about booking New Zealand this coming summer because of uncertainty over the border and whether it will remain open, but bookings for the following summer are strong.  'We’re not going to open the door when we reach October 1, and boom we’re back, it’s going to be a slow rebuilding of the market ... if we can get back to pre-Covid numbers by 2025, 2026, that would-be really encouraging.'  One of the handbrakes on achieving that is China, which was our second-largest market after Australia, and many of the inbound tour operators who serviced it have disappeared.”

 

Full story at:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/128130596/international-tourism-is-coming-back-but-a-return-to-4-million-visitors-is-years-away-and-some-say-thats-a-good-thing

 

THANKS!  Enjoy!  Terry in Ohio

 

Early 2020 (right before Covid shut-down), many visuals and details from New Zealand/South Pacific in going from Auckland to French Polynesia.  This includes Bora Bora, Fiji, NZ experiences, etc:  Live/blog;

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2735732-live-terryohio-“new”-regatta-south-pacificnz-pix’s/

I will be in NZ in 5 weeks and let you know!

Thank you all. I will let you know our plans soon. 

5 hours ago, cruiseej said:

Probably we will not be back to Iceland again. We do like hiking and my husband is the only driver (I do not), so we are considering to go to some specific areas, not all the ring road.

We found a very interesting Ponant cruise of 8 days in Iceland - Reykjavik to Reykjavik. The only issue is that it departures in the same day of Silversea disembarkation and so far there is no information about the schedule of the charter flight from Kangerlussuaq. I think is too risky to start a second cruise on the same day.

7 hours ago, jpalbny said:

Air travel is definitely a challenge these days.

 

Last week I went online to check my very convenient afternoon direct flight from Dubrovnik to Paris on Air Croatia, only to find that the reservation was no longer in the system. I called AMEX to ask what was going on and they figured out that Air Croatia had canceled the flight a few weeks ago and had not told AMEX. Or me!

 

This was the only direct flight from Dubrovnik to Paris, which would have been very convenient for the last day of our Slovenia/Croatia trip. Figures. The only option was a 6AM flight out of Dubrovnik with one stop, which would have pretty much ruined the last day of the trip.

 

So a last-minute scramble to find a way back from the Dubrovnik area, to Paris. There are not a lot of flights out of Dubrovnik, which is why I had been so happy to find the direct flight. Oh well. We looked around and ended up finding a flight out of Tivat (near Kotor) which has one stop. Should work, unless they decide to cancel that one too...

 

But yes, flights are tight and there is not a lot of excess capacity around. When last-minute changes are necessary, it's a bit of a crapshoot.

 

Good luck Chas!

I am flying NZ next month; my flight was cancelled, and I was offered another flight a day after ok with the day change). My ticket is business class and the company simply put me in the economic without advice and without any refund. Three hours in the phone to get back the class I paid for.....

2 hours ago, BeeMinor said:

 

I assume you are flying into Keflavik from Kangerlussuaq? Ten days is just long enough that you can circumnavigate Iceland on the Ring Road, which is a rewarding and pretty easy drive. Off the Ring Road I'd suggest planning to spend a bit of time on the Snaefellsness peninsula and driving up to Husavik for the whale watching. The sights around Myvatn (near Husavik) are particularly varied and interesting, and the Myvatn Nature Baths are my favorite of the big geothermal pools. But if you wanted to limit driving time you could spend a couple of days in Reykjavik and then travel east along the south coast to Hofn and back. There are lots of sights concentrated along that southern corridor and the pace would be more leisurely.

Thank you. Silversea is providing flights to and from Kangerlussuaq to Keflavik. Snaefellsness peninsula seems a great place. We are not sure we will do the entire Ring Road. We will arrive in Reykjavik 2 days before the cruise (since it is very far from Brazil, we prefer to arrive earlier) so we will see around the city.

On 2/25/2022 at 5:42 PM, bohaiboy said:

We were on the Shadow in August 2021.  Took a taxi to the BlueCar Rental agency, about $30 if I remember correctly.  We arranged to drop the car off at KEF airport.  If you plan on staying in Rey for sightseeing, I would not recommend a car.  The bus system is very easy and there are taxis, albeit very expensive.  There is no Uber.  Driving in Iceland (we did 10 days post cruise) is very easy and the roads are in better shape than most US roads.  Also, there are a few rental companies at the port, but I found their prices very high.  I would also think higher for a single day.  Gasoline is around $8/gal there.

We have 10 days after our cruise (we will be at Silver Wind Kangerlussuaq - Kangerlussuaq) to drive around Iceland. Any recommendation?

Great News!