UKBayern

Look at it this way: you might come to the south-east of England on another occasion in the future: Southhampton on another cruise, or fly through London, but how often do you pass through Leeds and surrounding area? Yorkshire is amazing. I agree with others. Go to Leeds, York, Harrowgate.

There is an airline that offers direct flights from SOU to LBA, but the train will be cheaper and probably just as quick.

Why is it when I search for airfare, the more times I search my specific dates / destination the price keeps going up and up? This morning I found a fantastic deal for my upcoming cruise, and I searched it many times, to find the best connections, and now the one I decided on is outrageous! :mad:

Does anyone know?

Apart from everything that has already mentioned, there are 2 other issues.

You keep looking over and over again at the same set of flights on the same day(s), using the same computer(s).

1) the airline notices there is suddenly a demand for these flights (the system can see how many people are searching), and puts up the price. We own a small hotel, and if 50 people suddenly call for info on rooms on a certain date, we know there is interest and we don't have to sell the rooms at bargain basement rate. The next person who calls does not get a deal, and why should we? There is a lot of interest, we will sell the room anyway. You could be hiking the price up all by yourself in theory.

2) this is really for the cynics amongst us, but try to do the same search via a computer you have not used before (at a friend's house, at the library, at work, etc) and see what price comes out (and book an amazing deal right there and then without hessitation). Computer experts say that advanced travel sites remember your IP-address, especially if you do a certain specific search over and over again. Cookies don't help either, of course. The travel agent computer system knows you have an interest in a particular flight or package deal, and that you might have a necessity to book this particular flight. If they put the price up by a little (say 10%-20%), most people will think " oh dear, the plane is filling up, the price has gone up, I need to book now before it is not possible anymore, I NEED to be on that flight". Presto! A little profit per ticket for the airline! I tried this theory out when searching for a holiday this summer, and found that the more I searched a particular deal on my own computer, it got less and less attractive. When I checked with another IP-address, suddenly the low rate was available again. Of course this does not always work this way, because there are many factors that contribute to certain rates.

Try Booking.com, select "further options" in the search function on the left, and you can search for 1 room for 4 adults. If I do a random search for a random day, it comes up with over 300 options.

Do not lie about the age of the third and fourth person. You could end up having to pay for an extra room or being refused at check-in if the hotel feels you have been purposely dishonest.

Kusadasi is VERY touristy, with millions of european tourists visiting each year. We were on a 2 week land tour of Turkey just over 5 weeks ago, and found the Turks now actually prefer Euros over Liras in the areas frequented by tourists. The only exceptions are museums, postoffices and other (semi-) official places.

The exchange rate used to be 2:1 (1 Euro=2 Lira), but recently it has gone to 2.96:1 A small example (but you can imagine what happens with larger purchases): the going rate of a Turkish tea is 1 Lira. The vendor will mainly ask for 0.50 Euro ("old" exchange rate), whilst the real price is only 0.34 Euro. Many every day things are very cheap in Turkey (like a cup of tea) and I would not have too much of a discussion for 16 eurocents, but just so you know. When buying more than 1 item in a shop, you can haggle or insist that you want the official rate. I bought 4 necklaces in a handicraft shop. The lady tried the 2:1 exchange rate on me. I haggled: when I buy all 4, do I get the better rate?

Because the exchange rate is slipping all the time (5 weeks ago the rate was still 2.7), make sure you have no left-over liras. They will be worth less the next time you return.

would be great to hear of fellow passengers travelling same dates and same beginning port.

You need the roll-call section for that

More info is needed.

"This port" Which one are you talking about?

How old are the children, etc?

I flew on Saudi Arabian and it was dry. Though it was a domestic flight, I am pretty sure the entire airline is dry. Would make sense.

The whole country is dry :D

Avalon Waterways offers suggestions on its website.

There are actually specialised companies who offer cruise-and-bike holidays along all the major rivers, where you get a rental bike (or take your own) and cycle between ports, where the ship is then waiting for you again. It is very popular here, also the Rhine from Amsterdam to Cologne. Cannot help you with the specifics, but if you Google I am sure you find plenty of ideas.

I have been in the hotel business a very long and had never heard of these sites. Londontown.com looks very much like an Expedia afiliate in lay out and everything, whilst Londontoolkit does not even have an online booking tool. Use a large reputable booking site, or even better, book direct at the hotel or on the hotel's own website. Like orchestrapal rightly suggsts: why give the commission to an agent.

This a very general question. We have no idea what age you are, how large your party is, if you are travelling with kids, what your interests are, if you are mobile and able to walk far, what country you are from, if you comfortable using public transport or speaking foreign languages, what time you have in port, what time of year (very hot, very cold, etc).

There are many frequent flyers and airline staff lurking around on the Cruise Air section. Try asking the question there. I cannot help you since I obviously would not fly that stretch.

We did not know what to expect either, but it is a really nice town. Nice to walk around, great food.

In Rhodos Town, there is a large beach on the tip of the bay. You can walk there. Since you have a whole day there, why not see the Old Town in the morning, and enjoy the beach after lunch?

As we experienced on our Costa Cruise, if you need the customer service desk for some reason or another, you are in deep trouble. You would get better service if speaking to a cardboard cut-out. If it has a taperecorder saying "no" and "I don't know", that is about the level of helpfulness to be expected.

I have to say, we found all the staff extremely nice and helpful, just not the front desk. We own a hotel, and none of the customer service staff would get passed the interview if they were to apply here.

Unfortunately, Izmir was almost completely burned to the ground in 1922, so it is a big modern city. We only had a half day in Izmir and decided against going all the way to Ephesus, so we explored Izmir. There are nice shopping streets and there is an old bazar with a small old mosque. You can spend a pleasant afternoon, but there is not much there.

We book Lufthansa or Swiss whenever we can. Pleasant, professional service which is not "in your face".

I am always an advocate of Munich because of the free coffee facilities and the free newspapers, did not know they had that in Frankfurt too. It is only in the terminals used by LH though.

There are many little bakeries which sell yummy sweet and savory pastries, and lots of places where they sell sandwiches, kebaps and pizzas. There are market stalls full of fresh fruit and vegatables all over town. The Turks are foodies, there is food everywhere!

Istanbul is a modern city. If your kids really don't eat anything, there is always MacDo or Pizzahut. This however would be such a shame, as I agree with CruiseMom that Turkish food is truely exceptional. (I cannot wait for my own trip in 4 weeks to eat all that yummy food!)

I'm with FlyerTalker on a lot of the comments made here. But I can also tell you that small regional airports can also make a total mess of things even if they have 5 gates. Clermont-Ferrand springs to mind, and with that the most memorable experience with AF.

I always think that unless you use an airline 10x or more (preferably on different aircraft types), and transit through an airport at least 5x, you don't really know if it is a good or bad airport or airline.

I have had transits where the gates were next to each other (Zurich, Frankfurt), and transits where I needed a 45 minute jog through the whole terminal (Madrid, Miami). Does that make it a bad airport or is the walking distance in that facility a general rule? No, I was just lucky or unlucky. There are new and old concourses at every airport, if you are unlucky they dump you in an old freezing draughty gate and squash you in a bus to the plane after rudely lecturing you on your perfectly ok ticket and extorting some kind of unknown fine of you. Pay up in cash or we leave you here. That was Austrian Airlines in Vienna, but Austrian Airlines staff in Innsbruck were great every time and there are some awsome modern gates in Vienna too. Some airlines with great reputation had rude cow uninterested flight attendents (Singapore Airlines springs to mind), and I found the staff in multiple American airports (LAX, MIA, FLL, DTW) the rudest in the world with American Airlines taking the cake. And some unknown or unloved carriers have been great at the times I have flown with them (Mexicana, Easyjet, Wizzair, Malev, Czech Airlines).

I have flown with multiple airlines many times and had a totally different experience with them every time. And so what? It is a means to get from A to B, not a life changing decision that is going to be a major regret for decades to come. None of European and American carriers are unsafe or unsanitary, and although airline food is never great you won't die of it. After a few hours you get out at your destination and all is forgotten.

Thanks for the info. By looking at the Passenger Terminal website, I think the address is "Piet Heinkade 27"

 

http://www.ptamsterdam.nl/index.php?site=cruises&hc=cruisekalender

 

Don't know if that slight change makes a difference or not.

You are absolutely right, I looked the address up on another website, but the correct info is of course on their own website.

You can order a taxi or limo direct on the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport website. The car will be waiting for you at the arranged time. You can choose between a private taxi, a private limo ("business taxi") or a shared minibus that will pick up other people on the way, depending on what you want to spend. With 5 people, the cost of a private vehicle is not that much more than shared. There is even an english language explanatory film on the site.

You can get a quote online by typing in the address, date and number of passengers. The address of the Passenger Terminal is "Piet Heinkade 29"

We are your age, and travelled on RCCL 2 and our last cruise was Costa.

Did you do RCCL in the Caribbean on in Europe? We found our RCCL-cruise in the Med very similar to Costa: losts of different nationalities, shows mainly of the non-speaking variety due to the language barrier, Med style cuisine.

Like every cruise with every company, the passenger mix depends on a lot of factors, such as season, itinerary,etc.

There are hundreds of cruises of all cruise lines which go to Egyptian and Israeli ports in one itinerary, very often even as consecutive ports, so I have no idea how intelligent this TA is....:rolleyes:

The only thing you have to be careful of is that the ISRAELIS don't stamp your passport. They have been working with this immigration card system for many years where they do not stamp your passport, but for some silly reason they managed to stamp mine. If you have an Israeli stamp in your passport, many muslem countries (including Malaysia, Indonesia, but excluding Morocco, Jordan) won't let you in.

we actually hired a car from Avis at the waterfront (you see their office in front of you as you get of the ship) for EUR 36,97 for a whole day. With 4 people that was cheaper than any other option.

We used it to drive to Chlemoutsi Castle.

Of course not, this would be really silly!

It is a special thing to make a latte macchiato, you at most can only do this with a machine (because of the layers).

I have been on many cruises and cruise lines before and there always were latte macchiato available, so this is really strange that an Italien cruise line doesn't know how to make it! :confused::eek:

But I am no latte macchiato junkie, so it is not so important for me.

I just wondered about that it is not listed on the bar lists.

Latte Macchiato, despite the italian name, is a German invention. In your link, if your click on the pictures, you will see that most of them refer to german websites.

Thank you for your great review. We are on a port-intensive cruise next month which stops at Katakolon, and because the port stop is fairly short and 2 of the party of 4 have already been, we were hesitant if we should go to Olympia. We have seen thousands of ruins/historical sites/heaps of stone all over the world, so we are pretty spoilt. We had already heard and read there is not much still standing in Olympia. Your pictures confirm that.