gandolfcruiser

On 6/1/2019 at 12:48 AM, diecastaussie said:

The Pompeii, Sorrento & Amalfi Coast tour that italytours EU arranged for us was excellent, far better than we would have done with a ship's tour that would have cost considerably more.....Should we get the opportunity to return to Italy, we will definitely book our tours with your company again.

 

I was in a different van for our group for Pompeii, Sorrento & Amalfi Coast with Italytours EU in May ... but ours was equally good.  We had a great driver who was quite personable.    He took us to Pompeii and hooked us up with our expert guide through the ruins.  She really knew a lot and made it most educational, fun, interesting.  She gave us time for pictures.  I didn't feel rushed.  I really enjoyed it.  

When we got back to our driver he gave us plenty of time for restroom calls before beginning the Amalfi Coast drive to Sorrento.  He was very informative.   He had a stop for us to get snacks and take pictures.   In Sorrento he told us a great place he said he dined at .... and some of us dined there (and so did he).   He took us to the lemon grove ... and then on the way back to the Lemonchello factory.    

I can highly recommend them.   I will use them again next time. 

Conna

Beautiful photos!

That poor woman in the parka cracked me up. As they say Mark Twain said [he didn't]: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

Yes, great pictures. Yes the range of clothing was so San Francisco!

Conna

I have been away on business a lot these last few months but at last I have the spreadsheet completed. Quite a few new entries mentioning noise from the Patio for some rooms on Deck 8,

Thank you so very much. I sail this week on Quest in 6010 ... I was anticipating from locale and other cruises on other ships that there would be theatre noise for rehearsals and shows. I now have a good idea for other elements of Quest cabins and won't have unrealistic expectations.

Conna

Awesome pictures and information. Thank you so much for doing this!!! My daughter, friend and I are on the Dec 10th Millie ... our 2nd cruise on her. You've brought things to life for us. So excited.

Must get a chest or head mount for my go pro for when they don't want handheld cameras.

Conna

Vietnam visas were done through the ship. The room stewards put them on the bed the night before we arrived. Cost is $6.00 each, I think. No charge yet on our account.

 

The immigration officials (3 of them) were just outside the ship and stamped our Visa. It is a small paper with our name and passport # on. When we returned to the ship, Celebrity reps were checking to be sure we had them. Will need them again Thursday in Danang.

 

We are doing a private tour again, arranged through our friend's son's contact.

 

When we got off the ship, there were a few guides offering tours, maybe 10-15. We arrived at 7:00, and we got off at 7:30. If you don't arrange Anytime ahead of time, you would need to get off early together a guide. Nothing with in walking distance of the ship. They did have a small tent with a few souveniors in, but we didn't look.

 

After we arrived back at the ship, we we're exhausted, so went to buffet for dinner.

 

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Hmm, okay cool, thank you. I am in the RCI Latitudes program. Can I transfer my member level?

They are not transferrable, but because I was so high in RCCL loyalty, it was also recognized by Celebrity and I came into the program higher than those with no or low RCCL. Azamara doesn't recognize RCCL or Celebrity at all. You have the same loyalty number for all 3 cruiselines.

The pull down bed actually is more intrusive than the couch. My dd9 and ds13 slept fine on the couches.

 

 

You can see here how you can still get by the pulled out couch, but the pull down bed is at a height that makes it difficult to get past

 

I was panicking that they might think a family balcony was 2 adults and 2 kids and the kids shared the couch. We are 4 adults. These pictures are very helpful cause the description on NCL Epic site doesn't say there is a pullman. Whew.

Hi All,

I was on the Celebrity Millenium with arrival in Shanghai on Sept 29th. My understanding is that Princess had a ship in port that day, too. I'd love to hear their experience.

My cabin mate and i had full Visas because we were going to go on to Beijing. As part of the process China customs already had our full itenerary. The officials came on board in Busan on the evening of the 27th and began customs on the morning of the 28th. That is when Celebrity started paging and calling for flight documents.

I went down, stood in line for over 30 minutes and when I said I had a Visa she said I wouldn't need to give documents. She went and checked, apologized for having me come. This was repeated at about 2pm and 4pm and 9pm. When we went to our room for bed there was a message to come with documents. I did. Again, they apologized and did not take them.

At 2 am another call and a knock on our door. This time she took documents, copied and returned.

At 4am there was a message on our phone. They would require a face to face with customs. come to dining room on 4 at 10am. But we had to be out of room by 8am. We were supposed to have luggage pickup by 8:15 am to go on our Shanghai tour that day.

I went to passport pickup and my cabin mates passport was there, but not mine. We needed to stay together so I went to dining room and she joined me there after breakfast. It was 200 very upset customers in there. Many who had given their paper work several times. Many who had been woken up in the night as I had. Several who one was held and the other not.

The took early flight people first and before 10am .... but did not tell people arriving after that to go immediately if they were early flight people.

They cancelled people for airport transfer excursions .. and left them wondering how to get to the airport even without an excursion.

They next took the people with a flight any time that day.

They finally took all the rest. This just changed us from sitting in the diniing room to a mess of lines and were just a mob of people and Celebrity people having us all just stand there until China finally said they could send people again. Instead of doing the lines they just randomly started calling out passports. This left people with passports where one in the party was called but not the other so both had to keep waiting.

I don't not hold China solely responsible. If Celebrity had made 2 copies of documents needed on day 1 then they would already have had the documents with the passports and every time China asked for another copy they just could have made another copy instead of hounding us for copies multiple times a day. They could have done a much more organized job of the staging of those waiting to be called.

So, any Princess people? How was your disembarkation at Shanghai?

Conna

I finally have to chime in...This HAS NOT been our experience! We use early saver, easy saver, past guest, pack & go rates, etc. We own 100+ shares and receive dividends that purchase more stock. We cruise at least 4 times a year. This is a great perk!

thank you! This is the kind of confirmation I needed. I like an inside cabin and travel with discounts. Whew. Everyone I've heard from has spoken positively about it. Plenty of choices of cruise lines covered (Carnival, Princess, Costa, Holland, Cunard and more) .... 14 day cruises seem to get the best OBC (my next is a 28 day. grins. woulda been nice). And Carnival and Princess both cruise out of my home port, so airline savings by sticking with them.

Now to figure out which trade company to use. Etrade and Scottrade come up the most. Sure wish I could buy it using the credit card that gets the loyalty points. grins.

Conna

The satellites THEORETICALLY work worldwide, as a practical matter if you absolutely 100% MUST have contact you could be at risk. Satellites can fail, systems can fail, etc.

 

That said, in the normal course, you should be fine.

 

EDIT: Here's the satellite coverage map for Princess' internet provider: MTN - http://www.mtnsat.com/mtn-network/global-network

Ah! They are MTN (RCCL isn't) That is good. Ok. I'll have a backup plan for worst case scenerio but this is a bit reassuring.

Thanks to all who replied. Tahiti has been on my bucket list a long time and I found I like the sea days on the transatlantic so might like them on a transpacific too!

Has anybody used wifi in public areas recently on Crown when she is travelling between California and Hawaii or Hawaii and Tahiti?

I am concerned cause I did a transatlantic in May and RCCL would only sell time by the day cause they 'thought' they could have up to 3 days without any Internet access. My work only allows a max of 36 hours of no contact. I might not need more than 15 minutes, but I do need daily connectivity.

So, in the middle of the ocean did it work?

Thanks for any experience.

Conna

...

That was my first cruise, second was with my DH on the "Big Red Boat", we've been crusing ever since!

...

 

I was hunting for some pictures from 1986 and stumbled across a pro photo of myself and my son on a ship with SS Asure Seas from 1986. I found this thread when I went hunting to find out what cruise line it was part of. I think this explains the 4 day trip Royal Caribbean found when creating my loyalty account with them.

Conna

I'm glad this information is here. I thought I had done my due diligence for this TA that I am already on. Once I got here the pricing changed (higher ... much higher) and then some have said it might be 3 days mid-atlantic with absolutely no connection. Well, I figured out how to work around the pricing... but was stumped on the 3 days no connection when I have an obligation to be 'present' at least every 36 hours. So, I will plan my worst connectivity time to be working in the wee hours of the night when all are sleeping. I have checked available internet connections and I do see that the ship has a 2nd network so I am not sharing with the ship's business transmissions.

Internet "speed" ought to be split out into two distinct parameters: bandwidth (how many bytes can arrive per second) and latency (how long it takes those bytes to travel from origin server to destination netbook, or vice versa). Because the at-sea link is satellite based, your traffic has to go up to a satellite and then back to the ground, and that applies in both directions (getting a form involves all of the packets that make up the form, plus several acknowledgements back to the server along the way). It can be as bad as 250ms each way if it's using geosynchronous satellites (the reason that your home DirecTV/Dish antenna gets aimed is because the satellites orbit far enough away that they don't appear to move in the sky, but that's 22,300 miles up). Home internet connections are probably on the order of 1-4ms to nearby sites and perhaps 40-65ms if you try to access something across the US from your home.

 

All of that is a long-winded way of saying that you can expect high latency aboard the ship. This would make interactive stuff absolutely painful, such as online gaming - you'd get shot to smithereens long before you could see the enemy and shoot back. However, once a particular packet stream gets going, it can probably achieve a reasonable bandwidth. So, things like getting the form may be a little slow to start, but after it's flowing it shouldn't take long, and the same in reverse.

You may remember us from the Sapphire Princess Transpacific cruise, we certainly remember you. For the OP, if you go on a cruise with the same mindset as Lynn, you can be sure to enjoy it. We had a wonderful cruise. Although I am fortunate in that I have my DH to travel with, I am sure that cruising is without doubt the best way for a single person to travel. Elaine

I got tired of finding people to share a cabin with me and having my actions influenced by them. I do still cruise with friends sometimes. But, now if I don't have someone to cruise with and am willing to pay the extra to go solo I have no issue with it.

I totally agree with them to join the meet and greet roll call. I have had such wonderful people to go on excursions with and eat with and to get to know. This time I am going on a hosted singles. Now I have both the cruisecritic roll call and the single group Yahoo. Kinda fun to know a lot of fellow passengers and have so many options.... or I can just hide. :)