geomagot

ahhhhh... its sweet... thanks stevie... i luv christmas :cool: ... thats why I am leaving the country:p

happy christmas everyone:cool::)

yes lots of ports have free wifi in the cruise terminal (off the top of my head) barbados/aruba/st lucia

most bars have free wifi (you might have to buy a drink)

diamonds international/culumbian emeralds stores can be found all over the caribbean all have free wifi (usually works on the doorstep)

follow the crew... they tend to know where all the free hotspots are

ships wifi costs £5 for 30 minutes £18 for 180 minutes (prices afaik from last christmas on dream).... its rubbishly slooooww and only works in certain areas of the ship

bequia... yes we luv bequia, v pretty laid back typical caribbean town v popular with yachters

a bit pricy

port elizabeth is only a couple of streets with a very pretty waterfront walk (called the belmont walkway) past little shops & bars overlooking small docks and little patches of beach (turn right from the tender dock)

there is a fruit market and a street of shops (turn left from the tender dock) 15 minutes walk and you will be out of town

very little traffic, easy to get a 5 minute taxi ride overland to princess margaret beach or a water taxi (a guy who just happens to have a boat) for a couple of dollars, or its about a 15 minute (very pretty) walk over the headland

nice longish beach with some shade at the back and some caves at the far end, there is a bar/restaurant by the dock, plus some little market stalls, not many sunbeds for hire.... its very barefoot... lovely:cool:

there is a wall behind row 7 left

no row 7 on the right that is where the toilet is, there is a wall behind row 6

no wall behind row 7 middle

all seats recline but only by about 2 inches... plenty of legroom tho

after years of freezing their brassicas off ... at long last sprouts find their long awaited happiness... awww its so cute .... pass the butter ;):D

Also has anyone had experience of how they hand out the 'lounge and fast track' passes.

you get stickers on your bording cards to show at fast track & for free lounge access

afaik all the dreamliners are now fitted with seat back ife (rather than the (finger trapping) ones that used to fold out of the armrests)

yep its fosters on draught (free on ai) draught heineken carries a supplement

US$ accepted/preferred all over caribbean, apart from Havana (cuban pesos) there is an exchange desk in the terminal use sterling or euros for a better rate (they add a 10% fee to exchange US$)

take small notes as usually you will often receive change in local (when in bars and markets) taxi drivers generally will give change in US$ tho

cashpoints dispense local currency (apart from tortola which dispenses US$)

hope this helps

afaik they have a guest speaker only on the transatlantics and an onboard vicar at christmas (for the midnight service)

they also do chocolate making/singing lessons/painting on the ta's which must be booked and paid for in advance afaik?

other than that the only enrichment(s) are the usual daytime napkin folding/cooking demonstrations etc (you have to pay for the wine tasting sessions)

there is a fun (no risk.... learn how to play) casino session once a week on the sea day (£5pp)

the starred prices are the ai supplements

they (sporadically) had banks beer on the dream (a couple of years ago) and red stripe in jamaica last year (supplement on ai).... dunno about celeb sorry?

kalos has posted that they have received a similar request

this thread has had over 1000 hits

i have heard stories onboard of crew asking guests if they would like to invest in 'businesses'? .... etc

i guess it does/can happen everywhere/anywhere tbf

the rise of f/b twitter etc is relatively recent & has made it easy to ‘make’ friends all over the place...... i suspect that this could be becoming more widespread than we would like to think?

As long as names are not named this is possibly a worthwhile/important discussion/exchange of info

others reading/lurking may have experienced similar and be gratefull for others thoughts on this

A little off topic, but this may be the case with Thomson but most main cruise lines target their product to the younger customer who spends more money.

yeah! i guess they have to ... those chandeliers dont come cheap:p

How would a hacker know the special names this person calls the OP???

sir/lady/mam (first name?) is not a pet name, they are almost universal (anglicised) forms of address used in asian countries when younger people address older people

in all asian cultures it is considered very rude not to use an honorific suffix before addressing someone (other than family) by their first name (as in the japanese san or kun)

We must seem like zillionares but they fail to see that we have worked or are working hard for out money.

some of them do perceive that we are all rich?... they hear stories of how we are all given free houses/free money from the government/health care/education

they fail to understand that we are actually very highly taxed, vat/income tax/national insurance/tuition fees/fuel duty/stamp duty/road tax/pasty tax.............

90% of cruisers are retired folk who have worked hard and saved hard all their lives

The crew on Thomson ships are well paid in comparison to other cruise lines and also receive extra tips from passengers

i agree... most cruise ship waiters are very highly trained, have been to college or worked in top establishments

they may appear low paid compared to our economy but provide well for their families back home in their economy

waiters and other crew with lots of passenger contact have the benefit of good tips to supplement their incomes, it may be a hard life with long hard hours away at sea for months... but they are not impoverished

he might have been hacked?.... sounds like a classic hack/scam to me... starts with small amounts? then they bring out the big guns.....I would block

Check with your GP surgery, the practise nurse can do it for you. Shell check online. We always have what we are supposed to have and keep up to date with them. If people dont want to have them thats up to them but theyll be sorry if they catch something and I would never recommend someone else not to bother. They dont hurt that much and are free.

i agree with above, this is not really the best place for advice on medical matters .... best to see your own gp or a qualified travel nurse

In 2017

 

Has anyone done the Nile Legacy cruise with Thomson or would we be better booking with a different company - as we will have to fly to the UK pre-cruise (no flights to Egypt from here) that is not an issue.

 

tbh (i looked into a nile cruise myself about autumn 2014) other than thomsons and egyptair I dont think any other airline fly into luxor

thomsons only fly out once a week summer from gatwick winter from manchester

there are only a couple of nile cruisers opperating out of luxor and none out of cairo

one is german one is the thomsons nile legacy, the germans have to make the journey to luxor to pick up their cruiser overland from hurgardha (they must fly into hurgardha by egyptair???)

last year thomsons nile cruises were selling v cheaply near to sailing time (which leads me to believe they were not selling very well?)

... things may have changed a bit since then? (probably even less flights/nile cruises?)

luxor is basically deserted and has been since the revolution

I think there are issues still with the new website so may just be a website problem.

yep ... its highly likely jules tbh

how ridiculous that a huge multi national company can have so many problems with its website (and its human call centers) that it is unable to sell one of its products to potential cutomers :confused::rolleyes:

no they dont afaik.... they will charge the full upgrade price right up until sailing..... i have heard (overheard) people say that they have managed to negotiate upgrades with the ship once onboard? (dont know how much they paid tho?)

I think?... they have taken the celebration dubai repo cruises off until they get some clarification on sharm el sheikh (the 2 halves of the repo cruises were scheduled to fly out of and into sharm)

dont know about the celeb repo from caribbean in march/april?... may have sold out?

sometimes.... it can be quite enlightening to look at other countries travel advice for their citizens

for instance, the germans have not been flying into luxor (egypt) for some time

the americans have not been flying anywhere in egypt (including sharm) for some considerable time

yet thomsons/easy jet/thomas cook etc (up until recently) have been/still do:confused:

Unfortunately it's not quite as straightforward as that.

 

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't think there was any specific FO advice against travelling to/from Sharm el Sheik prior to the tragic events of 31st Oct.

 

Then Thomsons (and others) were obliged to repeat the Tunisian mass evacuation operation, which wasn't on the FO "no travel" advice list either I believe.

absolutely spot on wcm

thomsons (and other tour operators) will go on the foreign office advice

imho our foreign office doesn't seem to do too much research on the actual security situation(s) (until its too late)

they wont send asylum seekers back to 'certain' countries (because it is deemed too dangerous) but will happily advise tour operators that its safe to send thousands of holiday makers to those same countries?? :confused:

its fosters

current drinks menu is here

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1748329&page=10

any probs at checkin........ just direct them to their own faq on their own website;)