MeHeartCruising

There was a Bologna train station shuttle on my B2B Explorer cruises on May 8 and May 14. I posted the luggage tag sheet in this thread - see post #43. You should be able to buy the transfer in advance prior to your cruise by calling Royal Caribbean and getting a knowledgeable agent. I booked my transfer to Venice, but had to call twice to find a knowledgeable agent who knew what a post-cruise transfer actually was. Once I had the right person, they knew exactly what options were available. You can also wait to book the shuttle on board, if you desire. They sold them all week and there were several notices in the daily newsletter about booking the shuttles (to anywhere they were offered).

Also, for number 2, if you show up at 6:30 with an 8:00 reservation they will happily seat you IF there are free tables (not reserved by others). I have showed up early for a reservation a few times and they have always had room for me. But, obviously, if they are full, they are full. They aren't going to bump someone else out of their table to make room for you.

There is usually no curfew. In fact, it's common for people to spend that night in a hotel in the city rather than spending time going back and forth to/from the ship. Since Livorno is quite a distance from Florence, you might consider doing this if you wish to have more time exploring Florence itself.

Based on what I saw last month in Ravenna at the port, I would not plan it quite so close. There is quite a bit of waiting for the buses to show up. Waiting for them to fill up. I didn’t get the sense that a schedule was in effect at all. It’s more of a continuous service that runs a loop with a few buses. You wait in line for the next bus. If you get a seat on that one, you go when it’s full. If you don’t get on that one, you wait for the next one.

Research your ports by reading Rick Steves travel guides for those destinations. He also has a Mediterranean Cruise book. They are an excellent start on planning your days in ports.

In my experience in Europe, there are definitely luggage workers who take your luggage as you approach the terminal. But they don't generally meet you at your taxi/car with a dolly or cart like I've seen in some USA ports. You need to be able to get your luggage from your vehicle over to the terminal building location where the workers will take it from you and usually put it thru a door that goes into the building or load it on to big carts which will go directly to the dock.. You then walk little bit to where passengers enter the building. Obviously, the distances vary due to differences in terminals, but it's mostly the same. For disembarking, I never really noticed porters, but I don't look for them since I don't use them.

Did you pick your own flight? Or have any control on what was picked by NCL?

Interesting. I had just seen the “Airfare Credit” icon on another cruise before you sent your details. Where do you see it is a $150 credit? I don’t see an amount. This is new to me and I don’t see it mentioned in the Terms and Conditions. Perhaps they are rolling it out this weekend and aren’t finished yet. Now I see “up to $300 per person” if I tap the icon. I have no idea on the terms.

What cruise are you seeing this?

Yes. You pick your starting airport. You can see how much the airfare will cost by doing a test booking. One of the questions asked is which home airport. Advice: THOROUGHLY read the MANY posts on this forum about using the airfare promotion. There are a lot of gotchas and a lot of people get disgruntled when things surprise them related to it.

I think the only feasible way to get from Rome or Naples to Athens is to fly or by boat (i.e. a cruise ship). I suppose you could rent a car, but that's not usually considered for these distances. While it might be possible to do flights in time for the Athens cruise, I think it's probably too risky for my tastes. I would stay at least one night before such a cruise. YOu'd probably need to be on the ship by at least 8pm. I'd probably suggest 6pm. Have a look at airline flights. Allow at least a couple hours on each side to get thru the airports.

There is no reason you cannot drop your bags off and then disappear into the city for some sightseeing before checking in later. There is no mechanism that ties the two steps together.

I would also opt for the longer excursion. If you only did the shorter one, that leaves you multiple hours with not much to do except explore the small town of Flam (unless you arranged something else). I'd prefer to be busy all day. I'm pretty certain the longer tour is the one that I took when I was in Flam several years ago. I enjoyed it.

I guess it depends on your definition of "stroll around". I assume you mean to take a taxi to Piazza Navona (not a train). I think I would make the plan for all your desired spots. Then just adapt on the day of based on how much you have strolled around.

I can tell you that there is a taxi stand right beside the Parthenon. Multiple taxis there pretty much at all times. Similar situation in other locations around the tourist area. By the way, if it’s a weekend, you need to order tickets for the Pantheon in advance. Not sure about week days. Might vary depending on when you visit. In May when I was there, the line to get in was a few hundred people long. I didn’t check to see if these were ticketed people or not.

Hearing more of the details, I think if I needed to do this all at 6am or earlier, I would probably just open the wallet and pay for a water taxi from directly in front of my hotel. It's a lot of money, but in the bigger picture of the entire vacation expenses, it probably isn't so bad. And yes, the hotel can arrange it and the timing would not be a problem. Go out with a memorable event!

To clarify, if you walk to Piazzale Roma, you would be taking a car taxi. Not a water taxi. You would only need a water taxi if you chose to do it directly from your hotel. Unfortunately, I do now know the hours of these services. Hopefully someone else will offer that.

Most of Venice cannot be directly access by cars. So, no, you cannot get a cab "near" your hotel. But near is a relative term. From your hotel, options would include: 1. Arrange a water taxi through the hotel to pick you in a boat directly in front of your hotel on the Grand Canal. This will be the most expensive option, but very memorable. 2. Walk along the Grand Canal for a bit. Go over 2 bridges. Walk into Piazzale Roma, the transportation hub mentioned in the above post. From there, you can catch a taxi or bus to the airport. This option will be more affordable (especially if you take a bus), but you'll need to deal with the walking distance, bridges and your luggage to get there. Look at Google Maps and see the distance. You can even use Street View to see what the walk would be like. Some people might consider this to be a "near" walk. If it were me, as an able bodied person who travels with manageable luggage, I would just walk it. But that's just me.

I don’t read it that way at all. It sounds to me that they were fully assigned to the new cabin. Even saw it on their account. Then they got the email telling them of the mistake and notifying them they were back in the original cabin.

My choice after my recent experience (see above), taxi from the pier to your desired destination. But, hopefully, you don't get in a taxi that doesn't want to take you where you want to go. On the return trip, I think Metro back to Piraeus and then a taxi to the ship from there.

Gosh. Mistakes happen. They put you back in your original cabin. They have reversed the charges. They notified you promptly. All done in a matter of hours. I don't see this as bad business by a company. Now if you had lost the original cabin or if they haven't reversed your charges in a timely fashion, that would be a different story.

Neither a paper copy of your passport or a picture on your phone will get you far. Technically, you can’t fly using that if say, you miss the ship. And police would expect a real passport if they truly wanted one from you. In my opinion, the paper (or phone) copy only serves the purpose of providing you the info in case it helps get a replacement passport faster. For what it’s worth, I always have a picture of my passport available via any device because I store it in a secure folder in “the cloud”. But I’ve never had to use that or a copy. I’ve always had my original when needed.

I used it at the end of my cruise on May 21. I was flying Business Class on Iberia and Fast Track was included as was entrance to the Marco Polo Club Lounge. I had a very nice experience departing from Venice.

I think the E12 entrance gate serves both the B and C Terminal. I was at Terminal B in May. Even though the X80 was advertised as "starts in May", it had not started by May 17th when I was in port at Terminal B. It was disappointing. There was a bus stop and even a kiosk for a person to either sell tickets or give info about the X80, but it was unmanned and had a sign saying "Starting in May". So I jumped in a taxi (there were a lot of them waiting for passengers) and asked to go to the Acropolis. We took off. However, I was again disappointed when the taxi driver started to pressure me to pay him for a longer "tour" of the best places to visit in the city. I held firm and asked him just to take me to the Acropolis. Then he told me that he was going to take me to another taxi rank nearby and I could get out of his taxi and get one there to take me to the Acropolis. He told me that I was being unfair to him and costing him money. At first I said No. Then he kept insisting. He told me that he only took me because there was a policeman at the taxi line at the port and he was forced to take the next fare. Which was true. I finally told him just let me out of the taxi. By that time, he was at the second taxi rank. We had gone a little over a mile from the port by that time, I would guess. At this point I was very angry with him and I was letting him know that. I asked him how much I owed him for the short ride. Surprisingly, he told me no charge. So I jumped out. I jumped right into another taxi and went directly to the Acropolis. It was very weird. After exploring Athens very successfully, I decided to ride the Metro back to Piraeus and just walk back to the ship. I had done twice it in the past. In the past, you only had to walk as far as Terminal A and then there was a port shuttle bus that would take you to Terminal B and/or C. I assumed that to still be the case. However, upon arriving at Terminal A, there was nothing going on. There was no ship in port at that time. There were no vehicles at Terminal A at all. I saw only one employee walking around. He didn't speak English. So me and another couple who were in the same boat (pun intended) started to walk thru the a toward Terminal B. A guard stopped us and told us we could not walk thru that port road. This was a road the shuttle busses had previously used to the outer terminals and it would be the shortest distance to the terminals. Instead, we had to backtrack a bit and go up an overpass roadway and then back down toward the outer terminals. This route took us to the E12 entrance eventually. But it was quite a long walk and it was hot and sunny. I think it took me about one hour to walk from the Piraeus Metro to Terminal B. Had I known this, I would have grabbed a taxi at the Metro station. I tried to figure out which bus line from the Metro station might get me close, but I could not figure it out. So I walked. Of course, at that time, I thought I was only walking to Terminal A. Bottom line, the walk to Terminal A is not awful. Probably allow 20-30 minutes. It's a pleasant walk. If you're going to be at Terminal B or C, I would not walk it and I would figure out your plan better than I did.

It all comes down to supply and demand (and revenue)! If NCL's sales and marketing department believes (and/or has historical cruise data to compare) that they can fill that ship at the higher rates, you can bet they are going to price that cruise at the higher rates. Why would they not? If they don't need to be competitive to fill a ship, why bother being competitive? Being the cruise is over a year away, there is plenty of time for NCL to drop that price IF they feel the bookings are behind a level they want them to be at this point in time.