alicat58

Hi everyone

By now you probably saw that I botched up the photos and linked the album. It is not very large. I have no idea how I managed that because I followed the same procedure attaching.

I will give a brief description of what we did in the different ports and re-attach(try to) the photos and explaine what they were about.

Valencia:

This was our second visit. The previous time was very short and we only strolled around the cathedral area.

We got a taxi in port and asked him to drop us off at the Science Park. It was not as expensive as I thought it would be and we had some commentary from the driver. He pointed out the different buildings and told us that a race was finishing there soon hence a platform being built over the central water feature.

It was a cool but sunny day and we spent an hour or so strolling about looking at the buildings and taking photos. We did not enter any of them. The IMAX was expensive and did not appeal.

There was a little black cat stalking birds in the one building that contained the gardens. We also saw some brightly coloured and very noisey parrots or parakeets in this building.

We managed to get another taxi back to the area just outside the cathedral. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of the inside.

There are loads of restaurants around this area and we stopped to have a beer. Be careful! you will be served the largest one they have available unless you specify what you want. Caught out and left lots of it.

We strolled around a little more and had a fairly mediocre lunch before we returned to the ship.

I took this from the opera house end. The building towards the end of the photo is the Aquarium I think. You can just make out the platform they were building in the distance.

This is the opera house with one of the sculptures along a walk way.

Some good stuff on this season.

It appears that Photobucket is only allowing me to copy about 3 photos consecutively.

I will post thses and see whether it worked properly this time.

Alicat

Hi Allenhouse

We have done a cruise from Dubaii on the Deliziosa a few years ago and arrived early morning like you. We dropped our bags off and took a HoHo and spent the day in Dubai. We merrily went on the top deck forgetting that it was hot and that our pale UK bodies had not seen sun for months. Guess what, no sunblock and we got burnt to a frazzle! Pack a small bottle of high factor sunblock in your bags to use before you venture out.

Unfortunately I cannot recall what time we were allowed to board because this was in March 2011. I do remember that we had our evening meal in the buffet and that it was packed. The AI was not so much the norm then and we bought one of their wine packages. I am pretty sure GMT is right that you can show your invoice and you'll be served as usual.

Have fun.

Alicat

It's playing up. Sorry! Sort of hanging and making little circles telling me not uploading and then this!

Bye till the weekend.

Thank you all for your comments.

Nice to see you Bazbov-glad to see you are willing to give Costa another try. We like the Diadema. I hope you are going to have a lovely time despite some of the negative remarks made.

I am not great with the photography and only use my Samsung S6. It takes reasonable photos for what I want.

Obviously I am going to post some food photos today and it will be really clear what I like. Obviously desserts and the odd cocktail! I don't have them at home soo I make up for it when I am on holiday.

OK, this is supposed to be a swan. It is bascically a choux puff on custard.

This was a really delicious chocolate cake. I scraped the cream off.

Frozen Margarita!

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u421/rbdupreez/20161107_083332_zpsdseofi1b.jpg

This is not a dessert or a cocktail and it is not a latte either. It's a Cappucino.

This a sugar free dessert. Nobody mentions cream and calories. It was actually rather nice but not what I expected.

I will do a few more foodie photos on the weekend and then get down to port information.

Till the weekend.

Alicat

Now that I finally managed the photographs I would like to tell you a little about the club restaurant.

It is on deck 10 aft. Handy as you can have a pre-dinner drink in the piano bar and then go straight up to ther restaurant.

The service was very friendly and we had no issues with the time it took to have supper. The last night was much more hectic because of the amount of passengers who embarked at Savona.

I am not sure whether the menu was any different from the MDR because we never checked.The any time available options were fillet and prawns. I will attach 2 of the menus.

It was also rather nice to order a variety of wines off the wine list. All wines less than €9 were included. There were some lovely white and red Italian wines.

We had all our meals ,except for one, in the club restaurant. Breakfast was the same as MDR but they came around with pastries if you requested and there was a table with cereals , cold meats and fruit. Lunch was also the same as MDR but there were some extras available on the same tables including a rather good cheese board where you could cut cheese to your liking.

I am now so exhausted fiddling with attaching photos that I will have to give up till Wednesday when I will have a little free time.

Alicat

Twin basins

The other wardrobe.

The dressingroom and table. The hairdrier is in the top drawer and the light is good enough to apply make up.

Now lets see if this actually show the photos.

Alicat

I found a link that supposedly shows you how to do this but it still does not show my photos in the post.

Back to the drawing board!

Alicat

I am going to have another try at adding some photos. I found a post ***** CC how to do it. I think it is far too complicated. Why can it not be changed to right click add photo or something simple like that I don't know.

The bed:

This is the one cupboard and TV:

The long narrow balcony:

The sitting room(!)and desk with coffee machine, minibar(included:D):

Toiletries in the bathroom:

I think I am only supposed to add 6 photos at a time and I have no idea whether this will work. So I'll post and have a look before I add more. I hope the photos are not too big either.

Alicat

Hi GMT

They are amazing. Gravity defying cats. They can do other things as well like rodentregurgitation first thing on NY day. Ugh!

Alicat

Hi

I noticed it was a thumbnail. Drat! I will have to try again tomorrow.

Alicat

Hi all

This is a trial to see if the photo attaches. Baz is the Devon Rex with the Siamese colouring and Kipper is the ginger and white cat. They are both neutered toms.

Well part 2 then.

After dropping the cats at the cat hotel I was able to finally get the suitcases out to start the packing. We were flying Ryan Air and had one case in the hold so I could get 15 kg in that plus another carry-on with 10 kg. Should be enough for a week I think.

We were collected bright and early by our friendly taxi person and taken to Stansted Airport which is only 40 minutes drive from home. He ferries us on a regular basis.

Stansted was the usual hustle and bustle and in next to now time we were on our way to Barcelona El Prat Airport.

Here is my rough plan for the holiday:

Fascinosa

6/11/16(Sunday): Barcelona departs 19h30. Flight arrives in BCN 11h30. Taxi by 12h00, drop bags off at port and get taxi to Somorrosto(opens at 13h00. ? get tickets for cable car to Montjuic before. Cable car to Montjuic. Wander around, photos . Then ? cable car down and taxi back or taxi back from top. Check sundown/dusk time.

7/11/16(Monday):Valencia 09h00-19h00. ? use taxi-expensive-to get to science park. Wander around. Lunch. Afternoon inside cathedral, walk in Turia park.

8/11/16(Tuesday): Palma 08h00-18h00 ? taxi to castle, visit cathedral inside. ? village visit. Lunch at Forn

9/11/16(Wednesday): At sea

10/11/16(Thursday): Palermo 09h00-18h00.Taxi to Capuchin catacombs and then walk back towards centre exploring. Lunch around central area. More churches etc.

11/11/16(Friday): Naples 07h30-14h00.Taxi to Herculaneum 50E ONE WAY!!!! Herculaneum tickets E11. Opens at 08h30. Alternative Archeological museum. Need taxi to get there. Opens 9am. 12E per person. Good write ups on Tripadvisor

12/11/16(Saturday): Savona 09h00-17h00.God knows.

13/11/16(Sunday): Barcelona arrives 14h30.Visit dali art gallery

14/11/16Monday:Barcelona.Flight at 10h50

We did not book a taxi from El Prat this time but arranged a transfer. This meant walking out of the airport , you turn right and walk along to the end of the buildings, cross over and diagonally to your right you will find some mini bus vans. I think it was about €12 pp. He first dropped other passengers in town and then dropped us outside the port building.

The Fascinosa was only arriving at 14h00 but we were able to drop our luggage outside the building and go upstairs to check in. There were only two Costa people serving but only one group of people ahead of us. We booked in quickly and was given a number one ticket for boarding.Boarding was from 16h00 onwards. We could actually see her in the distance when we left the building.

We got a taxi as planned to go and have lunch at Sommorosto.We had some tapas and a nice bottle of wine. Unfortunately I don't seem to have photos of the food.

Then the plan went a little wrong. We took the easy walk to the cable car station and got there at about 14h30. There was a 90 minute wait.Quick calculation. Mmm, that meant we will not board till very late. Also we would only get to the top of Montjuic after 16h00 when it will be getting darker already and the whole point was to enjoy views. We should have pre-booked the cable car but wanted to make sure the weather was favourable. This will have to wait for another time.

We then decided to get back to port. We were very excited because we got entry to the VIP lounge because of the suite. Another perk we did not expect.

We were wandering around aimlessly looking for a taxi and was unable to see one. There was one of these bicycle ricksaw stations and hubby said he was not going on one because they looked too dangerous. Deary me! So we walked away with this scrawny young guy following us trying to convince us that he would take us the Columbus Colom for €15.

Now just to mention we are both on the larger side.

I explained to hubby they cycled on the sidewalks rather than on the roads and he agreed we could take the chap up on his offer. I rather think the chap was hoping we would continue to decline:D

So we set off with the poor man developing his calves to enormous size.

Cruisers might be aware of the "Blue port bus".If I recall correctly the tariff used to be €1.50 single and €2.00 return. This has increased to €3.50 single and €4.00 return per person. We waited for a short while and got the bus to the port building.

The VIP lounge is upstairs and what a disappointment that was. No coffee, warm soft drinks and a few tea bags to make your own. At least there were clean loos. We hoped to start our cruise experience before boarding.

At four we took ourself off the embark and we were on the ship in next to now time. We went straight to our cabin and got our Costa cards and checked the time for muster. It was at 18h00 and fortunately not out on deck but in one of the rooms on deck 4. We noted on our cards that it said Club for dining.

This confused us a little. Did this mean that we are eating our meals in the Club restaurant as per a suite booking? We went to customer service and they confirmed that we will have all out meals in the Club restaurant. Woohoo! In my discussions on CC regular Costa cruisers did not think that we would get that perk. I don't know whether we stuck lucky or not. Maybe people can comment on that. We promptly took ourselves off for a drink. Yes, I know it was early but we were back on board and extremely chuffed with ourselves.

We had to get to the muster drill and sat through the safety video and was then taken to our muster station. Quite painless in comparison to those muster drills where you are lines up on deck next to the life boats and have to listen to the whole story in multiple languages with the French and Italian cousins chatting loadly when it is done in English.

This chapter is getting a little long and rambling. I will hopefully attach some menus later and I hope that the photo is going to show.

Bye for now

Alicat

Thanks for that. Work is getting in the way a bit. I will try on the weekend.

Alicat

I have been threatening to write a review about our upgrade experience on the Fascinosa and time has flown by since we have been on her.

There was a bit of a discussion going prior to us going. This was not our first upgrade on Costa. We were upgraded from inside to oceanview on the NeoRomantica a few years ago and in 2015 we had an upgrade to a Samsara suite with a jacuzzi on the balcony.We did not have any suite perks on the Diadema but I really enjoyed that jacuzzi. The room was enormous.

We have become addicted to cruising since our first cruise on the Cosat Magica in April 2005. We started and returned to Savona but visited,amonst other ports, Alexandria.

Now back to the Fascinosa. We booked a balcony but I knew we should have an upgrade because of Costa club. We cruised three times last year and this was out fourth this year. We had to ask for it. We did not expect any of the perks but was very pleased when the drinks package was added to our baskets with zeros attached. We asked for a table for two in "Otto en Mezzo".Suite guests have the additional perk of eating in the Club restaurant and according to the boards we will not have that thrown in as well. It sounded as if the "Otto" was the nicer of the two MDR and we were quite happy with that.

Our cruise starts on the Wednesday before we leave when I put flea/worm drops on the three cats. They then become immediately suspicious because they know what is coming. There is Baz( blue point Devon Rex) who is wonky in the head after he was run over in our little dead end, Kip(per) who is a large ginger tom and Nutmeg(also known as Ratty). She is the old lady of the house and a rescue tabby. By the way they hate one another. They have been going to the same Cat hotel since Nutmeg joined the family 15 years ago and get a special tariff because the parents cruise soo much.

Alas I have run out of time and will have to continue on the weekend. Hopefully I can figure out how to attach photos. I am not keen on photobucket because they started spamming me from the moment I downloaded the app. Any suggestions will be helpgul I don't have lots of photos because I just use my phone and hubby uses one of those fancy Canon things and the photos are huge and need cropping or something.

I will continue.

Alicat

Oh dear! I won't mind the food but not keen on the casino anyway.

I think it will likely be Princess of Celebrity. Working on hubby still. He is very attached to Costa.

Did you enjoy your recent cruise? We are off in 46d 7hrs and 7minutes.

Sorry DutchCruiseFan, not meaning to high jack your post.

Alicat

Hi GMT

Why is Costa discouraging the "rest of the world" to go on those Asian cruises?

We are running out of Med ports we have not visited and are not keen on Caribbean cruises mainly because we don't want to do beach type cruises.

I want to do a Far East cruise next year for a big birthday and will have to look elsewhere.

Alicat58

I just checked and we do not pay a Credit Card fee. We always book directly with Costa. Tried to get a better deal with TA but could not.

If you pay in a foreign currency there will be a charge on most credit cards. We use a Halifax card for purchases abroad. I don't think it is uncommon to pay credit card fees when booking things. I live in the UK and occasionally have to book train tickets on line. There is always a Credit Card fee , same applies to theatre tickets and a few other things. Maybe it is not the case in the USA.

We'll continue cruising with Costa despite all the recent nasty comments on the boards. I agree that the NeoRomantica problem that Bazbov had was diabolical but we have not had any of the experiences some people relate at the moment.

I am also surprised that the moderators do not act on some of the personal attacks on other CC members. Though I am quite addicted to looking at what is going on on the forums I might have to stop because I find it really unpleasant.

Alicat58

Must say we've been on many Costa cruises and all the ships are always spotless.

We've also eaten in the Pizzeria on different Costa ships and never had plastic glasses. Are you referring to the buffet area? I think you will have plastic glasses there because it leads to the pool decks and having proper glasses would be a hazard there because lots of people go bare foot.

I read endless reports on various lines and it appears to be the norm for all them gudging by the photos.

Alicat58

Hi Tenpin

Boarded the Fascinosa early November and it was breeze. She only arrived at 14h00 though and we were there very early. We dropped our cases outside the terminal as usual and went up to the desks. There were only a couple of staff members but we booked in quickly and set off.

We returned later and went up to the VIP lounge which was a joke. Hot water for tea, no coffee and a few soft drinks.

We have boarded in Barcelona a few times now and never waited long. Savona is the worst for me.

Alicat

Hi

Glad to hear you managed get a settlement with Costa. Keep us posted whether it goes through.

Merry Christmas to you. Hope the NY will be without experiences like the one you just had.

Alicat

Thanks for all the info. I will start looking at the excursions when I have my christmas shopping done. I left it a little late this year.

Alicat58

We have booked a cruise starting in Mumbai with Costa. We have been with them lots of times before so no worries there.

I have a few qyestions if anybody can help.

1) Taxi from airport to port and return. The pre-book ones look very expensive but I have read some threads on CC and it appears getting one at the airport can be nightmarish. We can board from midday I think and only leave the next evening so not too worried about the traffic. It is a Sunday. We have a return flight 2weeks later on a Saturday and our flight is at 10.15. Once again we will be overnight in Mumbai.

2) I have looked at lots of info about Tour groups and it looks as if Mumbai magic is good and can be used in Cochin, New Mangalore and Marmagao.

3) Any suggestions in Colombo Sri lanka other than the Elephant orphanage? Not my cup of tea.

4)Has anyone done the walking tours in Male? Not into beach holsbut would not mind going on a catamaran to see dolphins or something.

We have our multi entry visa after a face to face visit and it is valid for 12 months. Might have to do a land trip before December next year.

Alicat

Hi

Glad to see you are safe home. Diabolical treatment of loyal customers.

Good luck.

Alicat

Hi again

Just noticed that you are doing a land based tour followed by the Aurora. I would love to hear how your land based tour went. Our visa is only for a year and if we survive this trip we might have to do the golden triangle before it runs out.:D

Hi Brian1

How did your visa visit go?

He had diabolical traffic from Colchester to Hounslow this morning. The process at the centre was not too bad.

Because we had a booked slot we did not even have time to sit down before we were called. I have no idea why you have to go in person though because all the lady at the desk did was check that our address and phone numbers were correct, scribble on the form that said not too write on it and after about 10 minutes we left.

I thought they were going to give us the 3rd degree!

72 days till cruise. I cannot remember whether you said when you are going and who with.

Regards

Alicat58

Hi Bazbov

Sorry to hear the cruise was cancelled.Is Costa putting you up in a hotel in the UK? Bad to be stuck at Gatwick till Sunday. You only have the joys of Crawley close by. I worked there for a year in 2000. All those roundabouts are enough to give you vertigo.

Good luck getting home safe and sound. Book your next cruise when you get home. Something to look forward to.

Alicat