englishlee

We have neither eaten nor drank anything off the ship since joining it on 20th Feb. We still have ongoing issues after more than a week. I think to state that it's been brought on board from eating ashore is being disingenuous. it may or may not have originated in Cape Town (although we didn't eat there either) but it seems to have been an ongoing issue since New Year or thereabouts. I think part of the problem is that there is no definitive answer as to what it is because it's not being tested, if they could or would identify what it is it would be easier to treat and eradicate, I've just got back from the medical centre and whilst there several people turned up still suffering symptoms or having a repeat episode, or newly affected (including staff).

FlossieC. There is nothing proven regarding the bottled water so not sure what to advise re that, I probably wouldn't bother, but that's just me. If you feel more comfortable taking your own on board no-one will stop you. As far as ice in the G&T is concerned. That'll be made on board using the ships treated water so no problems there IMHO. You can always get iced water at dinner and at meal times, this is also using the ships treated water.

We are also currently on board the Pursuit and are suffering from the GI issue at the moment and thus confined to our cabin. This is the second time this cruise for both of us. My wife missed out on going ashore in St Helena as she was in isolation at that time, she was released from isolation that evening and later that night I went down with the bug. I got the 'all clear' yesterday and today we've both gone down with it again so it seems to be lingering on. It's 50 -50 whether we get to go ashore at Banjul. If we don't then my poor wife will have been at sea for 10 days without being able to go ashore at all. She just wants to get off and go home! The immodium seems to work at masking / easing the symptoms but doesn't seem to 'cure' it. I don't think anyone really knows what the GI illness is, nor what is causing it and therefore can't really eradicate it although they do seem to be pointing the finger at South Africa as the likely source. Fingers crossed we don't get isolated for a third time this voyage.

We joined an Azamara cruise from Monaco in April this year. We were allowed ashore as soon as we'd done the usual check-in procedures etc. That was when they were doing 'individual' lifeboat drills so it may have changed since then (not sure how lifeboat drill is being handles now).

Good to know. Although it'll be a pain getting a shuttle to Jamestown (assuming they put them on) the original tender point was a pleasant stroll to the main strip.

The Cathedral was closed when we were there in preparation I assume for Semana Santa, so I don't know about queues. The Bullring has an interesting museum attached, the entrance fee for the bullring and museum is 6 Euro's (senior rate). Cordoba is well worth a visit if you have the time but there is a lot to see and do in both places (Seville and Cordoba) so may be better to concentrate on one in order not to exhaust yourselves. It is about 45 minutes by fast train (best to book). Toledo is much further away - it's just outside of Madrid, so not really feasible from Seville in a day. Suggest if you want to see Cordoba do it as a long weekend . It's very easy to get to from Malaga by rail and there are often cheapish flights from the UK to Malaga.

We got off of the Onward last week. Usually the teas were Twinings, sometimes (mainly in Mosaic) they had Bigelow for English Breakfast (not pleasant). I drink decaff tea and that was normally Tetley's. Don't know about the wines as we upgraded as we've rarely found a wine that we like that is included in the basic package, especially when it comes to white.

Got back from an Azamara cruise which spent 1nt/2 days in Seville, also did a similar itinerary last year. There were very few taxis available alongside the ship at any time and most of the time none at all, so don't plan on picking up one from the port. From the city centre it was quite easy, there were taxi ranks at a number of places so shouldn't be an issue. It was hot when we were there, 83f/28c, by June it'll be quite a bit warmer 35c is quite likely, last June it was 40c for 7 consecutive days, and not much cooler either side. If you plan to see the Alcazar I suggest you book tickets in advance preferably with a skip the line facility. The queues when we were in Seville were very long and we heard some say that they couldnt but tickets as that days allocation had been sold (not sure if they are still operating capacity restrictions). It is a great city, no hills of any note but it does get busy, and the park opposite the ship, which leads to the Plaza de Espana is a delightful place to spend an hour or two wandering around. Can recommend visiting the Bullring which is a 20-30 minute walk along the riverfront from the ship.

Twas always likely to be the case!

Looks like full implementation is now 22 March. At least according to pop-up on website.

I would imagine that it's lack of facilities. As far as I know,Ascension just doesn't have the infrastructure to cope with 700 tourists arriving at one time. The population is only about 800 and those are all involved with the various 'organisations' that are based there. I was pleasantly surprised when they included it in the itinerary but did wonder how they'd cope / orgainse tours etc.

Thanks for that. Not surprised, just disappointed but at least it confirms what I thought. A lot of consecutive sea days now as well.

Dropping one port would not count as a major itinerary change. Changing port hours is of no real interest to us (may be different for others) and we tend not to do ships tours so although they may be valid points to some unfortunately not to us. I'd rather they look to put in an alternative port but you would think they would do that before changing the itinerary online (which they've already done). Potentially if St Helena is missed due to poor weather (which often happens) then we'll have 9 consecutive sea days - not ideal. In spite of that we'll probably stick with the itinerary because there's stuff we want to do in SA before boarding.

I can understand that. I will be doing the around Japan trip in 2015, but we have a couple of AZ cruises in March and April this year to enjoy yet.Hopefully you'll find something else to enjoy although sadly not Ascension.

Unfortunately we don't have the option of cancelling, if we did we'd lose our deposit. We'll still go but it'll be less interesting as a result of this. I'm hoping it's just a glitch but I'm expecting it not to be.

My wifes legs went strangely wobbly after a couple, although she put it down to the spectacular view!

We are on the Cape Town - Gran Canaria cruise in February 2024. Has anyone noticed or been told that AZ seem to have quietly dropped Ascension Island? It's still shown on the map on the cruise page, but it's disappeared from the day by day itinerary and the 'View At A Glance' itinerary, as well as the excursion page. It was there a few weeks agao when I last checked. From my perspective it's hugely disappointing as it was one of the ports of call I particularly wanted to visit (been to most of the others), but also disappointed that AZ haven't informed me - or presumably anyone else.

We got back from Santiago last weekend. we stayed at the Le Reve Boutique Hotel and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's small at only 31 rooms but was very central, very well managed and very reasonably priced especially considering breakfast was included. The staff were all excellent and very helpful and friendly.There were a lot of post and pre cruisers staying whilst we were there.. There are a number of restaurants on the same quiet street and many more in the surrounding streets, it's about a 15 minute walk from the Costanera centre and 5-10 minute walk to the nearest metro station. Possibly most importantly bearing in mind that it hit 37c (100f) whilst we were there was that the AC in the room was excellent. In Rio we've stayed several times at the PortoBay Rio Internacional. It's on Copacabana Beach almost next door to the Copacabana Palace Hotel. Well positioned, well run, quite reasonable price by Rio standards for a beach hotel. Nice rooftop pool and bar as well (with excellent Caiprinhas). We'd quite happily stay at both of these hotels again.

I have not done this exact itinerary (but will be doing Cape Town to Gran Canaria in Feb 2024) but we have been to St Helena on a previous cruise. Be aware that St Helena is one of those ports of call which can often get cancelled due to weather as it's a tender port with little shelter. We got ashore and had a great and interesting time but getting back to the ship was an adventure in it's own right. The weather had changed which meant that the ships tenders could not get to the dock and so we had to catch local boats mid way to the ship and then transfer to the ships tenders en-route, fine for us but difficult for some. So if you're planning this trip specifically to visit St Helena be aware that you may end up disappointed.

Picking up on this. We got off Pursuit this morning in Ravenna. We flew to Bologna as it's somewhere we hadn't been to for some years and is an interesting place in it's own right to spend a couple of days. Then we caught the train to Ravenna for a pre-cruise overnight, unfortunately on the day we travelled to Ravenna there were no direct trains from Bologna to Ravenna (presumably working on the line), so we had to change at Ferrara which made the journey much longer. On the morning of the cruise we spent some time looking around Ravenna, and noticed a shuttle bus with an Azamara sign in the window and some passengers retrieving their suitcases so we assumed they had just disembarked. The bus stopped just around the corner from the NH Hotel and about 200m from the railway station. We had also heard that Azamara might provide a shuttle from the railway station to the port so checked that out as well, and they do an hourly service from (if my memory is correct) 1.30pm. We however decided to catch a taxi to the port instead of the bus. A couple of days before disembarking we asked at the concierge desk and the guest relations desk if there was any plan to run a shuttle into Ravenna for disemarking guests, they said no and that the only option was a taxi. But lo and behold when we disemarked the lovely port staff directed us to a coach which would take us to the drop off point a couple of hundred metres from the railway station and agin just around the corner from where we were staying for a post cruise night. Chatting to the port staff we discovered that the shuttle back to the town runs hourly from 0830. It was all very efficient. We left our cabin at 0755, had breakfast, disemarked, collected our suitcases, boarded the bus and was in our hotel before 0900 - an ecxcellent outcome made better by the hotel upgarding us to a suite and allowing us to check in at 9am! We're catching the train back to Bologna tomorrow and hopefully catching the Marconi Express out to the airport from there.

My wife was saying something similar after we got off. Morally it may be the correct thing to do, but I'm as sure as I can be that many weren't testing or reporting. We have been lucky in that we've both only had it once, very mildly. That's despite doing a couple of cruises travelling, all round the UK and some overseas trips, eating out regularly and going to gigs with 10,000+ attendees, and not wearing masks unless mandatory. That's a risk assessment that we've made and we're comfortable with that.

https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/topic/2875486-live-from-sky-princess-uk-to-norway-14-nights/page/2/#comment-63898377 Hello everyone, yesterday my wife and I got off of the Sky Princess. My wife caught covid and I isolated with her. If anyone's interested some details of our experience is shown in the above thread.

THIS IS A VERY LONG POST MOVE ON NOW IF YOU'RE EASILY BORED. We’ve now disembarked from Sky Princess having spent the last 4 or 5 days in isolation due to Covid and I thought I’d share a few thoughts and notes regarding our experience in case it helps anyone else. Overnight on Monday (today is Saturday) my wife complained of a headache and symptoms of a cold, so first thing Tuesday morning we tested her for covid (using a kit of our own). She was a strong positive so we called the medical centre and they sent someone up to our cabin to take a ships covid test, and they asked us not to leave our cabin until their results were available which they expected to be that afternoon. Barely 20 minutes later we received the expected call that my wife’s test was positive but that mine was negative and that she would need to transfer to a quarantine cabin and to start packing, and they’d send someone to move her in 30-45 minutes. I could either go with her and isolate in the new cabin, or I could stay on my own. Obviously I chose to go as I thought she’d appreciate the company and I know what’s good for me! Our daughter and son in law were also on this cruise with us so they decided to be tested by the ships medical centre as we had been close contacts and her husband also had a headache. They were tested mid- morning and he tested positive but my daughter didn’t. The interesting and confusing thing was that they were transferred to a quarantine cabin before their positive tests were even confirmed. We on the other hand sat and waited, and waited and waited some more before I eventually rang the medical centre asking what was happening, instead on 30 minutes we waited almost 2 hours. What we think happened was that our daughter was moved instead of us (our two booking were linked) and that they only realised that when we rang them. Goodness knows what would have happened had my son in lawL not tested positive having already been transferred. The cabin swap was beneficial to us in that we had a larger balcony (D216) than our original cabin (R709). Our daughter was not so lucky and had a like for like swap. We were taken to our new cabin avoiding public areas as much as possible and used a lift in the crew area specifically allocated to such transfers. Prior to the transfer we had been told that my wife would get a FCC for her days in quarantine but that I would not as I had ‘volunteered’. I wasn’t particularly happy about that as I would have thought that it was in Princess’s interest to quarantine close contacts ‘just in case’. As it turned out the information I was given was incorrect but more of that later. There was a printed sheet of information in the cabin waiting for us which had general info about what to expect during our enforced confinement. One thing that stuck out was that no-one from the medical centre would be in contact unless we contacted them first. Not a problem for my wife as I was with her if she felt worse, but a single traveller would not have that comfort and I think that in that situation a phone call once or twice a day to check would not go amiss. I was told that I would be tested for Covid daily which I thought was unnecessary as I was already isolating, wasn’t allowed to change my mind even if I wanted to, and if I tested positive I would still be isolating until the ship arrived back into Southampton anyway, so a waste of time, effort and money. As it happened I was only tested once (I was negative), I think they may have tried to come back and test me a second time as someone was repeatedly banging on our cabin door at 0740 my wife was not best pleased to be woken from her slumbers at that time, we may have been isolating but we were still on vacation! By the time she’d put on sufficient clothes to be decent enough to open the cabin door (I was in the shower) whoever it was had gone, so she went back to bed only to be woken again 20 minutes later by breakfast being delivered 45 minutes early! Regarding food. We were told that we could order from any of the restaurants on board including speciality restaurants using the Medallion app / TV screen or by contacting room service, this would be at no extra charge. Also every morning a menu for lunch and dinner from the main dining room would be delivered to the cabin and a member of the main dining room staff would ring each morning and afternoon asking what if anything we wanted to order from the main dining room that day. Sounds good but to be honest this is where I think it starts to fall down. During our 4 days in isolation of the 12 meals we ordered only one order was correct and only one meal was hot. Every other order was wrong, either courses missing or incorrect, or the wrong number delivered, or white wine instead of red and vice versa, one night we only had one set of cutlery. Also all but one meal (the last night) was at best lukewarm and generally stone cold. It got to the stage where we would try to choose dishes that were supposed to be cold. We had ‘fun’ though trying to guess what would be wrong for any particular meal. I know that the orders were taken correctly because the order form was usually included with the delivery, it was lack of attention to detail when checking the trays, and probably lack of staff. I fail to understand though why in major cities you can order food and it will generally turn up at least warm despite being transported miles but on a ship it doesn’t seem possible to get hot food from kitchens a few hundred yards away. We were contacted on day 1 by a member of staff who was to be our point of contact for any issues, we asked him about ordering premium wines (we had a premium package) and he did arrange for a couple of glasses of our chosen red to be sent to us, he did the same the next day. At that time I also asked him about our non-refundable on board credit, we obviously couldn’t use it as we weren’t allowed out of the cabin to buy anything and the offerings using the TV / Medallion were very limited. We were told that the credit was non-refundable irrespective of the reason for non-use which I thought was unfair, I suggested converting to a FCC but that was a no go as well. So I made the decision to use some of the credit to purchase a couple of bottles of premium wine that I knew we both liked, it was overpriced but I wasn’t going to just let the credit go, he arranged for the wine to be delivered with dinner. After that we never heard from him again. We still had credit which I was determined to use rather than forfeit it so I resorted to trying to purchase bottles of wine using the TV ordering system. We found the selection to be underwhelming, particularly of the premium wines, but nonetheless ordered a couple of bottles that appealed. Job done or so we thought. 15 minutes later we had a call from room service advising us that the wines we chose were not available but they did have less desirable wines available. The very helpful staff member agreed to go to Vines to pick up a couple of bottles of alternative wines that I knew we liked and a few minutes later they were delivered to the cabin. They are now sitting happily in my wine rack at home. Overpriced they may be but I completed my mission of using my OBC! The evening prior to disembarking we received a note in our cabin advising us of the FCC that we would receive for having to quarantine, and contrary to the initial advice I was given we were both given it. By the time it came to disembark we were experiencing a mix of emotions, stir crazy, demob happy, relief being the main ones. We had previously been told that all those quarantining would disembark last and that it would begin at 0915. That time came and went, 0930 came and went then 0945 and still nothing. No announcements no notes nothing. Tried ringing reception several times with no reply at all. At 1000 there was a knock on the door and all of those in the cabins on our part of the corridor were simultaneously released, think of a prison movie and that’s what it was like. We were then shepherded into the public lifts and shown the gangway! Free at last. I think that Princess did a reasonable job in the circumstances, but that with a few tweaks and a bit of extra effort it could have been so much better. Why were there so many mistakes in meal orders. It’s not difficult to check and double check before delivery. Meals should be hot. Tepid, lukewarm or cold food is unacceptable. Make certain that the product offering using the medallion app is accurate, and maybe more expansive. If OBC cannot be used then offer the option to convert to a FCC If you tell your passengers they’ll disembark from a certain time then at least keep them informed if there are delays. I was enjoying the cruise prior to isolating, it’s not a perfect product but it was decent. We’ve now completed almost 50 cruises (this was our first with Princess), it was better than some and not as good as others. One thing I did notice was that very very few passengers were sanitising or washing their hands prior to entry to the Marketplace restaurant, whilst waiting for my wife on one occasion of the 25 people who went in only 5 bothered. This is probably worse than any other ship I’ve been on. I also suspect, although I cannot prove that many more people had covid and weren’t testing. The coughing, sneezing etc from day one was noticeable, I also suspect that some would not have undertaken a covid test before boarding just in case it was positive. As it was it seems as if the whole of the portside of deck 9 was used for quarantine and apparently even that wasn’t enough. On the bright side for us at least, my wife is fine, after day one you wouldn’t have known she was ill.

All feeling fine. I haven't got it but decided to quarantine with my wife. She feels fine, if we were ashore we would have carriefd on with our normal lives assuming it was just a summer cold. Only tested to protect others on board.

I'm currently on board and in a quarantine cabin! Walking down the corridor to get to our 'new' cabin there seemed to be quite a lot occupied, no idea of exact numbers but I'd say 20-30 cabins currently being utilised maybe significantly more.