crafter188
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Posts posted by crafter188
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Sue, who we travelled with, arranged a very interesting walking tour of Montevideo. It would be easy to find your own way around, but we really enjoyed the info we received from our walking tour. All I have is her email address if you want to communicate with Veronica. ( veronica.moner at gmail dot come.)
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In Puerto Montt we had an excellent excursion arranged with Denis from PuertoMontt-Excursions dot com. It was shared with others from our ship (all coordinated by Denis) and covered a lot of interesting and beautiful things in the area. I would highly recommend.
i’ll have to look at my notes for what we did in the other ports.
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I second the mention of Michael the German Pirate, we had a great excursion from Santiago to San Antonio in February.
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Thank you for sharing this! We are booked from Bucharest to Budapest in May 2024, so this is great information for us.
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We are booked on the Emerald Luna from Bucharest to Budapest in May 2024. Very excited to be visiting these Eastern European countries!
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Another suggestion for you is Michael the German Pirate. We used them to get from Santiago to the cruise port and had a really good tour. Michael is very responsive, provides excellent communication and they are very flexible to meet your needs. I highly recommend visiting Valparaiso; it is a beautiful and interesting city. https://www.thegermanpirates.cl/en/nosotros.php
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We just used the services of Diego K after disembarking Sapphire Princess on March 5. He provided excellent communication and we stayed two nights and three days in a beautiful resort in Puerto Iguazu.
Their website is http://www.discoveruruguay.com/about.htm and his email address is ecouruguay@aol.com. I never had any need to call, but here’s his phone number too 1-860-916-9777
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We were at this port in January 2020, and used a tour provided by Nicaragua Tour Network. It was a long day on a bumpy highway but we had a good guide and driver and saw a lot. I think the highlights were staring into the bubbling magma of a volcano and a boat ride on a beautiful lake. It feels like most of the main attractions are a good drive away from San Juan del Sur, so any excursion will involve some travel. https://www.nicaraguatournetwork.com/
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On 3/2/2020 at 2:55 PM, PurpleTraveller said:
It was a most enjoyable cruise visiting a wonderful part of the world with beautiful scenery. I did a review of my cruise.
Thank you for sharing the link to your review. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and hope we can repeat your wonderful experience in February 2022!
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3 hours ago, mrgoalie said:
How close is the train station from the Southhampton port? Could we buy a ticket round trip for the day to get into London and back in time.
The Southampton port to the train station would be a flat thirty minute walk or ten minute cab ride. We took the train to Wolverhampton, so didn’t go straight from Southampton to London. Google maps tells me it’s a 1 1/2 hour train trip to Victoria Station, maybe with a transfer. The trains are great, but there can be service disruptions and in my opinion, if it was me, I would worry all day about getting back in time!! Keep in mind too, whatever you plan to do in London, there can be long lines to get in, so that can eat into your touring time.
There are are several things in Southampton that I am sorry we didn’t have time to explore, such as the Sea City Museum, Solent Sky Museum and Tudor House & Garden, as well as the old town walls.
Good luck with whatever you plan to do!
Cheryl
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We were on the Crown Princess in May 2019 and I thought I’d share a few of the things I found while researching our trip which worked out really well!
Pre-cruise:
- We stayed in Southampton a few days before the cruise and one day took the train to Salisbury for Stonehenge. Gary’s cousin, who we were travelling with, is a great researcher and found a restaurant called “The Haunch of Venison” where we had lunch. It is a very, very old, crooked building, great food and a quirky story! http://haunchpub.co.uk/
- It is an easy train ride to Portsmouth and there is so much to see that a full day and overnight is easily passed. The Historic dockyards are wonderful and interesting and the West Quay area has lots of restaurants. We walked to the Spice Island Inn for a lovely lunch overlooking the busy harbour. Thanks to a fellow cruise critic member for this excellent suggestion!!
- A hint about travelling as a couple by train in UK would be to buy a “two together railcard”. You need pictures for the ID card, but it gives a 30% discount. Also, book your tickets as late as the day before you will be travelling to save on fares, versus buying the day you travel.
Cruise ports:
- we did a food tour in Dublin with Delicious Dublin Tours. Our guide was co-owner Ketty and it was a great way to spend some time in that busy city! Their website is here https://deliciousdublintours.com/ A word of caution though is that it took longer to get off the ship than anticipated, so we had to meet the tour at their first stop, which was very stressful and could have so easily been avoided. After the tour, we went to Trinity College; the Library Long Room was fantastic to see, since I am an avid reader! Then we fought (figuratively, haha) our way into the Temple Bar for a beer and some wonderful Irish music.
- I can strongly recommend City and Causeway Tours from the port of Belfast. https://www.cityandcauseway.com/ I communicated with Alister (one of the owners) about the tour, met him on the day and we had Steve (the other owner) as our guide. I went to the roll call on cruise critic and picked up some people to join us, which can be a crap shoot as far as who you get, but we have always had good luck!! It was a fantastic day, including Giant’s Causeway. They found out we were golfers, so stopped at Royal Portrush so we could get a fix of the upcoming British Open (or just THE Open as they call it - haha) and we had lunch in a beautiful little local cottage, which was a true treat.
- for our stop in Edinburgh (South Queensferry actually), we booked Duncan McNab from Edinburgh Day Tours for a custom tour to St Andrews, since our husbands are avid golfers and St Andrews is mecca! I am sure Duncan would do any tour you want though and he has timing down to a fine science. He was actually starting to fret that we should be leaving St Andrews to make sure we got back to the ship in time and we ended up with lots of time to sit in the Hawe’s Inn at the port (where RL Stevenson apparently penned Treasure Island) for a couple of beer before catching the tender to the ship. Here’s his website http://www.edinburghdaytours.com/
Post-cruise:
- if you spend time in London, I highly recommend connecting with Michelle from London from Scratch.http://www.londonfromscratch.co.uk/ She does walking food tours, which we didn’t do, but we were able to go to one of her supper clubs. What an unusual experience - to sit in her home with perfect strangers and enjoy a gourmet tasting meal!!
Cheryl
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45 minutes ago, CarolandNate said:
I wanted to communicate with you directly. My email is ncrose at comcast dot net. Can you send me yours.
BTW when is your cruise and when are you going to Huatulco. Is it a Sunday like us?
Nate
I sent you an email.
Cheryl
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Hi Carol and Nate. We are doing that same cruise, but on different dates and I agree that nothing stood out for Huatulco! I am not a big fan of ship excursions, and prefer a smaller private tour whenever possible. Here’s what I found, and what we are booked to do when we dock in Huatulco:
“Transportation is provided, pick up is at 9:15 at the cruise ship dock, from there is a fifteen minute ride to the cooking class room located in beautiful La Bocana beach. Drinks are also provided and we'll eat what we prepare.Alfredo Patiño RamirezWahaca Cooking
Alfredos Restaurant Bar”
Alfredo’s website offers a variety of cooking classes, so we chose to learn how to makes tamales and a variety of moles! Here’s hoping it’s a fun and interesting outing!
Cheryl
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On 2/26/2019 at 4:57 PM, gnome12 said:
I have had both experiences. It may depend on what settings an individual carrier uses. I second the comment about asking them to set it up where you purchase it.
I have never put a different SIM card in my iPhone so have a couple of questions:
- will the apps on my phone still be there with the new SIM card?
- will I have to sign back into everything? (Which means I’d better get all those passwords sorted out, haha)
These may sound like stupid questions, but you know what they say about stupid questions!
Thanks for any advice,
Cheryl
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17 minutes ago, rocklinmom said:
We are booked in Riviera aft interior cabins on Crown, about four back from the aft pool door. So Crafter188, you haven't noticed any noise issues from the buffet above? Any info appreciated. It seems like a good location for interiors but I am a light sleeper.
Surprisingly no, no noise. Maybe we heard something like a chair scrape once! We have been two or three doors forward from that back door on two cruises now. I think the bar area is directly above, so, while there may be someone standing there, there isn’t the same kind of dining room noise that you’d expect elsewhere. I am a light sleeper too and always bring earplugs but don’t remember needing them (unless DH was snoring)! Of course this itinerary is so port intensive that we’ll be up and out almost every day anyway.
Have a great trip!
Cheryl
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That area on the ship has become our cabin of choice! I love that it’s a quick hop up to the back of the ship to see what’s up and also easy to get to the buffet for breakfast.
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This thread has been so interesting and entertaining! Sorry for going off topic even further but the political status of the Channel Islands made me go “googling” because I wondered how my country of Canada, as a Commonwealth country, differed. Look what I found! It’s no wonder we can be confused!
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Thank you so much for your very informative review. It sounds like you had a memorable (and very special with three generations) trip. We are planning for this itinerary on May 13, 2019.
Cheryl
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Thank you so very much for this informative and entertaining read! I love your sense of humour and great attitude. I always feel so blessed to be able to travel, that there isn't much that gets me upset!
I am very excited to visit Guernsey after having read the Potato Peel Pie Society book for book club (and should probably go back and reread that lovely story before our May trip).
We aren't big fans of sea days, but on a port intensive cruise, they can be a God-send. I really appreciate all the port information and will have to get my notes organized to begin my planning.
Thanks again, and oh yes: I love the Groucho Marx quote in your signature!
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OK' date=' now that that is out of the way, on to Guernsey. I was very excited about this port. I had read the book[/font'] The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows and I couldn’t wait to get to Juliet’s wonderful island. My imagination had run wild while reading and I needed to experience it for myself.
Here is a tip for those not booking an excursion.
Those people on a ship excursion get the first tenders off the ship. Don’t wait to go to the Island Dining room and get a tender ticket. Go early. We waited until about 10:00. We waited well an hour and a half for our ticket to be called.
The weather had turned chilly and rainy so there was talk of stopping the tenders all together. Kevin kept asking me if I really wanted to go since the weather was bad and it was such a short port stop. I was like well duhhh, If Juliet had not gone she would never had met the love of her life. Yes I wanted to go. Okay, so I didn’t really say that out loud, but the thought was there.
What a wonderful little town is St Peter’s Port. I loved wandering the streets and going into the church - so pretty. Note to all readers, I have a thing for churches, cathedrals and such. That will likely become very obvious in the days to come.
I feel the same way about the possibility of seeing Guernsey after reading that book! I am really enjoying reading your review. Thanks for sharing!
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I'm only part way through your review, but am thoroughly enjoying your stunning pictures and fun descriptions. Thank you so much for sharing your adventure here!
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Hi, I am sailing the the Main having just left the Rhine. We are in Wurzburg. The conditions have been perfect as has the weather. Touring has been done in short sleeves although very chilly at night. For 1st time cruisers I hope this helps you as it was the information I was looking for. Happy sailing.
Thanks for the info! I hope you'll share any other information you think would be helpful for newby river cruisers.
Cheryl
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A couple of years ago, a list member blogged extensively about her Viking Amsterdam to Budapest cruise, and she had posts about what worked and didn't work. Go to the link below and scroll down for a couple of posts describing her "hits and misses." I disagree with her on "small binoculars," but everyone is different.
Thank you so much for sharing this link. I really enjoyed reading her posts.
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Hi there. We will be on the Splendors of Europe Amsterdam to Budapest in August. Could you please advise what kind of "guided tour" you got from Emerald in Budapest? We are staying some extra days when we disembark in Budapest and I'm trying to figure out what to do without maybe overlapping what Emerald will show us. Thanks so much if you're able to help! Cheryl
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Has anyone booked with a tour operator called El Pedral in Puerto Madryn? They want our Passport numbers!
in South America
Posted
We did this tour with them from our cruise in February 2023, and it was definitely a highlight to see the penguins! Our ship ended up missing Falkland Islands because of weather, so we were really glad to at least have had this penguin experience. The El Pedral tour got us to the penguins before the influx of cruise passengers so we had a great experience. Highly recommend!
Cheryl