sydfella

Am sailing on Quantum of the Seas on the 7th July to Japan. In the first port of call to Osaka on the 9th July Royal Caribbean are showing no port trips. I've contacted RC but they tell me they are all sold out! So .... could anyone tell me if we can get off the ship and walk to any interesting places near the port please? There looks to be a waterfront area with shops and restaurants close by but I'm note sure how far, so if anyone who has been there could help it would be good to have some knowledge before we go.

 

Many thanks.

They lied to you about the Osaka shore excursions selling out. They cancelled all existing shore excursions for this port and did not offer any at all. Their stated reason to me: their scheduled late arrival of 2pm. They just simply cancelled everything due to their poor planning and docking time.

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I am not one to beat up on a company just for the sake of beating up on them. However. That is not a response that holds any weight. They aren't acknowledging the problem with their clients. The problem isn't one of reseting a password. Whole functions integral to managing an upcoming cruise are missing. A reset password doesn't suddenly gain one access. Truly gobsmacking what they have done.

Meanwhile over on NCL's website for my other cruise: their 6 or 7 year old website is heaven.

Hopefully we can find some 2017 Epic Med dailies. In the meantime, here are some 2016 dailies someone posted:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/showthread.php?t=2413002

We may even take the train up to Venice overnight after the cruise. Any recommendations or tips and tricks for those stops?

I will just give you a Venice tip. If you can leave your large luggage in Rome for your overnight do it. Getting around Venice with a full set is not fun. Think water taxis, vaporetto (water bus), stairs, bridges etc. Add rain and you will want to cry. The alternative is storing your large luggage in a locker. The train station has storage and there is also this info page on a close alternative:

https://europeforvisitors.com/venice/articles/keep-calm-point.htm

Luggage aside, Venice is awesome. Enjoy!

I am on the Spirit out of Barcelona in two weeks (1/24/18) there are still no excursions of any kind in Barcelona presented as of yet. No transfer excursions, nothing. I called NCL and she said they are being re-negotiated and most likely be unavailable until boarding. I have the $50 credit...so I will have no scheduled method of transfer when I board. Not too happy about that, she said she was sure something will be available after boarding... so I hope they have enough spots....

Oh that’s not fun. Definitely hope they sort that out for you. So that definitely clears that up. I have the shore ex OBC too.

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I just checked my reservation (we are on a round trip from Barcelona in just over two months time) and there are no disembarkation tours being offered at the moment, so it does look like there is some sort of problem.

Thanks for the info Keith. Helpful to know.

Yes quite right about the majority embarking in Barcelona. Have been on this itinerary before in 2013, also embarking from Rome. We definitely had tours available for Barcelona. I ended up however engaging a private driver to do Barcelona and Montserrat as NCL didn't offer it. This time around when looking at the general port shore ex page I noted that they now offered this tour. But then no port page at all for some time. Will just keep watch/book something with another operator. Cheers.

Probably renegotiating or changing shore ex vendors. NCL does not “run” any shore excursions. They contract with local tour providers. If providers are unreliable, poor quality, too expensive, or can not support the volume of tours of a mega ship, they are replaced.

Ah a possibility. Has anyone seen this happen before so close (if 4 months is close) to a cruise date?

Interesting that they would pull the plug on them all at once. I would imagine they would have a mixture of vendors for different types of tours. Perhaps not in Barcelona being a large and established market.

Is anyone able to view NCL Barcelona shore excursions on the NCL website? Assumed they were just slow making them available in online access (cruising in May 2018, embarking in Rome). However, they haven't been available at all under the general access shore excursions pages or as a downloadable port PDF list now for some time now either. NCL haven't responded to a question about their visibility. Is something amiss here? Seems odd.

I had this very same experience today at CostCo multiple times and with those enormous trolleys added to the equation! grrr rudeness!

First time cruiser in 25 days on NCL Epic. At least I am now prepared for this. Thanks for the heads up haha. How do I not say something? I am prone to forgetting to keep my mouth shut haha.

Thank you so much for this review!

Fantastic.

Here's the Epic

 

Thanks for posting this. Do you mind if I ask what the approximate weight and dimensions were. Rough is fine.