chris_kelowna

We have done several west bound TAs and have always taken a balcony on the port side of the ship. You may not be able to use the balcony for the first two or three days, but after that we have breakfast on the balcony most mornings. Very pleasant it is too in the afternoons. 

We are booked on the Radiance of the Seas to visit Cairns on the 14th of February 2020. We arrive at 7:00am and depart at 6:00pm. The ship offering for the GBR is $249USD, which I find steep, especially as my husband does not want to go in the water, just on it. I have communicated with Skedaddle and they think timing is too close to be doable. Do you know if there are tours available right from Yorky's Knob? 

We have $100 USD of OBC and are Emerald. Can't imagine that would make a difference.  It's a 16 day sailing. 

We are cruising the top end of Australia in February and have been getting ads from Royal for internet at 50% off. When I look in my cruise planner it is showing the price as $15.99USD per day for one device. This doesn't look particularly cheap! Are we better off waiting until we board the ship? 

We saw the Beatles tribute band on the Jewel on last year's transatlantic crossing. We all thought they were appalling. There was a great Beatles tribute band on the Allure Ta in fall 2016. The luck of the draw I guess! 

Or just fill out the form

https://secure.royalcaribbean.com/allaboutcruising/guestSpecialNeeds.do

Thanks for the link! So easy to fill out!

I can't even log on at all! It is telling me We're unable to complete your request, so please try again later. How frustrating!

They do run out of chips, believe it or not!!

On the Allure I once saw a woman walking away from the Park Cafe with a carrier bag chock full of small bags of chips. She had cleaned them out! None left for anyone else. Boo

We have sometimes asked our waiter for a cheese plate to take to our room. He/she puts a dome on it and we're set. Now I find they have a much nicer selection of cheeses in the Windjammer so we just go up there and get some to take to our room. I cover the plate with a napkin for the trip to the room.

Hi Chris - we will be sailing in same cabin this summer. Could you tell me if there was noise from elevators or the restaurants downstairs? Thank you.

Hi Michelle,

There was no noise at all from the elevators or the restaurants - none. We could hear the music from the Centrum (or whatever the middle thing is called!) though, quite loud at times. But it's all over before 11 pm. We loved that cabin and the big deck was beautiful. Enjoy your cruise.

I've done two transatlantic cruise while keeping keto. Except for the whipping cream for coffee, it was very easy. Our waiters in the dining room were excellent at leaving off the potatoes, rice etc and bringing extra broccoli or green beans etc. Escargot is a great starter - all that yummy butter! They also have no sugar added ice cream in the dining room. I figure it's a cruise so I should cut myself a little slack. The Windjammer was particularly good for keto - so many choices. Enjoy your cruise!

We've stayed at the Ciutat del Prat for only one night - no minimum

We have sailed out of Barcelona twice and both times used the Ciutat del Prat hotel. It is not central at all but in quite a nice residential area. They offer a package deal where they will pick you up from the airport and take you to the port, right to your ship. Breakfast was included and was a wonderful treat - all the usual culprits of a continental breakfast plus many meats, cheeses, great pastries. We have eaten dinner there once when our plane was quite late arriving and the hotel restaurant was decent. There are a couple of nice bistro restaurants within close walking distance and a small convenience store across the street. I don't believe it's far from the metro.

We did one Princess cruise a very long time ago and since then have done mostly Royal Caribbean. Most of those ships have lost their outside dining areas in favour of more suites. That outside dining is something I love and I regret the loss. Do any of the Princess ships have outside dining areas?

The coffee shop on the sixth floor, I think. Overlooks the centrum, has great coffee for a fee and fantastic complimentary pastries. Few nice over sized chairs looking out at the water.

It wasn't the salt, it was the chlorine. As a daily swimmer, I can tell you chlorine eats elastic and spandex. You needs to rinse out normal suits as soon as you get out of any pool, and wash them with soap at the end of each day.

 

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I've been swimming three times a week for the last six years. I'm no stranger to chlorinated swimming pools. I rinse my suit every time I use it, and have retained some suits for years. This was waaaayy beyond the norm. My utility swimsuit is a TYR. Those suckers last forever, this was not a TYR.

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You will want too be careful about what bathing suit you bring. Last cruise -on RCI - I bought a lovely new suit because i was going on a cruise. The pool was salt water, extremely salty, and it ate my suit! Not sure what the problem was but the bottom of my new tankini was see through by the third or fourth day and the top had lost all elasticity. I will not be buying any fancy new bathing suits for a cruise anytime soon!

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Thanks for the entertaining and informative review.

As far as the Hoppa is concerned, if you ignore that it's expensive, poor value, infrequent, inconvenient, slow and unreliable, it's perfect. Not for nothing is it perhaps the world's most hated and reviled hotel transfer service.

 

This is not just for the Premier Inn. The same goes for any of the hotels in the vicinity of Heathrow that require use of the Hoppa or some alternative road transport. The only exceptions are the on-airport hotels, namely the Hilton and the Yotel at T4 and the Sofitel at T5.

 

If you want a hotel that is both convenient for T3 and has easy access to London, then I second the recommendation for the Hilton at Paddington station.

OUCH! Thanks for backing up my recommendation Globaliser! LOL I am from Canada and I can tell you that Hoppa is not known here for being 'the world's most hated and reviled hotel transfer service'! I guess I assume that a lot of people are looking for value when they make a request, and for that reason I stand by my suggestion of the Premier Inn. We have never paid more than 49 pounds for a night there. That is extremely good value in my view, for a very clean, spacious (by English standards) room. Especially when compared to 175 pounds for the Victorian Elegance of the Hilton at Paddington.

Wherever you stay fitznorton, I hope you enjoy beautiful London.

Most of our cruises have been on RCI and we have attained Platinum status. Our next cruise - to Antarctica! - will be on Celebrity Infinity. Celebrity has granted us Select status because of our RCI status. Will we accumulate RCI points on the Infinity? That will push us a little closer to Emerald.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

And is this celebrity bag one to keep? Is it normal beach bag size? This is the first I've heard of it.

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We are new to Celebrity and will be traveling to Antarctica in Jan 18. I have been able to find a wine list for the Classic package but I have no idea how much wine the package includes. Is it a number of bottles? Glasses? Sorry if this has been covered before but I have not been able to find. Thanks

We recently completed a TA on Brilliance. A beautiful ship with a great Cruise Director, Clo. Entertainment was quite good, food was only okay, except for the free pastries at Cafe Lattitude. Ship is the perfect size and we loved going up to the lounge at the top of the ship to play cards in the afternoon. Too much salt in the Solarium pool - it ate my bathing suit! Loved the cruise.

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It was convenient to the city as i believe there is a metro stop close by. We did not use it so I'm going off TripAdvisor reviews for that. It was not close to Las Ramblas or anything like that. We were not exploring the city so it worked for us, and actually a while bus load other people.

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What type of obstruction did you have?

 

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It was not a very big obstruction. It was when looking straight down. We were immediately above the lifeboat covers that were at an angle where the hump is. So the obstruction was just when standing at the balcony railing and looking straight down - we couldn't see the sea right below. It was not a big deal, but it was also not mentioned anywhere. Except of course, robtulip showed me a picture on our roll call.