Blue Elephant

Train from Rome to Civitavecchia is simple. Takes about 45 minutes from memory. The Italian train system is fabulous and low prices. Trains will depart on the exact minute they are scheduled (perhaps even down to the second). I think the service runs about every half hour from memory. Tickets are sold from vending machines and the machines have a button that you push to see the instructions in English.

I have done three trips to Italy. In 2015, we disembarked from the Emerald Princess at Civitavecchia, the caught the night ferry over to Olbia in Sardinia. A week later we caught the ferry back to Civitavecchia and trained in to Rome for a few days. Then we trained back out to Civitavecchia to catch Allure of the Seas.

IF only the rest of the world had a train system like Italy!

GEtting from Civitavecchia station to the port is a bit messier. Getting a taxi from Civitavecchia station to your wharf would be the simplest approach.

I would also advocate just going straight to Katoomba. Katoomba is close enough to Sydney that many residents commute daily to jobs in Sydney.

half way between Sydney and Katoomba places you in suburban Sydney. If you don't feel like you can get off the ship, pick up the hire car, and drive to Katoomba all in the one day, you would be better off staying a night in the Sydney CBD.

It would be an easy train trip to Katoomba from Central station. You could then collect a hire car in Katoomba and save yourself negotiating Sydney traffic and the drive up to Katoomba. I haven't checked all the details of this, but the train to Katoomba definitely runs. My daughter caught one to Blackheath a few years ago.

as you are from the US, you may not have thought about train travel. I have noticed this in posts about European travel from US cruisers.

I'd love to see Istanbul, it's a place I've always wanted to visit, but it certainly doesn't sound like a safe place to go at the moment.

Istanbul is so enchanting and beguiling that I find myself wanting to go back there even though it is considered risky at the moment. It is almost like a siren song beckoning me!

I hope you get there and have a wonderful and safe time!

All equals staff cut-backs and services, and from reading other threads one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to realise that this is the way they are going.

Wonder who will be the first to report a vending machine on a ship, far-fetched, mmmh, lets see.:)

COsta have introduced little humanoid robots on their Mediterranean cruises, with the first being rolled out on Costa Diadema. As I remember, they can provide you with directions for places on the ship and some port information. I think you can also order a drink from the robot, but not entirely sure. They speak English, Italian and Spanis?

What do you think of that for cost saving?

I suspect you are preaching to the converted here. Members of Cruise Critic are well aware of the issue of noroviruus on ships. It is more likely to be the infrequent cruisers that think they don't need to be hygienic when they use the toilet.

actually, I blame the school children that go on cruises over the summer. Mum and dad can tell them to wash their hands - but who listens to their boring old parents? And also the higher temperature allow bugs to replicate that little bit quicker at the height of summer.

We visited Bay of Islands inJanuary. There was a take away shop in Paiheia that did fabulous hamburger - both vegetarian and carnivorous. Just across the road from where the bus dropped us. We also took the local ferry to Russell and enjoyed the simplicity of the town.

We experienced dolphins without paying for an excursion. The Dolphins came to check out the ship in the morning. Then when we were leaving, they accompanied the pilot boat before moving to the front of the Voyager for a surf.

If HAL have put this in writing, it would be sensible to comply. What is the alternative? You get to the wharf and are denied boarding. I understand that this has happened to cruisers in Australia.

Royal has a buffet dining facility. It is usually called the Windjammer Cafe and is on one of the upper decks, usually the same deck as the swimming pools.

the selection available is quite comprehensive you can be as healthy or as unhealthy as you like at the Winndjammer. But the dining room is very nice as well and we ate as often as possible in the dining room.

Celebrity, in the past, have released their timetable earlier than other brands. I remember booking the Solstice April 2017 sailing to Hawaii on Christmas Day of 2014. We later cancelled it in favor of a Europe trip.

But it was available to book. Which implies that by Christmas Day of 2016 you might be able to book Celebrity for April 2019.

Norwegian Jewl also appears to be doing a cruise from Hawaai to Australia starting on 13 October 2017.

I also liked the Chilean wines. They were selling 4 x 187 bottles through room service for $20 I think.

We have cruised with Princess and Royal Caribbean. In fact we were on the Golden Princess with you for the Hong Kong cruise in April. I have also done two cruises on the Carnival Spirit with some girlfriends.

Carnival has a slightly younger demographic than Princess, but there will be other things that remind you of Princess, presumably due to the same parent company. Fairly relaxed for formal night. Drinks prices are eminently reasonable, but there are no alcoholic drinks packages. The waiters and the vocalist in the MDR may well be quite good, but it will just be one or two songs each night.

I read a recent post on that well known social media site that said the pub band on the Legend was now good. Previously that was the Spirit's claim to fame. On the Spirit cruise I did in August, there was a violin duo that was part of Lado Strings Quartet. Eastern European and very much the sort of thing you expect on Princes.

If you have a mind to enjoy yourself, it will be a pleasant relaxing cruise. I like Carnival and will happily cruise with them again.

Well ... I will tell you what I think of Costa Cruises at the end of May next year. Why did we book a Costa cruise? Because it started from Savona (near Genoa) on just the right date. And it went to just the right places - around Spain, Portugal, France and Belgium. And it ended in Amsterdam on just the right date.

my husband has a substantial fear of flying and out alternative was flying to Sicily and then to Amsterdam. Given that there are considerable doubts about the placement of Palermo airport, the Costa cruise seemed a better option.

Btw, we both speak Italian and are comfortable with Italian culture.

We were there in January. Bif Islands is a tender port. When you get there, you can take a ferry across to Russell. The area is unspoilt. There is also the Waitangi Treaty House in the area, but you just catch a bus there. Hamburger at Paiheai was superb!

Don't remember feeling like I needed to seek out a paid excursion.

It is no worse than flying into Canberra. There is just high winds and turbulence as you come in or take off.

I don't think anything could be worse than our takeoff in to a storm late at night in Milan a few years ago. It was NOT pleasant, but the worst thing was some woman screaming and yelling "We're all going to die!!".

My husband has a substantial fear of flying as it is. When he was employed a couple of his employers gave serious thought to putting him through a "Fear of flying" course!

Will make for a much shorted trip to Europe for those of us living i n Canberra. Just a pity that we saw some bargain price Etihad fares to Europe and booked them for next year.

Changi airport is supposed to be one of the best for overnight stopovers. I haven't been through Changi, but if Singapore is anything to go by, I expect it to be fabulous.

Another site that may assist you is called rome2rio (with the number 2 in the website name). I have it as an app on my iPad. It will give you all of your transport options to get between any two places in the world, together with the journey time and the cost. However, when I looked up San Francisco to Odessa, they all involved air flights.

There is one cruise that ports at Odessa this year. It leaves Liverpool in the UK on 8 October and arrives in Odessa on 20 October. It is on the Fred Olsen Boadicea and I think it is very expensive. I got that information from http://www.cruisetimetables.com.

If you are considering train travel in Europe, you might like to look at http://www.seat61.com for information.

If on the other hand, you are prepared to consider air travel, there is a website that gives you a league table of the safety ranking of the 60 largest airlines. Look at http://www.jacdec.de for their 2016 safety rankings. They use data from the last 30 years but Give less importance to older incidents. My husband has a strong fear of flying and we were alerted to this site by a friend that works in the industry.

We have stayed twice at Hotel Centauro. It is only a few minutes walk from San Marco and the Accademia bridge and the Rialto bridge - all in different directions.

BUT, it is old style Venice and does not have a lift. You may find yourself walking up 72 steps. Despite that, I would stay there again without hesitation. Wide ranging buffet breakfast, coffee to order. There is a little side canal beneath the breakfast room, but it is used for grocery deliveries during breakfast time, so no gondola serendades. But you will hear and see the gondola serenades at sunset from the square that this hotel sits on.

my other advice re Venice is to buy a vaporetto pass for the length of your stay and use it to the max. Go for a loop of Venice after dinner and check out all the cruise ships. Go to the islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello. Also go to the outer reaches of the lagoon on the vaporetto pass.

I did a New Zealand cruise in January this year. Once we left Dunedin and cruised through Fiordland, I was wearing thick track pants and a hoodie on the balcony.

btw, I live in Canberra where the temperature drops below freezing on most winter nights.

I was on a 12 day Carnival Spirit cruise recently and paid $100 for the social media package. It was good to be able to keep in touch with people in Australia. I only use Facebook and it was a little frustrating noth to be able to access the linked articles.

my friend paid for 24 hours of full access half way through the cruise and did some things she needed to do. She was pleased with that access.

it is much better having access for a definite time frame, rather than the "minutes of access" packages. That way you don't feel cheated if the Internet is connecting very slowly.

David

would you please add me for these two cruises:

19 May 2017. Blue Elephant Costa Magica. Savona to Amsterdam 12 nights

3 June 2017. Blue Elephant Vision of the Seas Baltic cruise out of Amsterdam 12 nights.

thanks very much.

If you decide that driving yourself has advantages, I would not be too worried about traffic in New Zealand. There is plenty of rural kilometres to be driven. Sheep don't know one side of the road from the other!

Rotorua is amazing btw!

I am on cruise 8 at the moment. I thought back on the captains of the ships and I have the perception than most of them have been Italian. Am I correct? And if so, why is this the case?

I am travelling to Suva and Port Denarau this coming Thursday on the Carnival Spirit. I went in to the local Travelex shopfront on Friday and was able to get $50 AU in Fijian currency.