roaming_kiwi58

A full day for those wanting to go into Cairo. 7am to 10pm.

Depends on your budget. Also depends whether you want time in Valparaiso or Santiago. We have stayed in both cities and actually enjoyed Valparaiso much more than Santiago. Though they are both worth seeing.

We were very happy with the Ibis in Valparaiso. We had two nights there pre cruise. The position was great for joining a Valparaiso walking tour (which was really interesting) and then exploring on our own. Adjacent to a supermarket and eating options. Big room, very helpful staff. Some people have commented on noise, but we didn't have any issues. Extremely good price. Short taxi ride to the cruise terminal. Can be busy on cruise turnaround days.

Would not hesitate to use the Ibis again if we ever do a repeat cruise in/out of Valparaiso. But you may be looking for something more upmarket, and something in Santiago.

Thanks take us away and John Bull, for responding.

It is the safety issue I was concerned about. We do prefer to wander on our own two feet where possible and do heaps of walking when on holiday, as well as at home. But sometimes it is just not a good idea!

As I said before, we are not interested in returning to Cairo. Have spent several days there on a couple of occasions and done as much as we want to do in the city. Yes, including the Papyrus Institute!

Most of the ship's tours focus on Cairo. The one which stays in Port Said does not look very interesting to us (concentrates on a military museum, which is not our thing). If all else fails we may yet end up with a quiet day on the ship.

Another vote for DIYing Corfu, and Tom's Port Guide very useful.

There are 2 fortresses, one on the sea side of the town, the other on a hill on the inland side. Great views from both.

We will be stopping at Port Said in September. I know most people use this stop to visit Cairo, but we have been to Egypt before on a land tour and done many of the main sights. We do not want to go into Cairo again. We would like to just walk around Port Said itself by ourselves. It appears there might be a few interesting buildings. Is this feasible and safe?

Any thoughts/experiences? Thanks in advance.

Fort Lovrijenac, outside the city walls is well worth a visit. Great views back to the City Walls. You can do it on the same ticket as the City Walls, with no extra charge.

I am in New Zealand. I downloaded the brochure in NZ dollars, then in US dollars, and the same anomaly shows in both currencies.

ie.

KC10 is NZ$147 or US$98

KC15 is NZ$178.50 or US$119

KC09 is NZ$178.50 or US$119

Yes, definitely agree that LAN is usually more reliable than Aerolineas Argentinas. However, LAN are also good at changing flight numbers and times.

Another habit at South American airports is to keep changing departure gates without any announcements - so be alert for this! On both our trips to South America we found the airports to be universally pretty chaotic!

We stayed at the Ibis Hotel in Valparaiso prior to a cruise in December 2015. While the hotel is near where the cruise ships are berthed, this is a big industrial port and the cruise terminal where you check in is not at this end of the harbour. Where you check in for cruises is further north, and you get transported by shuttle from the cruise terminal to your ship.

Taxis are easy to get from the Ibis on cruise days - there was a steady stream of them running to and from the hotel/cruise terminal on the day we joined our cruise. The taxi we got charged us 4000 Chilean pesos, but I did hear one other passenger say they were charged 5000 pesos. Either way, it is not very much!

In January this year we finished a cruise in Buenos Aires, then had two nights in Iguacu before returning to BA, to start our journey home to NZ.

We were on HAL, and we arrived in BA the day before we disembarked. On the ship there was a lot of misinformation from HAL about what time we could disembark. Firstly they said we could not get off the ship until 8.30am, which would have been too late to catch our flight to IGR (the Iguazu airport on the Argentinian side of the falls). Our flight was due to depart AEP (the domestic airport in BA) at 9.20am. We were told we would have to get off the ship the night before and stay in a hotel!! Not what we were told by HAL when we booked our flights for this cruise! Everytime I asked I got a different story about debarkation times given us. The earliest was 6am, so in the finish we decided to get off then, as we were unsure when indeed they would let us off, and how long everything would take. Debarkation depends on the Argentinian authorities, and staff at the terminal.

In the event we left the ship shortly after 6am, caught a shuttle to the terminal building, went through customs (baggage xrayed), then couldn't get out because all the gates were still locked. Someone eventually unlocked and we were able to get out onto the street about 6.30am. There were plenty of taxis waiting. I know people say not to get the taxis from the port, which are fixed price in US$, but they are safe and convenient. A guy told us the price to get to AEP, of US$25, and allocated us a driver. The journey to the airport took less than 15 minutes. So we were at the airport before 7am. We had been told it was a 2 hour checkin time, but in fact the domestic checkin times in South America that we have experienced usually seem to be 1 hour. So we were early, and the airport was relatively quiet. We have used this airport before on another trip, and it can be chaos and jammed with people. This was another reason we did not want to cut it fine timewise.

Hope that helps with your timings. There were a number of people off our cruise getting flights to IGR at 9.20am - there was an Aerolineas Argentinas and a LAN flight going at the same time.

I certainly agree that it is logical to do Schwerin first, being the furthest away, and the most interesting. I would certainly leave Warnemunde to last. In my opinion it is the least interesting of the 3, and therefore less missed if you run out of time.

Difficult choice, and both interesting. Probably depends on what else you have seen in Egypt apart from the pyramids in Cairo. Have you done Luxor or Abu Simbel?

Inside the tombs at the Valley of the Kings is pretty amazing. But Karnak is a large site and very interesting. For me I would probably lean towards Karnak, but not if you have done Luxor. In some respects Karnak & Luxor are similar, and the tombs at Valley of the Kings are quite different to any of the temple sites in Egypt, of which there are many. But for uniqueness the choice would be Valley of the Kings. Have never seen wall paintings as elaborate as those in those tombs. You don't get to go in all of them - we saw three and they were all quite different.

This probably didn't help much! However, we enjoyed both of these sites much more than the Cairo pyramids. You can't go wrong with either of them!

As others have said, any of the major companies in St Petersburg will give you a good experience, and this includes TJ.

We used TJ in 2014 for a 3 day package. It was not a private tour, but there were only 4 of us. Great service. We had a brilliant 3 days, and it was so much better than our first visit to St Petersburg, which was part of a river cruise.

Hi We-R-Off

As Travelanni has explained you don't need to prebook your train. We used the Mecklenburg Lander day ticket that she talks about. Bought it online before we left home and it was very convenient.

At Schwerin Castle, if you want to take photos inside there is a 3 Euro camera fee, as well as the 6 Euro admission per person.

On my September 2014 thread I outlined what we did in Schwerin. We are not big on museums, so you could easily spend more time in Schwerin than we did. Rostock too, we did not go in any museums, just wandered the streets enjoying the architecture and atmosphere. We did walk a total of about 20 kms that day, in the three towns of Schwerin, Rostock and Warnemunde. Left the ship about 7.30am and got back about 6pm.

Enjoy!

We did a Baltic cruise in September 2014. Last port before Southampton was Zeebrugge.

The UK immigration people came on board and we all had to go and see them before disembarking.

No, you wouldn't be doing Warnemunde if you are docked in Rostock and going to Schwerin. For us, Warnemunde would not be worth a trip. Yes, it is a pleasant seaside town and we enjoyed our wander there, but the history and architecture in places like Schwerin and Rostock is more of interest for us.

Depends what your interests are of course.

We did Schwerin & Rostock (didn't go to Wismar) on our own by train in 2014. Easy and enjoyable. The trains in Germany are easy to use. Travelanni gives great info and help.

See earlier thread on this, including my comments on our day trip:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2103092

Ferrara is north of Ravenna, but further inland. So a bit closer to Venice. Looking at the trains I see it takes about 3 hours to get from Venice to Ravenna, but only about an hour (or a bit more depending on service) to get from Venice to Ferrara. Though the train station in Ferrara is not right in the centre. We went by bus and got dropped near the moated castle and the cathedral. But we walked a lot, right out to the old city walls. But the walls themselves were a bit disappointing - not as much left as we had hoped. Along the way though we saw lots of interesting architecture. We got a really good map from the tourist info. It had a number of suggested walking tours marked on it. Also in Ferrara is an amazing cemetery. Check out the Monumental Cemetery of Certosa.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for posting these videos and photos. We will be visiting Malta in September, so this thread is very useful!

Hi browneyes7

We visited Padua (Padova) in 2014, as an excursion from a Uniworld cruise, which was based around the Venice lagoon.

To be honest it was not our favourite town on this trip. We did not find it as interesting as other places in the area, but that is of course just our opinion. We do a lot of walking and enjoy history and architecture.

In Padua We had a walking tour of the centre of the town, including a tour of the Saint Antonio Basilica. Then we had free time to wander. We had a total of about 3 hours in Padua. The weather was poor, very overcast, with some showers, which did not help!

I believe the highlight of Padua is actually the Scrovegni Chapel. This was, unfortunately, not included in our tour. You have to book ahead if you want to see it. A visit here may have changed our feeling about Padua. We did not have the time to try and fit it in to our free time.

I know you did not ask about any other places in this area, but while I am here.....Other places close to Venice we visited on this trip were Ferrara, Ravenna and Verona. All of these ranked higher in our enjoyment stakes than Padua, particularly Ferrara and Ravenna. Ferrara has a moated castle in the centre of the town, and further out the remains of the city walls. We enjoyed walking this town. Ravenna is famous for mosaics, and the Mausoleo di Galla Placidia and the adjacent basilica are indeed very impressive. Verona we had been to before. Here, there is of course a lot of hype over the supposed balcony where Juliet stood while Romeo declared his love. The fact that the balcony was a 20th century addition to the building and that Romeo & Juliet were probably just a figment of Shakespeare's imagination is irrelevant! Verona is a nice place to wander, but was less of a novelty to us. It has a very impressive Arena (the third largest in Italy) and other Roman remains.

Hope this helps a little!

Nooosey -

According to their website Tours4Tips operate every day of the week, 10am & 3pm, from Plaza Sotomayor

http://www.tours4tips.com/en/

We did a morning tour on a Saturday. It was about 3 and a half hours - we ran overtime! They say about 3 hours.

Highly recommended. See my comments above, and my review on Trip Advisor. There is no charge as such, but they are definitely worth a decent tip. Along the way they pay for things for you - tram fare, ascensor fare, snack. Our guide gave us a really good introduction to Valparaiso. We were pleased we stayed two nights, so we had time to do some exploration on our own as well as doing the walking tour.

There is another company in Valparaiso, which does walking tours, also based on tips. They operate from Plaza Anibal Pinto. We did not try these people - it was Tours4Tips that we used.

Enjoy Valparaiso!

We came off Zaandam earlier in January (on same sailing as StarTrainDD).

We were told we could disembark as late as 11pm on the first day in BA. But you will have to check that on board. We were told so many different stories about disembarkation it was a real frustration!

We actually wanted to get off early on the 2nd day in BA. Were told on booking we could get off as early as 6am. Then on board we were told the earliest we could disembark on that last day was 8.30am! If we wanted to get off earlier we would have to disembark the night before (as late as 11pm) and stay in a hotel overnight!! Then they changed that, saying we could get off at 7.30am. Then they said "get off whenever you want"!! Then, 6am is the earliest. Nobody we were referred to seemed to know for sure.

We did not need to get off as early as 6am, but by this time we had no idea how long it was going to take us to get off the ship and through the terminal, so we got off at 6am. We were first passengers off Zaandam, together with one other couple. There was a shuttle bus waiting to take us to the terminal. Then we had to wait while they found someone to check our luggage through the xray. They did not check passports. Then we had to wait, because all the gates were still locked and we could not get out to the street. Eventually a guy with keys showed up and unlocked. It took about 30 minutes in all to get out onto the street from the ship.

If you have a late evening flight out of EZE, given the time of the flight, the time you will need to be at the airport, and the time it will take you to get to EZE from the port, you should have no problem doing this on the first evening in BA, but you need to check that there will be shuttles, and staff in the terminal building to do everything necessary at the time you want to get out, because at some point they do shut down for the night!

Apparently the fixed rate that we paid for airport to Valparaiso (95,000 pesos) would have been the same for a Vina del Mar destination - the flat rates are set for regions, and these two destinations are about the same distance from the airport.

We paid in Chilean pesos. I believe the couple in front of me paid in US dollars. I am pretty sure credit card was also an option, though I did not particularly take note - just vaguely recall there were some credit card logos in evidence. I would be extremely surprised if they didn't take credit card.

We were in Iguacu and Iguazu just a couple of weeks ago and the entrance fee on for the Iguazu National Park (Argentinian side) was AR 260 per person.

I can't answer the other part of your question, as we stayed in the Iguacu National Park (Brazilian side), but they must have some arrangement for after hours payments of park fees. Though on the Brazilian side I came across someone who had actually paid their park entrance fee to the hotel. We arrived in the middle of the day and had to go to the park entrance to pay our entrances before going to the hotel gate.