Celebrity Dropping Lerwick From Several Itineraries - was it really that bad.

We were supposed to go to Lerwick on our Iceland and Ireland cruise next year. It was recently replaced with Cork. I have a friend doing that cruise with me and then staying over a week in Ireland and doing the Norway. She wrote me today that Lerwick is now cancelled for the at cruise too.

Celebrity wrote us that they are making the change to avoid tendering and provide a better experience. We recently did a cruise with lots of tendering due to smaller ports. Most of the time the wait times for tenders, using the ship's own boats, were really long. Much much longer than in ports like Grand Caymen where the port has its own boats. We were elite in one port and still had to wait over an hour for out tender in Bay of Islands NZ, and folks who had no status were only able to spend and hour or two in port due to the poor tendering circumstances. Moorea and Bora Bora were only slightly better because the distance was shorter and lagoons were very calm.

Anyone have to deal with the tender operations this year in Lerwick? Was the dropping of the Lerwick and replacing with Cork justified due to logistics?

I loved Lerwick and am sad to see it go. After visiting it, I watched all the episodes of "Shetland" on Netflix. (You might not be so eager to go there once you see how many people are murdered there :p) Yes, it was a tender port, but it was a lovely and unique place, full of friendly people.

We were supposed to go to Lerwick on our Iceland and Ireland cruise next year. It was recently replaced with Cork. I have a friend doing that cruise with me and then staying over a week in Ireland and doing the Norway. She wrote me today that Lerwick is now cancelled for the at cruise too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrity wrote us that they are making the change to avoid tendering and provide a better experience. We recently did a cruise with lots of tendering due to smaller ports. Most of the time the wait times for tenders, using the ship's own boats, were really long. Much much longer than in ports like Grand Caymen where the port has its own boats. We were elite in one port and still had to wait over an hour for out tender in Bay of Islands NZ, and folks who had no status were only able to spend and hour or two in port due to the poor tendering circumstances. Moorea and Bora Bora were only slightly better because the distance was shorter and lagoons were very calm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone have to deal with the tender operations this year in Lerwick? Was the dropping of the Lerwick and replacing with Cork justified due to logistics?

We were there on the Norwegian fjord Cruise in May and I did not think tendering was bad. Seas were not rough and it was better and shorter ride than Maui last fall. There is not a lot to do in port, we had canceled ship excursion because of poor experience in Bergen. Did get some very good fish and chips and did some shopping. Saw some fantastic knit goods, but out of our price range.

Wonder if this has anything to do with Brexit? Did get some Pounds to us for local money.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I loved Lerwick and am sad to see it go. After visiting it, I watched all the episodes of "Shetland" on Netflix. (You might not be so eager to go there once you see how many people are murdered there :p) Yes, it was a tender port, but it was a lovely and unique place, full of friendly people.

I agree. We were there twice on B2B cruises and I really enjoyed the town. If you walked about there were several neat shops to see and the people were super friendly.

Tendered twice with no problem. We took a tour and drove around to see other parts of the island on one stop. Then did the town the other.

We loved Lerwick. We booked a private excursion and if you got on line early for the tender tickets it was fine. It was a very short tender trip, just 5 minutes.

Found Lerwick wonderful. Warm Viking greeting at tender pier. Very friendly people. There must be a reason other than tendering that they eliminated the visit.

We very much enjoyed Lerwick in May 2018. Unfortunately, it is a tender and even though the ride was less then 15 minutes, only 2 tenders can load/unload at a time at the port. On Celebrity Eclipse it took over 3 hours to get everyone to shore, and they had 5 tenders running. This was in perfect sea/shore conditions.:o We had a lot less time there than we had wanted. :loudcry:

Too bad. We enjoyed this port. Explored several Viking sites and walked all around Lerwick. Getting off the ship was smooth. We did have a longish wait to return. I have a short list of places I still want to see so I hope they return Lerwick as a port.

Agree with everyone. ;) We were in Lerwick in May. No wait for the tender either way. Loved Shetland! I'll have to look that show up on Netflix if we can ever figure out how to use it. :o

In NZ last February and had no trouble with tendering in the BOI. You just need to plan on getting off ASAP in both ports!

The conditions were too bad to launch the tenders the day we were there - never did get ashore. We were disappointed (also loved the Shetland mysteries, both the books and TV shows) but safety has to come first. A couple we had met onboard had a very sad story - They were from Australia, and through genealogy research had found and communicated with cousins they never knew existed, arranging to finally meet onshore that day. They had booked that cruise specifically to get to meet their relatives.

It was removed from our cruise as well, & replaced with Belfast.

I'm sad as I had an amazing day planned in Shetland... reading about the tender situation however, I precooked a celebrity excursion that I had no intention of taking just so we could be on the first tender.

I am happy with the Belfast substitution though, I feel it's a pretty fair trade. :)

Other than our last cruise, we've always missed ports due to bad weather, so I happy that they are preplanning in this way

Agree with everyone. ;) We were in Lerwick in May. No wait for the tender either way. Loved Shetland! I'll have to look that show up on Netflix if we can ever figure out how to use it. :o

 

In NZ last February and had no trouble with tendering in the BOI. You just need to plan on getting off ASAP in both ports!

When we tendered in Bay of Islands in April there was enough of a chop that the tender boats could not go very fast or the waves would splash all the way over the top and come in the driver hatch. We are Elite so we went to the Elite priorit waiting are where we waited for over an hour for our chance to board our tender. We loved the area, but heck, there were folks who did not get ashore until after 2:00 and pretty much had to turn around and get right back on the tender.

I enjoyed Lerwick. Cobh is not Cork. You need to do a trip or you can get the train into Cork, which is what we did. The station is just opposite the port. I didn’t like Cork and wouldn’t bother going there again. Cobh’s claim to fame is the Titantics last port of call.

I just booked the May 7, 2019 Iceland and Ireland cruise & it includes both Cork (Cobh) AND Lerwick. After seeing this thread I double-checked the Celebrity website and it still shows both ports. Am I missing something here?

You won’t miss much. We were there two weeks ago on our transatlantic on Serenade of the Seas. We were disappointed. There’s really nothing there of interest and the worst experience is that the shop we stopped at refused to take any currency other than British pounds. No credit cards accepted either. They wouldn’t take our British pounds because they said they were too old, not the new colorful ones. Got the impression that we weren’t welcome. Be happy that Celebrity was smart enough to reroute to somewhere where they welcome cruisers.

We found Lerwick delightful and had no issues waiting on tenders. We did have an excursion booked in the morning (Jarlshof Ruins), but no wait for the tender on the way back to the ship after walking around town.

You won’t miss much. We were there two weeks ago on our transatlantic on Serenade of the Seas. We were disappointed. There’s really nothing there of interest and the worst experience is that the shop we stopped at refused to take any currency other than British pounds. No credit cards accepted either. They wouldn’t take our British pounds because they said they were too old, not the new colorful ones. Got the impression that we weren’t welcome. Be happy that Celebrity was smart enough to reroute to somewhere where they welcome cruisers.

so, just to be clear, you'd be happy to take expired foreign currency in the U.S.? Think about it. :)

& Lerwick has several UNESCO sites that are reachable by bus. :)

so, just to be clear, you'd be happy to take expired foreign currency in the U.S.? Think about it. :)

 

Just to be clear, when was the last time the U.S. declared some currency to be expired? Think about it. ;)

The currency is still valid, it just needs to be exchanged at a bank. If an area depends on tourism you would think the local shops would still accept the currency as a goodwill gesture.

We experienced the same thing during our cruise out of Southampton earlier this year. We didn't find out the currency was expired until our last evening in London when it was too late to exchange the money. However one of the Brits we met on the cruise said it wasn't a problem for him and exchanged the money for us.

Thanks again

Just to be clear, when was the last time the U.S. declared some currency to be expired? Think about it. ;)

 

The currency is still valid, it just needs to be exchanged at a bank. If an area depends on tourism you would think the local shops would still accept the currency as a goodwill gesture.

 

We experienced the same thing during our cruise out of Southampton earlier this year. We didn't find out the currency was expired until our last evening in London when it was too late to exchange the money. However one of the Brits we met on the cruise said it wasn't a problem for him and exchanged the money for us.

 

Thanks again

The currency expiration was announced a few years ago it should not have come as a surprise to anyone. It's my belief that when you're a visitor in another country you use their currency rather than expecting them to take your own home currency.

I guess not everyone agrees with that. :)

I have a little pile of expired 10 & 5 pound notes, I'm pretty sure I'm out of luck with them next year.

The currency expiration was announced a few years ago it should not have come as a surprise to anyone. It's my belief that when you're a visitor in another country you use their currency rather than expecting them to take your own home currency.

 

I guess not everyone agrees with that. :)

 

I have a little pile of expired 10 & 5 pound notes, I'm pretty sure I'm out of luck with them next year.

Agreed it was announced quite awhile ago but if you only travel to a country every few years and you have no experience with currency expiring it is a surprise to many people. According to the Bank of England there was still a lot of 10 pound notes that have not been turned in.

You are not out of luck, these notes will always be honored by the Bank of England. I think any bank in England should exchange them for you. If not and you are in London, you can take a trip the Bank Museum and exchange them there.

Good Luck

Agreed it was announced quite awhile ago but if you only travel to a country every few years and you have no experience with currency expiring it is a surprise to many people. According to the Bank of England there was still a lot of 10 pound notes that have not been turned in.

 

You are not out of luck, these notes will always be honored by the Bank of England. I think any bank in England should exchange them for you. If not and you are in London, you can take a trip the Bank Museum and exchange them there.

 

Good Luck

Thanks, I do plan on taking them with me as we'll be in London for a bit, I believe that next year it will only be the Bank of England exchanging them, unless you have an account at a UK bank which we do not... if I can exchange them, it'll be nice, if not, that's ok :)

Just to be clear, when was the last time the U.S. declared some currency to be expired? Think about it. ;)

 

The currency is still valid, it just needs to be exchanged at a bank. If an area depends on tourism you would think the local shops would still accept the currency as a goodwill gesture.

I couldn't agree more. When I travel aboard, I'm checking whether my trip "falls" on any national holidays which can impact my plans, not banks declarations of expired currency. A pound is a pound.

After all, I'm not traveling to Venezuela, for example....

For non U.K. posters. Just out of interest, has anyone asked their bank if they will exchange the old style pound notes?

If you are in the U.K. go to any high street bank (TSB, Lloyds, Santander etc) and ask if they will change the notes. I changed some very old ten pound notes a few weeks ago. They did not ask for proof that I held an account with them.

Please note that the twenty pound note is next.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknotes

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

For non U.K. posters. Just out of interest, has anyone asked their bank if they will exchange the old style pound notes?

 

If you are in the U.K. go to any high street bank (TSB, Lloyds, Santander etc) and ask if they will change the notes. I changed some very old ten pound notes a few weeks ago. They did not ask for proof that I held an account with them.

 

Please note that the twenty pound note is next.

 

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknotes

 

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I can't speak specifically for currency exchange at US banks, I used an independent currency exchange (operated by Amex) in the US. Although I was lucky enough to find a friendly Brit to exchange my old 10 pond notes, I had some other currency to exchange after my trip and asked if they would exchange the old notes. The answer was a definite no. She indicated that it wasn't uncommon for people to bring back the old notes, but she isn't able to accept them.

You won’t miss much. We were there two weeks ago on our transatlantic on Serenade of the Seas. We were disappointed. There’s really nothing there of interest and the worst experience is that the shop we stopped at refused to take any currency other than British pounds. No credit cards accepted either. They wouldn’t take our British pounds because they said they were too old, not the new colorful ones. Got the impression that we weren’t welcome. Be happy that Celebrity was smart enough to reroute to somewhere where they welcome cruisers.

We are British and even in London they don’t accept out of date notes. Why should they? They are no longer legal tender.

Sent from my iPad using Forums