From Italy to India - a diary

Absolutely stunning photos and super-narrative. Thanks for sharing. (y)

Day 28, Mumbai. For this day I had booked an excursion with a local company. I've got my own car, my own chauffeur and my own guide all for a ridiculous price. And the tour was great, there were about the same visited places as on the most extended ship tour, but no rushing and no pressure - and no shops I had to enter. Where I went in I wanted to do so.

Fishing harbor

Laundry

Modern Mumbai from Back Bay

in the Gandhi House

Market

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (former Victoria Terminus )

Interesting breakfast reading for me this morning!

Reading this reminds me why we never buy tours ( unless in countries like this)

I can’t stand not being able to see and do what I want - and the waiting on other people....!!! Toilet stops!

The tour is only as good as the guide you get - I think it’s all down to luck.

We were on a tour in South America which was for English speakers so there were 2 English couples and the rest were German. Then just before we left the port, a French couple came onboard but they were on the wrong bus. They were told where their bus was, but decided they liked our itinerary more so they paid the extra and joined us. All this delayed us! Then the guide started speaking and all of a sudden the tour is in English and French! Infuriating!

I didn’t know about the Indian visa change - I get put off looking at cruises with Indian ports of call as I don’t want to give up my passport - before we had to post to London and then wait weeks. It was expensive too. This is good news for cruisers.

Thank you Stefan

PS

We also did a tour of Mumbai in private car (10+years ago) and told the driver NO shops NoNoNoNo!.

Great pictures

Caryl

Days 29, 30, 31 Mumbai and back home. According to the hospitality service everybody with hotel booking in Mumbai would stay until noon, just the cabins needed to be left earlier. This was valid until I got the luggage tags and the last diario, I had to leave at 6. am - even before breakfast. I decided to ignore that and left cabin at 8 am and took breakfast. Another cappuccino in the Grande Bar later I went off, found my luggage and as the taxis in front of the ship didn't accept a ride to a downtown hotel I took the shuttle to the gate. There I had no papers from the customs that my luggage would have been cleared - not surprising as I hadn't seen any official at all up to that point. Five minutes later this paper wasn't needed any more. By taxi I arrived at my hotel and I asked for storage of my suitcases, but they even gave me a room way before check-in time.

I went to Elephanta Island and visited the temples there. The boats depart from the Gateway of India and it takes about one hour to get to the Island. You have to pay for the boat, taxes near the landing place on Elephanta and entrance once you are at the site. The little train getting you just over the pier is funny, but no serious transport. It end soon even way before the stairs to the caves begin. These are covered and accompanied by stalls offering typical souvenirs as models of the Eiffel Tower... Okay, the point of interest is uphill and it is really worth the effort getting up. The caves are built into the rocks, just as Petra is as well. Of course the caves on Elephanta are dedicated to Shiva. This god you also find on several carvings and sculptures. The first cave is the largest one, but the others are also really worth a visit, although it seems most people don't walk further than the first. Here some impressions:

Gateway of India with Taj Mahal Hotel

boats mooring at Elephanta

First cave

Shiva

another cave

That evening I went to a street food walk, a great experience. Very easy food, but delicious prepared, tastes no Costa will ever offer you. And very much better than the lunch at Panaji.

The next morning I was brought to the airport by a hotel owned shuttle, sure for more money than a taxi would have been, but also much more comfortable. I flew with Emirates to Dubai, where I spent another night and took the opportunity to get onto the Burj Khalifa, before returning home.

Dubai

Back home I contacted the Costa customer service and asked them to refund ticket price and drinking package for one day as I was unable to use the ship and wanted a compensation for the delay. First Costa first rejected because of the “heavy storm” in Marseilles, where the ship had been in the yard before. Indeed in the afternoon there was some windy time, but according to the weather tables only a few hours in the afternoon, at no time there was classified as a storm as Costa told, during morning and noon the weather was very calm and already in the night there was no wind at all. This means if departed as late as 2 am. from Marseilles the Classica could have been in Genoa in time. When I confronted Costa with these facts the response was that a captain doesn't make mistakes and they offered me 16 € (yes, sixteen Euro). Later they were that generous to pay back the part of the price I was unable to use the services I've paid for.

Reading this reminds me why we never buy tours ...

I didn’t know about the Indian visa change

Hello Caryl,

Indeed, the excursion “Toilets of Goa” was absolutely a waste of time and money – especially as I got an idea what I've missed! And you're right an excursion is very much depending on the quality of the guide. But this is always the same as long as you depend on others. Long before departure I do research of what can be done in port, what can be done on my own, what locals have to offer and if there is something interesting offered by the ship. Also on this cruise I've done all three. For example Petra is way to far away to visit independently, private excursions were even more expensive (I'm traveling alone) and there haven't been joint excursions offered. On Maldives I've had great days completely without buying any excursion from Costa, in fact I've got much more for even less. But in Goa there were no offers from locals, taxis I only take for short drives when I can change them in case of a breakdown or if they run out of petrol (both already happened to me, luckily without serious consequences, but let it happen one hour from the ship on your way back in the middle of nowhere between Indian villages). Very different situation if it would happen somewhere in Mumbai of course.

Yes, getting ordinary visa for India is not funny. I did it twice with very special rules as I am German national living in Hungary. Seems they have put together the different requirements and I had to show even more documents. There should be reading machines for e-visa at the ports now as they are on mayor airports. The change of rules was announced early 2017 and when I was on the neoClassica it was legally in force since a few weeks only - but no official knew about and there were no reading machines...

Stefan

Thank you again Stefan for the wonderful review.

I understand sometimes being forced to take the ship excursions. Travelling solo like you I would try to join others on the roll call to share tours but with Costa as we have found very few use the roll call. Agree also about the toilet stops and souvenir shops.

I have fond memories of our cocktails before dinner on the Favolosa with Josie and Bobby. Remember Bobby!

On neoRiviera they had a lovely area on deck with wicker tables and chairs. My favourite drink there was campari and orange.

The other day I booked the Diadema from Abu Dhabi to Rome March 2020 through the UK website. It overnights in Dubai and visits Muscat (overnight). Both new places for me. Goes to Aqaba so want to spend longer in Petra this time. Should have missed lunch like you did.

Hi Stefan

Really enjoying your review. May I ask which hosting site you use for your photos? I use Flickr(smugmug) and the medium photos are a bit small but the large ones are too big.

Don't worry, we don't play those games either. What was fun though was that they had either the DJ playing dance music or the latin guitar duo playing around sail away time. there was such a good buzz. We don't dance either but we loved the music and watching.

I cannot agree more about the excursions. We were a bit worried about taking a taxi in Colombo and took a tour. We spent most of the time on the bus driving past stuff. We did not even go to the places you had. The guide did not tell us much. He also took us on a totally unnecessary walk and showed us guava. We demanded they stopped at some of the places where they only wanted to do a drive by. It was a case of taking photos through the dirty bus windows.

We took taxis in all the other Indian ports and just negotiated. Our Goa experience was a bit of a nightmare. Our driver had to turn the aircon off to go up hill. He also ignored a road sign that clearly stated road closed just to get to guys working in the road where there was basically a massive sink hole or something. We were back on the boat around lunch time without other issues and had sufficient time at the churches in old Goa.

Riana

Yes Maryann, socialising on our Favolosa cruise was quite different - better - compared to that one to India, although the roll call was pretty poor indeed. Well, not that poor as the one I started for the tour to India - I’ve got no single response! And skip the lunch in Petra, the long walk through the Siq is quite a big part of the visit, every minute extra you have you can spend in the centre and there is so much to see.

Riana, I have my own website and made a subdomain just for storing stuff like these pictures. The originals I resized to 800 x 533 px before storing, this is fine with CC and I copy the address of each picture into my posts. Turning off the airco uphill reminds me in some way to my first visit in India. It was in Rajasthan during January and on a bit colder evening I asked the driver to turn on the heating. His response: “This is no luxury car, there is no heating!”

And to everybody: thanks for the kind remarks you had. Right now I am in a hotel next to the airport and I’ll fly tomorrow morning early to Newcastle, where my cruise to Norway will begin.

Hope you enjoyed enjoy Norway

Caryl

Have fun and tell us how it went when you are back.

Riana

Interesting to sail from Newcastle. Have a great cruise to Norway Stefan. Have you sailed Tui before?

Thanks to all for your wishes. This has been my first time with Marella (or Thomson or TUI) at sea. I booked once though Thomson a cruise on the Nile, but that hasn’t been their own ship. More will follow, but not on the Costa pages.

. Right now I am in a hotel next to the airport and I’ll fly tomorrow morning early to Newcastle, where my cruise to Norway will begin.

Many many years ago I travelled from Newcastle to Bergen on a school exchange. it was so rough even the crew were sick. The tables on the ferry had lips all around but the trays were flying off them and very few people even wanted to eat.

it was an overnight and I was sharing a cabin with three other teenagers - they were all drinking gin and I have never drunk the stuff since ! We were all so ill.

Thanks to all for your wishes. This has been my first time with Marella (or Thomson or TUI) at sea. I booked once though Thomson a cruise on the Nile, but that hasn’t been their own ship. More will follow, but not on the Costa pages.

Interesting to sail from Newcastle. Have a great cruise to Norway Stefan. Have you sailed Tui before?

Hi Stefan

 

Really enjoying your review. May I ask which hosting site you use for your photos? I use Flickr(smugmug) and the medium photos are a bit small but the large ones are too big.

 

Don't worry, we don't play those games either. What was fun though was that they had either the DJ playing dance music or the latin guitar duo playing around sail away time. there was such a good buzz. We don't dance either but we loved the music and watching.

 

I cannot agree more about the excursions. We were a bit worried about taking a taxi in Colombo and took a tour. We spent most of the time on the bus driving past stuff. We did not even go to the places you had. The guide did not tell us much. He also took us on a totally unnecessary walk and showed us guava. We demanded they stopped at some of the places where they only wanted to do a drive by. It was a case of taking photos through the dirty bus windows.

 

We took taxis in all the other Indian ports and just negotiated. Our Goa experience was a bit of a nightmare. Our driver had to turn the aircon off to go up hill. He also ignored a road sign that clearly stated road closed just to get to guys working in the road where there was basically a massive sink hole or something. We were back on the boat around lunch time without other issues and had sufficient time at the churches in old Goa.

 

Riana

Drsel, do you really think it's a good idea to ask the same question four times in a row (three times here in the review and one on my old roll-call)?

Drsel, do you really think it's a good idea to ask the same question four times in a row (three times here in the review and one on my old roll-call)?

That too, only after I researched & couldn't find any answer on both cruise critic and Google.

On the MSC forum, there is a lot of information on how to encash unused OBC. But no info about Costa

We always go to the casino on a Costa cruise just so we can cash in the OBC . My husband risks some chips on the roulette table and I close my eyes and hold my breath. Usually he wins a few euros then collects. We haven’t any experience of using the slot machines.

Caryl

Thanks so much for the information