has anyone been on the grecian splendor, (booked with virgin)

[emloupal]

we are booked on costa fortuna, 25/10/10 on the grecian splendor. sailing from venice.

we booked this along with flights with virgin (241 deal including a river taxi transfer)

 

we have 1 major conern. the fortuna docks at venice at 9.00am and our transfers collect us from there shortly after and take us to the airport. our flight is then not till 19.45!!!

 

we have a 2 year old and of course all of our luggage and at a complete loss as we are thinking we may have to sit and wait up to 10 hours in the airport for our flight!!

 

virgin's answer is to sightsee ..................of course with all our luggage!! this is just not an option!!

 

has any one had this problem???

any ideas??

 

we do feel that this could have the potential to ruin our holiday!

 

Thanks

 

1st time cruiser, Emma xx

[CtheW0rld]

costa, generally, offers tours on debarkation day that end at the airport. they should be listed in your shore excursions. then you don't have to deal with the luggage issue. not sure where your cruise ends, but some airports will store your luggage for you.

[yewsey]

Hi, yes we have the same problem, we booked through virgin, ours is next week so I will be able to tell you more when we return. But on the transfer voucher that you receive it does say on ours that virgin passengers will disembark at 10 am and if you have a late flight you can leave your luggage in an area marked virgin holiday cruises located in the port terminal number 107. We are also first time cruisers. Hope this helps.

[rusty86]

There are 2 excursions offered from costa in venice and i 'm pretty sure they take your luggage along on it. One is to murano & burano and the other is romantic venice from a gondola. They both had a meeting time of 8:45 am. Check with them about the luggage.

[yewsey]

Hi as promised, I have returned from the Costa Fortuna cruise, we disembarked at about 10 am with no hassle, and virign were brilliant they take your cases and deliver them for you to the airport, free of charge so allowing you to do what you want in Venice, not sure what time your pick up is for the water taxi? ours was 1:45 so it gave us about 3 hours, there is a free costa shuttle bus to venice and back, we chose to go by boat though and got off a st marks and wandered round then got back on and returned to the dock in time for the water taxi to take us back to the airport, virgin pretty much held our hand from beginning to end they were very good, there is nothing to do on the port though so you may as well go into venice if time allows, your pick up should be more like 3.45. hope this helps, let me know if you want to know anything else

[emloupal]

Thank you all for getting back to me. feel much better about the last day now!! Did you have a good time Yewsey? is there anything you think i should know being a first time cruiser??

[dynamitedeb]

Hi as promised, I have returned from the Costa Fortuna cruise, we disembarked at about 10 am with no hassle, and virign were brilliant they take your cases and deliver them for you to the airport, free of charge so allowing you to do what you want in Venice, not sure what time your pick up is for the water taxi? ours was 1:45 so it gave us about 3 hours, there is a free costa shuttle bus to venice and back, we chose to go by boat though and got off a st marks and wandered round then got back on and returned to the dock in time for the water taxi to take us back to the airport, virgin pretty much held our hand from beginning to end they were very good, there is nothing to do on the port though so you may as well go into venice if time allows, your pick up should be more like 3.45. hope this helps, let me know if you want to know anything else

 

 

We have booked this cruise for 18/10/10. Your information is really helpfull. We know Venice as been there twice and stayed in hotel opposite cruise port last year so we will spend the last day doing our own thing and good to know Virgin will take luggage etc. If you have time please can you let us know the ups/downs highs/lows of this cruise-- the ports sound great have you any tips etc. We have cruised RCI, P and O and Celebrity before but never with Costa and we have been told that this is a different experience than crusing on Amercianised ships. We are going with another couple who have never cruised before and wondered if you had booked any excursions- we may book the 4x4 jeep in Santorini and stay in the ports on the other days- our friends are going to book a couple of other excursion in Katakolon and Dubrovnik. Will there be enough for us to do at the ports-- bars etc. If you could give us any information we would really appreiciate it-- thanks a million - Deb