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jonikal

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  1. Once you know which ship you are sailing on, you can contact your agent and request they convey your dietary needs to the culinary department. We did this on the Nansen recently and it worked very well. The dining staff in the Lindstrom were very accommodating.
  2. Your description brought back some vivid memories of the inaugural voyage in June, 2016 onboard the Spitsbergen. Much of the ship's foibles sound very familiar. Our cabin, despite our apparently being the first paying guests in this particular mini-suite, smelled very strongly of stale cigarette smoke. We are not sure whether it was somehow connected to an area via duct work to a part of the ship where smoking is permitted, but it was very noticeable and unpleasant. We were informed that a contractor working on the ship had been staying in that room while it was being refurbished. The TV had not been set up to work and there was no remote control. A technician did come by after 5 or 6 days and set it up and it worked fine for the rest of our voyage. The program selection was poor, however, i.e. Chinese, Al Jazeera and Sky was about the only choice we had. There were no room tags to place outside the room if one wanted either not to be disturbed or if the room could be cleaned. Two days before disembarking, the tags were delivered to the ship, but they are probably a bit too lightweight and seem to fall off the door handle easily. A very frustrating situation was the loudspeaker from the tour desk which would bellow in our room at all hours of the day and night with no way to adjust the volume. Since some of the tours left late in the day, we would be subjected to loud announcements in four languages as late at 10:30 at night. After several complaints to the desk, they found there was a wiring issue which was then fixed just four days before the end of the voyage. There was a recurring issue with the passenger gangway not opening correctly. In some instances passengers had to wait as long as 30 minutes before being able to disembark. These delays shortened visits to the port areas for the passengers and in some cases only allowed for 15 minutes to look around before having to board again. This problem happened on several occasions including for the final disembarkation of passengers on the day of arriving at Bergen and everyone had to exit through the meat locker and cargo doors. The two elevators did not function on a dependable basis. Often both of them would be out of order at the same time. Despite that, we have done seven Hurti voyages since then!
  3. Hurtigruten's website shows a significant number of cabins that are still available for an upcoming sailing in July, yet a Hurti rep indicated a much lower availability,. Wonder which source is more reliable?
  4. We did early self-disembark and opted to make our own air reservations, departing at 11:35 am, since the cruise line's itinerary offered did not work as well for our onward Stateside connections. Celebrity's crew was extremely upset at the delay caused by Spanish authorities to get the gangways organized. In fact, had it not been for their inefficiency and resulting delay for early departing passengers we would have had no problem getting the taxi we booked.
  5. Yes, normally that is also what we have done in the past. In this case the reason we chose a taxi service was because we had an early flight back to the States. In order to arrive at the Prat airport within the 3 hours required for check in etc, it would not have worked since the ship's scheduled airport transport did not depart in time and we would have risked being too late..
  6. I did actually post it on the Barcelona specific port. Unfortunately this taxi company, based in London, services multiple ports not only in Spain.
  7. Beware of using airporttaxistransfers for a pick up at a port. They only allow the driver to wait for 10 minutes before they leave you stranded. In our case we had a very disorganized and delayed disembarkation in Barcelona, caused by the local authorities, and were left stranded at the dock. We had paid in advance and the company refuses to reimburse. Interestingly, the taxis are allowed to wait for 60 minutes for airport pick ups, which seems to be more reasonable and should be applied to port pick ups.
  8. We encountered no other commercial vessels at any of our stops. We did see some private masted yachts near Port Lockroy. Once we returned to Ushuaia we pulled up next to one of the smaller Princess ships and we felt very small indeed! Being in a small ship we were also allowed access to the bridge for wild life watching at any time.
  9. Thank you for reminding us of the difficulties you encountered in flying into Longyearbyen! We had a similar experience a few years ago (with another expedition ship) when we lost two night's sleep due to horrible flight connections, and consequently were too exhausted to take part in the first two landings, Just recently we were about to make the same mistake and planned another sailing involving a Longyearbyen-bound charter out of Oslo and after intense research, realized it was going to be an equally torturous ordeal - so we changed our plans and chose another itinerary. There was simply no reasonable way to get there from here without spending two days of stress at airports and a couple of sleepless nights with midnight departures.
  10. That is excellent news, thank you! We spent a very long day from 4 am in St Johns, via Toronto and on to Tampa arriving at 2 pm. Just happy that rules are loosening up a bit.
  11. Now that the Covid testing is no longer required at the border, and the ArrCAN process is also not needed, are masks still required when flying into and around Canada, and if so, is it enforced on a non-Canadian carrier?
  12. Ok - phoned the Nansen front desk and they told me to use either FRAM or AMUNDSEN. That seemed to work and we got the necessary stamp of approval from ArrCAN site. Hope this helps others trying to comply with Canadian requirements for entry.
  13. The ArrCAN app for completing the required Canadian entry form within 72 hours of boarding for, inter alia, travel to Canada, requires the name of the ship. Unfortunately, their ship list fails to include the Nansen without which it is not possible to complete the form and there is no way to enter the name manually. Interestingly, Fram and Amundsen are duly noted. Frustrating when last minute glitches come up. Contacted the ship via email and if no response, will phone. Any attempts to get an explanation/help on the ArrCAN chat line were useless.
  14. From personal experience on a 148 passenger expedition ship with another company, we were very pleased with the number of daily landings which were never less than two a day. There were no lotteries for landings but rather organized groups which rotated as to who got to disembark first. In one instance at an abandoned whaling station, the ship actually nosed up the gravel beach. Our German captain was awesome and the ship allowed passengers access to the bridge for whale and other wildlife spotting and photography. It was a memorable experience and hopefully yours will also be an equally enjoyable.
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