cruisegal415

Mallorca Private Guides was the name of the company.

Thanks for the tip about looking at others for comparison! I was taken aback that they wanted full payment in September of 2023 for a trip in December of 2024!

Great tips! Thank you. My husband doesn't understand why we are building a cruise around Christmas markets, but it just seems so magical! Especially for the holidays. I think we will do the one that goes to Nuremburg, as hubby is a WWII history buff. I definitely want to skip Passau for Salzburg. I know it's a long ride there and back, did you feel that you had enough time there?

Yes! In fact the only things we bought on the ship were the add-on prices for our drinks, and our bill at check out amounted to a whopping $22.80. This included a $1.20 uncharge for something at Cafe Baccio twice and about 4 drinks at the martini bar. Certainly way less than paying the extra charge per day to upgrade to the premium plan! But in the end, we came out ahead, because they cancelled one of our excursions (the ship arrived too late due to weather) and we had on board credit, so we left with them owing us $$. LOL

Hello! Never taken a river cruise before, and haven't visited this part of the world yet. Been wanting to do a Christmas market cruise for years. We have the choice of two different Christmas Market itineraries on Viking One itinerary is this: 1st option: Budapest to Passau Day 1: Budapest (we would do a pre-cruise there and come a few days early) Day 2: Budapest Day 3: Bratislava, Slovakia Day 4: Vienna Day 5: Krems, Austria and Scenic Sailing, Wachau Valley Day 6: Linz, Austria Day 7: Passau, Germany Day 8: Passau, Germany This itinerary offers a couple of post-tours that we would be interested in: Prague, or Munich and Salzburg The other itinerary is this: Budapest to Regensburg Day 1: Budapest (again, would do a pre-cruise here) Day 2: Budapest, Hungary and Scenic Sailing Danube Bend Day 3: Vienna (differs from first option as includes an extra day in Vienna as opposed to Bratislava) Day 4: Vienna Day 5: Krems, Austria and Scenic Sailing, Wachau Valley Day 6: Passau, Germany (differs from above which has Linz, Austria) Day 7: Regensburg, Germany Day 8: Regensburg, Germany This itinerary offers a post-tour that we would be interested in: Nuremburg and Prague So I guess the difference is, one versus two days in Vienna, eliminating or keeping Bratislava (leaning towards the two-day Vienna one on this choice); one day in Passau versus two days in Passau, but the one day in Passau includes Linz, which we would prefer; two days in Passau versus two days in Regensburg (the second day of both are disembarking days, and we would go on to our post-cruise city). Which brings me to: post cruise choice: Prague and Nuremburg, or Munich and Salzburg? Both of those alternatives have equal appeal to me. If anyone has done one or the other or both of these itineraries, please weigh in on which you think is better? Thanks!

I have been trying to decide between the Danube and the Rhine for the Christmas market river cruise and was looking at one that sails Dec 22-29, but I read that some of the markets close right after Christmas. Also, being from south Florida, I wonder if it will be too cold for us?

We were on the Infinity May 15-24. No martinis were under $10. But they were gooood!

No it was our private driver and it was bumper to bumper getting out of the port.

It definitely depends on timing and the ship's schedule. We had to be back before 5:30 and since it took us about 45 minutes to drive from the port to the train station, we didn't want to chance being late on the way back. I think, in retrospect, as much as we enjoyed Valldemossa and the ride down, if I were to do it myself, I'd just take the train to Soller and the tram to the port of Soller and spend some relaxing time in both those places before returning to Palma to spend more time there.

As a follow up of the above post, if I were to do it again, without a tour guide, I think I would do it this way: 1) Buy tickets a week in advance for the train and the tram on line. 2) Take the ship's shuttle or a taxi from the port to the center of town (Palma), then take the 10:10 train to Soller to get the most out of the day. Alternatively, explore Palma a little and wait for the crowds to thin out and take a later train. 3) Spend about an hour or so in Soller, then take the tram to Port of Soller. 4) Eat a leisurely meal in Port of Soller. There are a lot of nice looking restaurants right on the water that looked very inviting. 5) Take the tram back to Soller, and catch the last train at 2 pm back to Palma. That would give adequate time to explore Palma and see the Cathedral (really not to be missed). This eliminates the trip to Valldemossa, but it makes for a more relaxing day. I felt rushed trying to do Soller, Port of Soller, Valldemossa, and see the Cathedral in Palma. We really didn't have enough time to even explore Palma, which we would have liked to do. The drive from Soller/Port of Soller to Valldemossa is beautiful, if not scary, but I felt we were trying to fit too much into one day and still get back to the ship in time for all aboard. Maybe if we had more time there (all aboard was 5:30, but because of the distance from Palma to the port, and the fear of traffic, we had planned on leaving Palma no later than 4:30). Our ship docked at 7 am, but there was no point in rushing out because the first train to Soller wasn't until about 10 am; the Cathedral in Palma doesn't open until 10 am; and I'm not sure but I think I read that stores don't open early, either. If you plan on visiting Valledemossa in addition to Palma, Soller and Port of Soller on your own, be mindful of the train and tram times, as well as the bus schedule. But while Valdemossa was nice, and the right there was beautiful, we didn't really spend more than 45 minutes there, an hour in Soller and a half hour in Port of Soller, so that's really not enough time to enjoy those places.

I just wanted to follow up to update everyone on what we ended up doing in Palma. Our ship docked at 7 am; on board time was 5:30 pm. My original idea was to take a taxi to Valldemossa, then to Port of Soller, then the tram to Soller, then take the train back to Palma and explore Palma/see the Cathedral. Thanks to suggestions from Roger, we switched the itinerary to start from Palma, to Soller, to Port of Soller, to Valldemossa, back to Palma and see the Cathedral. I played around with the idea of doing it ourself, taking a taxi to Palma town center to catch the train to Soller at 10:10, booking the 12 pm tram to the Port, then taking a taxi or bus to Valldemossa and taking the bus back to Palma, but my husband was nervous about doing it on our own. We ended up booking an excursion with a private tour company, which turned out to be worth the expense for the following reasons. (1) First of all, it is a long drive from the port to the town center. Celebrity did offer shuttles, for a fee, but it was nice to be picked up at the port. There was a lot of traffic. We were picked up at 9, and had a 9:50 am train reservation. I learned that if you do it yourself, you get on one train, where there are a lot of people, and the first train doesn't leave until 10:10. If you are only buying tickets one way, I think you have to purchase them the day of, in cash. There were an awful lot of people buying tickets and waiting on the train, and it looked crowded. One thing I found out was that if you book a private tour, the tour guide gets the tickets in advance, and there is a separate train running on a parallel track that seems to be only for tour people. Our tour guide booked us into a private car on the train (for an extra amount of $, but I think it was worth it) so our group had our own car on the train. (2) When we got to Soller, we had some time to explore the town and taste the orange ice cream. We had tickets on the 12 pm tram to Port Soller, again, if we did it ourselves, it was quite crowded and some people didn't have seats. Our tour guide managed to get us on the tram first, and made sure we had seats. If we did it ourselves, we may not even have had seats. 3) We only had about a half hour in Port Soller, which was more than enough time. There isn't a whole lot there, but there are lots of restaurants on the water. If I were to do it again, I might skip Port Soller to give us more time in Soller, Palma, or Valldemossa. 4) The drive from Port Soller to Valledemossa was amazing! But scary! You are on mountain roads, very curvy, and quite close to the edge, which is a long drop. We passed quite a few buses, which was very scary as it doesn't seem like there is enough room for two cars (or a car and a bus). I don't know if we would have found a taxi in Port Soller, I didn't see any. There was a bus that we could have taken, but I don't know if the bus schedule would have lined up to when we left. 5) We didn't spend too much time in Valldemossa as we were concerned to return to Palma in time to see the Cathedral and get back to the ship on time. Since there was so much traffic coming out of the port, we didn't know if it would take as long to get back to port from Palma (it didn't). But it was reassuring to have our own guide and driver to make sure we left in time and had enough time in Palma. 6) Our guide took us through the Cathedral, which was nice. Some of our group did not care to see it, so they had more free time in Palma. We did a tour of the Cathedral in Valencia with just the audio guides, and it is a big difference to have a real, live, guide instead of just the audio guide. This is a long post so I am going to post my recommendations for a true DIY visit separately.

We are on this cruise and also were on your plane from EWR! Packing for this trip was as tricky as when we went to the British Isles in late August/early September. My husband and I also traveled with one large suitcase each, one carry on each and one personal item each. I tried very hard to limit what I brought but I kept checking the extended forecast and it kept changing so I kept adding items of clothing!

We are going on a Spain-Portugal cruise next week. I've looked at the projected weather for all our ports and it seems like for most of the ports, it's going to be moderate most of the time during the day, but cooler in the morning and at night. Can you help this Florida girl figure out what to pack? (Here in south Florida, there's little variation in the temperatures. If it's going to be hot in the afternoon, it's hot in the morning and hot at night). For most of the ports, it seems that there is a high ranging from low to upper 70's in the day, but the mornings, when we leave for our excursions, can be what I would call "chilly" being in the upper 50's or lower 60's. Does one dress for what the high temperature is, and bring along a jacket? I usually would wear capris and a short sleeve shirt, would I be cold in that for the mornings? If I wore pants, would I be too hot in the afternoons? Sometimes when the temperature is in the mid-to-upper 70's, it's actually much warmer in the sun. Then there's the evenings on the ship. Since we are going to be indoors either at the restaurant or maybe seeing a show or in a lounge, I don't think we have to dress for the cool weather outside at night (we usually don't go on deck at night), but do we dress for the weather outside? (I have been on lots of cruises, mostly Caribbean, where we wear summer clothes; on our British Isles cruise, even though it was in August/September, it was pretty cold so I wore winter type clothes, and when we did a Mediterranean cruise, it was summer so it was hot everywhere). Ladies please help this Florida girl figure out what to pack! TIA

Oh that sounds good! The places I found on Trip Advisor all seem to start the music really late (for us).

We are taking a Celebrity cruise that starts in Lisbon. We are getting in the day before, and have a Tuk Tuk tour planned for that day, and plan on going to sleep early so we can hit the ground running the next day, which is embarkation day. We are taking a half day tour on embarkation day to Fatima, then are being taken to the port for a 1:30 check in. But here's the thing-our ship does not depart that day! We have an overnight in Lisbon, then another day in Lisbon (Day 2 of the cruise) and we depart about 6 pm Day 2. So, here's my question. After we go to the ship and check in at 1:30, take some time to eat lunch and maybe get acquainted with the ship, we have the whole rest of the afternoon and evening to deal with. Rather than staying on board, we probably will go back into Lisbon. I don't want to arrange anything formal, so does anyone have any ideas about what to do, where to go, where to eat dinner? (We'd prefer to eat dinner in Lisbon). Remember the day before, we will have done a 4 hour Tuk Tuk tour so we will have at least seen many of the sights.