mickeysgal

Well, that's my next question...what about the approach to Istanbul. And for docking overnight. What side of the ship gives the best view?

Yeah i get that. But we sail in early, so want to know what side of the ship is best to have your cabin.

What side of the ship is best for viewing for the sail in to Istanbul and while docked overnight in port?

For the sail in to Santorini, what side of the ship is best for viewing?

Scrolled to the end of this thread and still no burger pic . Someone has to have one…post it!

That IS a fantastic rate. Currently we are seeing 2k a person - main cabin.

What airline did you find was a bargain? We too are looking at a layover. We prefer Delta but are open to others.

This is a very interesting and unique approach. One I haven’t heard of. Thanks for the detail on this. I can see how this could be of benefit.

Thank you for explaining.

I guess I’m worried/anticipating feeling wonky for days due to this long haul flight time. I’m not sure that what has worked for us in the past will work for us now. Our time in Sydney is so precious. Unfortunately as of now, we may be only able to afford main cabin (working on possible upgrades ) so my concern is we won’t sleep as well as we have when we’ve been in premium select (delta). Can you tell I’m totally intimidated by this long flight? Lol. Chances are we will be fine, but having never experienced such a long flight time - I have the fear of the unknown. Our past Europe flights seem like childs play to me now in comparison.

If you don’t mind me asking, why is the North America/europe harder for you jet lag wise than flying to Sydney? Usually with the North America/Europe flights we power through that first day, get to bed a bit earlier than normal and are perfectly fine the next day. With this east coast /Sydney flight, I’m trying to assess how much down time we will need as we will only have four days in Sydney pre cruise (including arrival day).

Hi - we are planning a cruise to Australia/New Zealand. Flying out of Atl to Sydney. We have only two weeks of vacation time plus the weekends on the front end and back end to to use for this trip, so every day counts. As of now we are not planning on breaking up the flights by staying overnight in LAX or Honolulu- I wish we could but we don't have the time to spare. I really don't want to push this trip to "sometime when we have more time" because as we all know, that time may never come. So, we may have to just bite the bullet and power through this long flight. For those that have completed these long haul flights, how bad is the jet lag? Is it worse east bound or west bound in this case? How did you cope with the long flight and the resulting jet lag? We are experienced flyers to Europe - we've done many 8-10 hour flights, and have learned how to manage that jet lag, but this long flight time has me really intimidated. I'm seeing 22+ hours total (including connection times) depending on the airline, but that's still 22+ total hours of travel which is hard on the body. You all are the experienced flyers...so I'm hoping you have some insight on how to cope with this extraordinary long flight.

Your last sentence says it all. Thank you for posting the result- please know that you have raised awareness and hopefully this will indeed help someone else. What an ordeal for you. So glad you figured out it was a scam now and got it straightened out instead of standing in the airport.

Aft? This way you see both sides at once? Has anyone stayed Aft for this very reason?

Thank you again for all this detail. It eases my mind.

Thank you for the detailed instructions. I completely understand not to buy them in advance. To make matters worse, since it's a tender port, I can't even pinpoint a time we will be tendered ashore. And there are multiple ships in port that day, so this should be interesting getting even close to this ticket booth. Thank you again.

Thank you for this. I appreciate it.

Thank you!

For our upcoming cruise, we are truly doing Oia and Fira on our own because the On Your Own excursion through the ship is sold out. So when they tender us into port, can I buy a ticket to boat to Oia? Can I buy this in advance? How do I get from Oia to Fira on my own? Is there a ticket I can buy now to get me from Oia to Fira or can I buy that on the spot? I know I can wait with the thousands of others to take the cable car up to Fira, but I'd rather start at Oia for our day there. Can someone give me the basics step by step so I can put a plan in place?

Royal Caribbean's Odyssey of the Seas did cancel their stop in Israel in early May and replaced it with Greek ports. I believe the ships take it on a case by case basis and make that decision when and if the time comes.

The cruise we are looking at currently is 1000.00 cheaper per person. For us, a 2000.00 savings is mighty tempting.

Guarantees are tricky but the cost savings can be significant. I know this post is about Reflection (S class) , but for those reading…Edge class in particular has a lot of additional blocked partial views that other ships don’t have due to the magic carpet- support structure and looking at the underside of the magic carpet. If they won’t change a guarantee location, just watch for price drops after final payment and perhaps pay for the upgrade.

Great question. I’ve always been hesitant to buy a package- I want to get the restaurants on the days and times I want them. Curious to see the responses on this.

Is this problem centered on a certain floor, certain end of ship, certain side of ship, certain cabin category? Is there a list of affected cabins?

Yes! That’s what this sure looks like. It’s crazy