Imasima752

I find that I like to have something to jog our memories of where we've been and what we did.

Most of the memories just stay up here

(pointing to my head;))

I have just never been big on photos......I guess that is what makes us

all different. Doing photo books is not something that is in my wheelhouse.

 

I am hoping to see flowers in bloom though:)

I understand :). DH used to be like you, he preferred keeping his memories over photos - said if others wanted to see what he saw then they should go there too. But once our memories start to go (as much as we try to fight it, it's been happening :(), it's nice that we have the photo books to jog them. As you said though, we are all different and I like that :). I hope you'll write a review if you don't take any photos. We'll be on the AmaStella as well and I'd love to hear your take on it.

- T

2 More weeks to go:D

 

 

 

I was thinking about this the other day....do all of you take pictures on

 

every cruise?.......I used to be a photo taker but now not so much.

Omg yes we do! We each carry our own cameras and when we get home we literally have well over a thousand photos. It takes me a while, but I sort through them and then have fun making photo books. The books are kept on one of our coffee tables as our guests and family members love looking at them. I'm currently creating a photo book from our trip to Hawaii. We're both looking forward to taking pictures on our first river cruise later this year.

I hope you'll have a spectacular cruise with tons of tulips in bloom. I'd definitely bring my camera for that as they weren't in bloom the last time I was in the Netherlands. Enjoy your cruise!!!

Many airlines will so this. But, first you must pay the change fee (and this includes DL).

 

Don't know the fare rules for your tickets, but the change fee usually starts around $200 a ticket, and goes up from there. Some tickets don't allow any changes at all.

 

An airline is not going to issue a voucher if "peeved enough".

I had no idea airlines did this and I've booked many flights over the years. This is why I love the CC community.

Not sure. I would call American. Worse they can do is say they don't do that or no or they may even issue you a voucher if peeved enough. Wouldn't hold my breath though. I wasn't aware of the change fee dependent. I will have to see if Delta does that. Their policy said they would issue a credit if the price dropped. But probably need to read deeper.

 

 

 

To OP, I was in the same predicament for Easter week. I thought prices were high from Mpls to Miami at about 8 months and I would wait. They just kept getting higher. At six months out, I bought two straight through tickets in coach for $900 a piece. Could have taken connecting flights at not so great times to drop price to $700 a piece. But we had two rewards tickets that were "free." So I guess it all evened out. And two months ago I checked and saw that my $900 tickets were now $1,400. Supply and demand.

Thank you. I will check the price again before I call. The worse they can say is no which won't bother me since I already accepted the situation. Now if they say yes, that would be a welcomed surprise [emoji846].

Which airline? Many have a policy where if price goes down, they will credit you the difference in the form of a voucher toward a future trip.

Is American one of the airlines? I recently bought tickets and the price has since dropped $205 pp.

We are flying out for our Avalon River cruise shortly and the literature says 1 bag not exceeding 50 lbs. Are they kidding me. It's a 15 day cruise and I'm tacking on days to the front and end of the cruise. It's late March and the weather calls for long pants and jackets. If I show up with 2 bags will they let my second bag on the ship.

 

Freaking Out!

Wow, I don't blame you freaking out. I've been trying to pack less every vacation with horrible results. I know others can, but I have yet to get everything in one bag, and having to pack for cold weather :eek:. I wish you the best of luck!

Our past trips with Vantage, including everything, usually do run $10 to $15,000 for both of us. We do splurge on business class and that can easily double the cost of the trip.

I have to say I'm surprised at the cost for Vantage as I thought it would be cheaper. With business air, transfer to our pre-cruise hotel, and pre- and post-cruise hotels our Ama trip is costing us a little over $15,600. I guess everything is going up nowadays and I keep reading that river cruising is becoming more popular.

Hi John,

Let me start by saying there are many experienced river cruisers and a great host here to give you really good advice. I won’t be taking my first river cruise until this November, so I cannot tell you what to expect, but I can share my experiences thus far with Ama to somewhat answer some of your questions.

“Because of a AMA sale we need to make a deposit by the end March to take advantage of early booking rates.”

I understand wanting to take advantage of early booking rates (I did the same), but just know that based on my experience, they might offer better rates later this year or early next year.

July of last year I booked Cat. BA with an early booking rate. The early booking discount was $250 per person plus we got another $100 off per person and $100 OBC per person through our travel agent. With the discounts, the cruise (not including our hotel stays, air fare or transfers) and port charges ($168 pp) was going to cost a little over $4,200 per person. However, every so often I would check the prices to see if there were any changes. A couple of months later, I started to see some Danube Christmas Market cruises were on sale, but ours was not one of them. Then one day in October I saw that all 2016 AMA Danube Christmas Markets cruises were on sale and there was a CLIA promo for cruise month (October) for an additional $100 off per person. This sale actually made it cheaper for us to move up to an AA! So now we have a Cat. AA with port charges for a bit over $2,950 pp vice $4,200 pp for the slightly smaller BA :-). Currently, Ama still has the same sale going on (though a few of the Christmas Market cruises are no longer included), but now offers free gratuities too!

“Now I'm trying to come up with a "ball park" figure on cost - cruise fare, port fees, air, insurance, optional tours, tips, etc..”

To compare insurance companies and policies I would recommend looking at insuremytrip dot com. For trip insurance I use Travel Insured as they work with my insurance company so I get a bit of a discount.

I usually get the Worldwide Trip Protector policy which provides $1 million for medical evacuation and $100,000 for medical expenses as well as trip cancellation, travel delay, missed connection, etc., or the Worldwide Trip Protector Plus which includes cancel for any reason, reimbursement of Miles or Reward Points, Rental car damage, etc. and ups the medical expenses to $150,000.

As for optional tours, there is currently only one limited edition tour available on the Ama website for our cruise and it’s free. If you look at “Already Booked” at the top of Ama’s home page, select Prepare for your cruise, then Europe, and you will see a tab for optional tours that states the following:

We offer some optional excursions and tours to help you make the most of your free time. These itinerary-specific tours provide additional opportunities to experience the local culture. Your Cruise Manager and local host can provide additional details, answer any questions and make bookings for these tours. Charges can be paid with cash or credit card. Please note that tour availability is subject to sufficient participation, weather conditions and seasonal suitability. All optional tours and prices (per person) are listed in Euros and are subject to change without notice.

AUSTRIA

Mozart & Strauss Concert in Vienna €61

Full-day excursion to Salzburg €67

Schönbrunn Palace €41

BELGIUM

Half-day excursion to Brussels €47

Half-day excursion to Bruges €71

Van Gogh Experience €69

CZECH REPUBLIC

Half-day excursion to Terezin €41

Folklore Dinner Show €61

Lobkowicz Palace €61

FRANCE

Montmartre & Illuminations €56

Parisian Cabaret (Dinner & Show) €146

Seine Cruise & Montparnasse Tower €61

Monet Home & Gardens €79

Le Marais & Opera Visit €49

GERMANY

Half-day Rothenburg €51

Weltenburg Danube Gorge (seasonal) €51

HUNGARY

Puszta excursion with lunch €61

SPAIN

Montserrat €41

Tapas Walk €67

SWITZERLAND

Swiss Mountain €93

I don’t know how current this information is, but it should give you an idea of costs.

“Need to look air fares next year when fares are posted versus AMA.”

Good plan. I like to have everything planned and organized as early as possible and when I started looking at air fares last year (looking at fares for November 2015), I figured it would be cheaper to book Ama’s air package as I was afraid it would cost more this year on my own. Wrong! We’re paying Ama $4,100 pp for business class but we could now book the same flights and class on our own now for a bit over $3,400 pp. This is much less than fares I saw last year. I’m not too upset though as we’re ticketed, Ama did not charge any deviation fees, etc. when I decided to change the flights from what they originally proposed, and I was able to select all of our seats. However, this was the first time I didn’t book my own air and will probably be the last.

I hope this helps :-).

- T

We are on this cruise too! We have 16037, the Royal Suite!

I hope you'll post some photos here as we'll be in 16037 two weeks after you [emoji846].

Thank you so much for the great information and link. I'll definitely research this over the weekend [emoji846].

We visited Cesky Krumlov on our own pre cruise otherwise we would have chosen this tour instead of the Lakes District. Cesky Krumlov is a fairy tale town and we loved visiting it.

How did you get there and how long did it take? I'd love to work it into our pre (Budapest) or post (Prague) cruise days if possible.

Great idea, we have to get those cubes.

I have to give credit to fellow CC members as I'd never heard of them. Now I can't imagine traveling without them :).

Ive had the first 3 more than once as part of a spa packag but I'm struggling to remember the precise details,of each. The moisture one, I tend to book towards the Nd of the trip in case my skin is feeling a bit dehydrated after sun exposure.

 

They all usually involve a body exfoliation with some sort of body scrub. The first 2 have you then covered in gloop (one is a seaweeds type one the other more a mud type one with sea minerals). They wrap you up in cling film and stick you in this big white machine (I dare say it has a technical name!) with a lid on it (think body sized toastie machine) with only your head sticking out. It heats up a bit and vibrates a bit for a while (all supposedly to make the gloop penetrate more). Then it has a series of water jets to,rinse you off. Once your all cleaned and de-glooped, you get a full body massage.

 

Hope that gives you an idea of what is involved. MSC aUra Spa will not be employing me any time soon to ride their spa menu descriptions for them!

 

sEriously though, they do leave your skin feeling much nicer and the massage part has you all chilled out.

Well MSC should give you something as you've sold both of us on trying out at least one body treatment! Thank you for explaining and the suggestion for doing the moisturizing one at the end :).

Yes they will un pack your suit case but do you really want that???

Have to admit, I thought about doing this for our last couple of cruises. I really don't like unpacking (always have to pack and unpack for DH too :mad:), but I'm also a freak about having everything organized and unpacked as soon as we get into our room, whether a hotel, cabin, etc. so I can start relaxing asap. After our last cruise though, I seriously doubt I'll ever ask a butler do it as I found packing cubes make it so much easier to pack and unpack :). I organized outfits and underwear in multiple cubes with different colored cubes for DH, so when we got to our cabin I just hung up the clothes that needed it and then placed the other cubes into the drawers with the tops opened to easily access whatever we needed.

Has anyone here had the Bali “Sunrise Lulur”, Bali Thalassic "Sea and Volcanoes”, Bali "Moisture of the Sunset" and/or "Aurea Thalass" spa treatments? What are they like? I'm all about massages and facials and never had a body treatment before. Any favorite packages or massages?

I was looking at the prepaid packages available for our Divina cruise next year and noticed the laundry packages each state "Note: This offer cannot be combined with promotions reserved for MSC Yacht Club and MSC Club Members." Does MSC regularly offer promotions to YC members? If so, what are they? The laundry packages seem very reasonable so I don’t know if we should prepay or wait to see what the offers are on the ship.

Have to say, MSC's photo prices seem very reasonable. $59 for 10 photos and digital copies is great, especially considering we paid $149 for 11 photos and then $19.99 for digital copies on our last cruise with NCL.

Oh and I almost forgot if you are a silver or higher latitudes member, you can get at least a 15% discount (depending on membership level) on port day spa treatments.

There is a 10 – 20–30% off special on certain treatments. Also, though it's up the person you're working with in the spa, if you have a lot of treatments they may just give you a 20% discount (why it always pays to be nice to people). Prices are also a little less on port days.

Are you in a suite? If so, I would recommend calling or emailing the pre-cruise concierge to let them know if you would like a specific day and time for the treatment. I did this on our last cruise as my husband and I renewed our wedding vows and wanted to have a nice relaxing spa day before hand. I just told the pre-cruise concierge the types of treatments, the day and the times that we wanted and was told they would take care of it. Once we boarded I went to the spa to make sure everything was taken care of and all of our appointments had been made :-). If you do this, be specific as to the type of treatment that you want and for how long. I requested a Swedish massage for my mother, but didn't specify 50 minutes so they booked her a 75 minute massage. Fortunately, she enjoyed it - so much so, I booked her a second one 🙂.

Enjoy your cruise and spa time!

Very excited first MSC cruise will be Mar 2017 on Davina in YC2 and the Seaside May 2018 in a Royal Suite, so have lots of time to read all the helpful information from CC members

We're also trying MSC next year for the first time on the Divina (1/6/17) and then Seaside for the May 26, 2018 sailing :). Which Seaside sailing will you be on?

No. They just adjusted the promo. Kept our same booking numbers. No problem.

Great! I will give them a call tomorrow, thank you!

I honestly think that the drink package was offered to all - then realized why would the Yacht club really need a drink package - I was able to change my booking to get the 300.00 ship board credit for us - I think it will be more conducive for us - we can even buy some drink coupons if they will still offer then in 2018 - the coupons made it equivalent to $4.80 per drink. Great value.

Did they have to cancel and rebook your cruise to switch to the OBC? I'd prefer the OBC but don't want to risk losing our royal suite.

We are sailing on the divina in January 2017.

When in January? We will be on the January 6th cruise in a Royal Suite.

That was wonderful, Hydrokitty! Happy new year to you and everyone! 2016 definitely has great things in store for us [emoji3].

Bewelborn, try one more time. Ask for Kevin. I've dealt with him and he is quite knowledgeable. I don't

think he will give you a runaround. They don't have extension numbers, so I ask for him. His number that he gave me is:954-958-3285.

I second this suggestion as Kevin helped me two weeks ago when I was having problems booking online. We couldn't book on the 15th so Kevin actually went to work hours earlier than he had to on the 16th, called me to keep me up to date on his progress, got us the room I wanted and by the time we hung up I had the confirmation in my email. I know the website is awful for booking and now will only use it for pricing. Speaking of which, for some reason, the price Kevin got us was $15 less than what was shown on the website - very odd.