Milhouse

Is that the long term value lot? If so, heads up that it has gone up a bit. I just got back from Vegas and my buddy ended up paying $110 for 4 days ($27.50/day) in the long term value lot. It made me cross-check the YVR parking website and while it appears one can save a chunk by booking online and booking for a week, the best rate (weekly & prebooking online) seems to be over $17. Still cheaper than the $25/day rates downtown but getting closer to it when factoring transport to/from YVR and convenience.

At the start of the year, I tried to track the promotions listed on the home page: Semi-Annual Sale, 48 hour flash sale, etc and the discount levels: Take 75% off 2nd guest & save up to $200, Take 75% off 2nd guest, Take 75% off 2nd guest and up to $200 OBC, etc. And I tried to track the promos against some of the sailings I was interested in. What I saw was that the pricing did fluctuate nominally depending on the discount. Eg. It was cheaper with the "Take 75% off 2nd guest and save up to $200" vs just "Take 75% off 2nd guest." But there also seemed to be underlying price adjustments likely due to cruise timing/final payment and how full the sailing is. Anyways, I kind of gave up around the end of January 😄. Maybe if there's any interest, we can do a bit of a group effort to track sales, somewhat conceptually similar to the MoveUp tracking.

You might also want to check out the West Coast Depatures forum: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/315-west-coast-departures/ The port is in downtown so a lot of key sights and attractions are reasonable distance (ie walkable or 15-20 min drive away) . Obviously it depends on what kind of things interest you and weather/rain can play a part on what will be enjoyable. If you provide some high level guidance, many of the locals would be happy to provide more detailed suggestions. Personally, I think some of the best of Vancouver is along the water: A walk along the seawall, Granville Island and the public market, Stanley Park, etc. And depending on when you are in town, there are generally many festivals and events when the weather gets more consistently sunny. As to what to do with luggage, there are some threads/post that talk about leaving your luggage with the Pan Pacific Hotel's (which is located basically above the port) bell staff for a nominal fee. I've used a service called Bounce in Los Angeles which also seems to also have partners (hotels and small businesses with space to store luggage which you get to choose from) in Vancouver.

If cost is not a factor, I'd rather have connectivity/Internet access directly off our phones rather than using a pocket wifi device. It allows you to separate and keep in touch as you mention. And you don't have to worry about charging another device. I guess one consideration would have been if you are also bringing a laptop and if you can tether it off your phones on Google Fi but it's a non-factor since you mention you also have X's ship wifi. I've used Ninja's pocket wifi for a couple of trips to Japan and they work great from a connectivity perspective for multiple devices but everyone has to be in range, the devices I used didn't last the entire day so I occasionally turned it off to conserve power and needed to charge midday either at a pitstop at the hotel or via a powerbank, it's a slight inconvenience to pick it up & drop it off, and you have another item to track to make sure it doesn't get lost. From a cost perspective, Ninja always seems to have a sale or promo code going on. Eg. I just received an email for a 10th anniversary 20% off deal. So check if that moves the needle on cost. The last factor is how good the connectivity/coverage is. IIRC, Ninja's pocket wifi's run off of Softbank's network which (I just googled)appears to be the third largest carrier in Japan. If Google Fi roams on the largest carrier, NTT Docomo, perhaps you'll have better connectivity/coverage than using Ninja's pocket wifi.

Maybe check out this site for ideas: https://prepaid-data-sim-card.fandom.com/wiki/International_data_SIM_cards I use it as one of my references to see what's out there in terms of prepaid data sims. During a trip to Singapore, I used a physical sim from StarHub and it worked fine for another part of my trip in Japan. However, it only seems to support roaming primarily in SE Asian countries with a few exceptions that likely won't cover your destinations other than maybe India. So you may need to look into an all country sim. FWIW, my friend has used Keepgo without issues. He uses an esim from Keepgo but they seem to offer physical sim cards too.

Hope to tag a related question onto the thread. We couldn't figure out where we wanted to go next so we just put down a deposit on an open sailing while aboard our last cruise (Nov2023) with the Future Vacations team. Last week we found an itinerary that interested us so we called up our TA who advises us to complete the booking with X and then have them assign the cruise to them. We call up X and they complete the booking earlier last Friday with a next step to fill out an online transfer form. We completed the transfer form but received an email back saying that the transfer cannot be done since it has been over 30 days from the booking (I'm assuming they are going by the original open sailing booking date). Wondering if anyone can provide any further insight before I call back to X and our TA to get clarification from them.

I'm curious if or how much the follow are factors: Itinerary and local suppliers on the quality, variety, and freshness of products/ingredients Is there a higher percentage of more senior and higher rated kitchen and wait staff on newer ships Kitchen configuration and appliances/tools on newer ships

I generally find the downtown core and near vicinity pretty compact (and fairly walkable). However, some parts are sketchier than others. Sun Yat Sen Garden, Gastown, and Stanley Park are reasonably done within a day IMO. Even though there are a lot of nooks and crannies I think the missus and I only spent about an hour and half at the Sun Yat Sen gardens. YMMV of course. FWIW, the Chinese Canadian Museum and Chinatown Storytelling Centre are also nearby. We really enjoyed both but a lot of the draw for us is our affinity towards Vancouver history which may resonate with you. If you go from Sun Yat Sen Garden to Gastown, caution to the street you take as a few of the streets are kind of seedy. I would counsel to determine where you want to go in Stanley Park as attractions are spread out over a wide area and some at higher elevation.

I walk that stretch regularly (albeit the other direction from Canada Place towards the Pinnacle). Wide, nicely paved sidewalks and relatively flat (very slight downhill towards the water). It might get somewhat congested pedestrian-wide the block before Canada Place (and the Convention Centre West) but not excessively.

It's definitely walkable. Just to add some additional context around distance and walking times, the days I drop the missus off at work in downtown, I usually park the car about three blocks away from Canada Place around 8:30am and am able to reasonably walk to and down Robson Street, across Denman to English Bay, towards the eastern side of Stanley Park, somewhat along the eastern side of Lost Lagoon, back to Canada Place along the Coal Harbour seawall, and then back to the car by 11am (because parking is up). This includes a few stops to get coffee, read the news, etc. An alternate circuit I do with similar times when I park closer to Denman Street goes deeper into Stanley Park to Second Beach, walk along the west side of Lost Lagoon, through the Rose Garden, then toward Lumberman's Arch, around the seawall, and then back to the car new Denman instead of back towards Canada Place. To do this circuit from Canada Place, I'd probably add an hour, ~3.5hrs total. Definitely can rent a bike or eScooter (or take a bus) to speed it/parts up. Note the bike path along the Stanley Park seawall is one way. Parts of downtown are fairly lively when the weather gets nicer and the days get longer. There's going to be dead areas eg. More business district areas. Gastown will likely be lively into the evening because of the bar and restaurant scene. Might be even more lively if the Canucks are still in the playoffs and playing that night. There always seems to be a bunch of people around the steam clock. The area can potentially feel a bit sketchy with one person screaming down the block though. Canada Place and along the seawall will likely have many people enjoying the views in the evening. I'm not sure how late you'd want to stay in Stanley Park. Along the edges and seawall should be fine. I hesitate to recommend along some of the main trails once you get to dusk mainly due to coyotes. The park had a problem with agressive coyotes nipping/biting people in recent years but has eased once the Park Rangers started clamping down on people feeding them. However, when I was walking through the park today, I did come across a sign warning of being in a coyote nesting area so they are still around.

Are you able to share the dates you are in town? There are many festivals and events around town throughout the summer.

Open to being corrected but I do not think you'll be able to go through the same security areas. However, they are relatively close to each other though. For US departures, you go through a specific security checkpoint area that then routes you into a US Customs & Immigration Pre-Clearance area. After, it flows you to the US departure gates that are isolated from other gates to isolate the pax that have been precleared by US border agents. For International departures, you go through a different security checkpoint area which then routes you to a different set of international departure gates. (IIRC, some of the International gates are in the same wing but opposite side as some of the US gates but separated by a glass partition down the middle which pax normally cannot cross through. So you might be able to see your parents post security on opposite sides of the glass partition but not mingle with them.) Before entering the actual security screening area for international departures, there's a person at the door checking boarding passes and ID's. If you can convince the security checkpoint to allow you accompany your parents through their screening and then back out, the US security screening area is only about a five minute walk away. There are separate NEXUS lanes (which I'm assuming Global Entry pax can use too??) for both the US departures security screening and the customs & immigration screening which can save a bunch of time if the regular lines are long.

Here are a few strategies that we use which are dependent on a variety of factors: Stay at a hotel near the airport. They are generally cheaper than hotels in the downtown core/tourist areas. But it's dependent on relatively inexpensive and convenient transportation options into the downtown core/tourist areas (to allow us to do some sightseeing pre-departure) and also to the port of course. Utilize an annual free night certificate from a credit card. One of the credit cards we have is an AMEX Marriott Bonvoy card. It has an annual fee of $120CDN but provides an annual free night certificate in year 2 onwards. (In year 1, you can earn (based on a spend requirement) a welcome bonus of Bonvoy points that you can also use for a free night or to help top up reward stays.) As long as we utilize the free night every year for a hotel worth at least $120CDN, we break even. Note the free night is only valid for a room worth 35000 Bonvoy points (and can be topped up with some additional Bonvoy points for a more expensive room if needed). The type of room you can get with 35000 points depends on a variety of factors such as hotel brand, location, season/how busy the hotel is. It's unlikely you can get a room in downtown Vancouver or Toronto during high season for 35000 points. But you might be able to get a room at a Courtyard, Four Points, Fairfield, etc near the airport. We've also been able to book midtier brands like Marriotts and Westins for various trips to the States. Eg. IIRC, we stayed at the Renaissance in Long Beach before our Mexican Riviera cruise in 2022 that would have cost us over $200USD +taxes. Note we did top up to 40000 points but there were no taxes to be paid and we could have instead stayed at the Westin without a top-up. In 2023, we used a free night cert at an AC Hotel in Europe post cruise. Use a corporate rate. If you work for government or a megacorp, check to see if they allow you to use their corporate rate for personal trips. My megacorp does and we've booked rooms a few times with it. You may have to book using your internal booking tool or have to call into the hotel directly to make a reservation. And then at the hotel, you may have to show your employee card. Friends and Family rate. If you have a friend or relative that works for a hotel/hotel brand, they might be able to provide you with a friends and family rate. My friend's wife works for a Marriott brand hotel and she was able to give her husband a code to book a discounted room for us, for a boys trip. Upon check-in, we also needed to present an authorization printout from her for the discounted rate. If it's a busy night for the hotel there likely won't be a discounted rate available. Gift card and credit card promos. You kind of have to keep your ear to ground for some of these like regularly reading deal websites/forums. Some examples: Fairmont used to have an annual Black Friday deal where you got a 20% bonus gift card when buying a giftcard. One of my AMEX cards has a regular hotel promos/rebates such as spend $500 and get a $100 statement credit.

My comments are from a DIY perspective exploring Fira and Oia as we haven't taken a tour or did a sailing charter. One of the keys for us when our ships were the first/one of the earlier arrivals was getting one of the earlier tenders which meant keeping an ear out or just asking staff to find out when and where they were being handed out and getting there early. Another key is to be ready to head to the tender. Our visits have been with Celebrity and our experience is that you don't necessarily need to get the absolute first tender numbers to get on the first few tenders. They called the numbers relatively fast, I believe in part because some people/groups (herding cats) with early numbers aren't ready to get off. Eg. During my most recent visit, a person in front of me was intent on getting early tender tickets (16 tix) for her group so they could meet a tour. Yet, I didn't see her (and her group) on the first tender with us(?!?). If your ship if the first in and you get an early tender, I think the cable car line queue should be very reasonble. However, as others have mentioned, you do have to give yourself enough time to get back down either for queuing for the cable car or walking down the donkey path. Timing for the cable car down can be tricky because you'll likely be mixing with some pax from other ships returning to theirs early. We've walked down twice. It's doable but I don't love it. When the donkeys are operating, it's very stinky. And the stone steps are very smooth and slippery. I had hikers on and slipped a few times. Personally, the views in Oia, are always one of my highlights so my biased opinion is to visit & explore Fira and Oia versus going on a sailing tour. However, while you can try to limit excessive steps in Fira and Oia and still get to some nice areas, you are inevitably going to encounter some steps and moreso to get to a few of the more interesting viewpoints (eg Oia Castle) & shops IMO. Maybe go to Youtube and check out some walking tour videos of Fira and Oia to give you a sense of the pathways?

Sorry for the late reply, Barb! Just emailed you back. Was out all day Saturday enjoying the Canucks beating up on the Leafs.

No, we travelled up the day before on a Sunday and then boarded the ship on Monday midday. It gave us a bit of time to check out the town and do the mosaics circuit. There was also flooding in the Ravenna region during the weeks leading up to our cruise and we weren't sure how well the transportation/rail links were recovering so we wanted to get in a day before.

Wanted to share a bit from our experiences during land trips to these destinations but keep in mind cruise logistics might be very different (eg where you may get access to a reputable ATM or forex exchange). And your decision will depend on your preference for convenience versus getting the best rate/limiting fees. For Indonesia, we've only been to Bali. We struggled to take cash out of multiple ATM's at different locations (at the airport and a few places in town) and using different bank cards (TD, CIBC, and a Vancity credit union). Note we only notified our primary banks about our travels. In the end, we just used a currency exchange place to swap some CAD we fortunately brought with us. If you do use a currency exchange, use caution due to some of the scams that occur. For Vietnam, we've had mixed luck depending on the ATM. If you look at the back of your bank card, it will likely show symbols of the interbank ATM networks that the card is a part of (eg. Plus, Cirrus, etc). Then when you look at the ATM, it will likely show you similar symbols of what interbank ATM networks they are a part of. Basically you need to ensure your bank card is on the same interbank network as the ATM which we didn't clue in on initially. Also note that some ATM's charge a fee ($2-5CAD equivalent) on their end. Have to look up which ones don't. For Thailand, we usually use a major currency exchange like Supperrich. We never had problems using ATM's in Thailand but pretty much all of them typically charge a fee of ~$5CAD equivalent on their end. In Singapore, we just used an ATM but also note that some also charge a fee on their end. Have to look up which ones don't. Also remember that most bank cards from the big 5 Canadian banks may/likely charge a $2-5 fee on their end for withdrawing cash outside of their own branch network and may charge a 2.5-3.5% fee on top of the interbank currency exchange rate (which is basically similar to the 2.5% forex fee on most Canadian credit cards). The charges are typically buried in their fee schedule docs. Some higher end accounts and non-big banks waive or reduce certain fees.

For our cruise in 2023, we flew into Rome and then trained up to Ravenna. Similar to what others have mentioned, I think the most straight forward train route would be a high speed option from Rome to Bologna and then the hourly commuter train from Bologna to Ravenna. Our trip from FCO airport to Ravenna took just under 4.5hrs total with the Fiumicino to Bologna segment taking just over 3hrs, about a 15min connection, and about a 1hr ride onto Ravenna. The connection in Bologna can be a bit overwhelming as it's a large station with the high speed trains in a different section the other trains. We've only driven in Tuscany for a different land trip. Personally, I found driving outside the cities/towns pretty reasonable while driving in them somewhat chaotic. Some of our best memories though were from that drive just being able to take our time and make random stops.

Sounds wonderful. The email address looks right. Will look for a message from you there.

Hi Barb. Hope you remember us (Wendy&Jay) from the 2011 cruise. I still have fond memories of the excursions you booked for the group! If you decide to spend any time post cruise in town or take the later train, it would be my pleasure to give you two a ride or show you around town if you're looking to do some sightseeing. We're only 20mins away from Canada Place and are regularly down there.

The missus has a really old Pixel phone that doesn't fully support esims so she defaulted to getting a physical sim card versus an esim. Not sure if this was the best deal but she did a Portugal / Spain cruise (departing in Lisbon with an unexpected stop in Gibraltar) with the inlaws this past November and she got some kind of a ~20-30e Vodafone "total" package with something like 10gb of data (with EU and UK roaming) and some voice minutes for 30 days from a Vodafone store in Campo Pequeno mall near her hotel. I originally told her to just pay the premium to get a sim card at a booth at LIS airport but she said the line was pretty long so she decided to find a store in town after checking in the hotel. I'm guessing she got some kind of limited time tourist sim package because the staff mentioned other packages required some kind of online registration which she didn't want and have to do in the end. Staff were pretty helpful and set up the sim in her phone which was handy since she's a bit of a technophobe. 🙂 Alternatively, if your phone supports it, you can look into buying and downloading an esim onto your phone with appropriate EU/UK coverage from the websites of one of the vendors mentioned in this or other similar threads.

That's a great tip!

I have a Pixel 6 Pro currently running Android 14 (on a Telus plan) and installed an Ubigi esim for a European cruise last spring. It's still loaded on my phone but flipped to inactive. When going into network settings and sim options, I can see both my Telus sim and Ubigi sim. I have an option to toggle each sim on and off. When in Europe, I just toggled my Telus sim off and the Ubigi sim on. I suspect it would be similar if you are using an Android phone regardless that you are on Bell and buying an esim from a different provider but unsure if you are using an iPhone. [And for some phones, you can get fancy by using two sims at once and assigning different functions to each sim (eg. one for data and one for voice calls & text messaging) but I don't think it's worth the complexity and risk of being charged for a day of roaming tho YMMV.] Personally, it was handy for me to keep the Telus sim in the phone and just toggle it off because I had trouble with the Ubigi sim in one location (Zakynthos) so I just toggled on the Telus sim and paid the flipping $16 for a day of Easy Roam use. And billing was accurate for me for the trip. But yup, you can pull your Bell sim if you want to be extra safe.

Small consideration but IIRC, you kind of gain an hour going from Athens to Rome and lose one the other direction. I say kind of because you're typically all messed up from jetlag anyways. 😄

We stayed at the NH Hotel in Ravenna for the night prior to our cruise in June 2023. While I wouldn't consider this an amazing hotel, it's a nice/solid European chain hotel that we'd definitely consider staying at again if cruising out of Ravenna. We pre-paid about $226CDN (plus city/hotel tax payable at the hotel) via AMEX travel (needed to use of a travel credit) for a standard room with one full bed on a non-refundable rate without breakfast. Check in at 3pm, check out at noon. Free wifi that had decent coverage and speed. Free bottles of water upon arrival. Location was very good/great. It's a short and easy to navigate two block walk from the train station. We wanted to be fairly close to the train station as (1) we were going spend a long time in transit travelling from home and (2) we wanted to scope of the train station the morning of departure to identify the vendor that offers the coach ride to the port. It's also a straight 5 minute walk to the main square, Fontanella Piazza del Popolo and about a 10-15 minute walk to the furthest of the mosaic sites. The neighbourhood felt very safe but it seemed like an overall very safe town. Front desk staff were friendly (as well as the housekeeping staff we ran into) and spoke english. We forgot to print our luggage tags prior to leaving home and they were happy to print them out for us (free of charge). Our room was fairly nice and modern but somewhat small and basic. It did have a mini-fridge though which which we find handy to keep water/drinks cold. I think the pictures on their website and tripadvisor are a fair representation. (No great dinner spot recommendation as we ended up just grabbing a couple of piadinerias which were only meh.)