CCJack

That is definately doable. Train ride easy and a pleasant ride. We used hilton points for the double tree, we get our points from the hilton CC, which is a far better deal than airline frequent flyer credit cards, etc. In my opinion.

That is a good question, i would inquire at the rental place for a phone number. A couple thoughts... the bike path does cross a couple of roadways, and passes by a couple farms, which would have to have road access to the farms. Also, you will see other bikers/ hikers on the bike trail. It was not crowded but definately there will be others on the path who could help, i would think....

Another option is to hire a private local tour guide to meet you in Rome (you get there on your own from ship) - and escort you for the day. It will be pricey but if this is your only visit to Rome, then time is your enemy and you don't want to waste time. A local could get you efficiently to both locations. It is especially valuable to have a guide inside the Vatican Museum, they would be able to get you to the things in the Museum that interest you, and bypassing the rest (It is massive). I would think you could also swing by the Pantheon which is (roughly) between the two. Perhaps find another couple people on your ship to join you via roll calls and share the expense?

I probably vote for number 1 just because inside the colosseum would be top priority for me. Also, #2 appears to miss St. Peters altogether and it would be a shame to not at least see it from the outside. However #1 has some "excursion speak" relative to St. Peters...."with St. Peters as a backdrop"... does that mean you will see it from 1 mile away? perhaps, but hopefully not, I would think they will get you to St. Peters square. You may not know unless you can find someone who has been on that specific excursion.

I tend to agree.... My kids are older now, but we cruised a lot when they were that age. It took me a couple cruises to figure out that my kids really didn't care if there were lots of other kids and lots of kid's programs. The basic kid's programs on most mainstream lines was fine for them, and some but not a lot of other kids was fine (actually preferable to them). They sometimes ended up fascinated with something else.... billiard table, shuffleboard or the self serve ice cream machine ! You can never predict that stuff. I would not compromise itinerary or the ship that the parents want to get a better kid's program. That said, we usually ended up on RCCL with kids. Now that we are empty nesters, we like Celebrity. However, I would not hesitate to take kids on Celebrity as well.

I tend to agree that a ship's tour may be a good option here. This is a wonderful excursion (Amalfi coast is beautiful) but there are a lot of timing things that could go off the rails here - more so than other excursions - mostly due to traffic. Also, on our last couple of cruises, we have had a couple ports were there were issues with ship docking for various reasons.... everyone was 2+ hours late getting off of the ship. In both of these cases the cruise line allowed only ship's excursion passengers to debark first, and it was enforced. (everyone else was even later than 2 hours late). This probably doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

They both look great.... Ship is personal preference, but we were on the Apex last summer and it is my favorite ship of 20+ that we have been on... really beautiful ship and food was excellent. .... We have not been on the RCCL Anthem but have been on Oasis class a few times, etc. I am sure Anthem is nice too. Considering you have 2 sea days to and from Southampton, I would vote for the 8 day cruise and getting one more port stop in, even though you are giving up Bergen which is a nice stop.

Hotel Abruzzi.. We booked a room with Pantheon view and it is just as advertised.... right in front of the Pantheon. For our young adult children traveling with us, we booked rooms in their annex which is a couple doors down and does not have a nice view, but still a very adequate room. Included breakfast was actually in a cafe across the Pantheon plaza and was very good. No complaints, I loved it and would stay there again.

I would recommend a small boat experience rather than the larger glass covered boats, even though you will pay a bit more for the smaller boats. Both Flagship Amsterdam and Those Damn Boat Guys appear to be smaller boats, as is Floating Amsterdam, which we went on and can recommend. Floating Amsterdam is a bit closer walk than Anne Frank house, although all walks in Amsterdam are enjoyable. Unrelated comment, I hope you consider watching A Small Light - recent mini series, before visiting the Anne Frank house. It was very good.

For the 9/13 NCL cruise, most excursions are still showing up as available on my account. The only one which I think is sold out is Gros Morne National Park out of Corner Brook, they could add another bus at any time, however, as cruise lines sometimes do. I don't know the answer to your question, as I have not been to these ports yet. I am guessing most people leave the port towns for excursions, either by the cruise line or DIY, (with the exception of Halifax.)

Did you ask Airline about refund or rebook....since they cancelled the flight? Rebook for Sunday or Monday ? My thought is you would likely be OK making a 1 pm flight on Saturday. With a sea day on Friday, the ship has lots of time to make up any delays and likely will be on time. (Note for our departure from Amsterdam, our ship was delayed 3+ hours by the traffic control through the lock. My understanding is they re-order smaller ships, bigger ships, etc. for traffic control. However for an am arrival, the cruiseline has to get the ship ready for the next passengers, so I would think they will be docked well before 7 am. ) If you walk off with luggage at 7 am, that gives you lots of time to make it to the airport by 10 am, which would be 3 hours prior to departure. Either by train or taxi..

they had lots of bikes, but small bikes were in short supply. We got regular bikes, and it was fine since we walked the first 1 km over the rough patch, and after that the path was smooth. Suspension never hurts, however, if you want a smoother ride. If you do get off the ship to make a 10:45 departure, I wonder if they would let you board the train if it is not sold out. That would give you more time to enjoy the bike ride.

I think it was a single que, if i recall correctly. However, if it turns out to be nice weather and you plan to bike down, i really wouldn't worry about a window seat on the train. Your views from the bike path will be 10x better than a view from a train window. Note the people renting the bikes to us were super friendly but a little unorganized. I would get right to the Cafe when you get off the train to secure a right sized bike for you. We had a little issue with finding a bike for my wife, who is very short, but it was resolved ok.

No drawback to booking early except the river cruise line might book the rest of the ship as one group. This happened to us on Viking, we were the first cabin booked then they booked every other cabin to a single group. It worked out OK for us as our TA found out, and thus we moved to another Viking cruise date - 2 weeks from original sail date and I had not purchased air yet. If we had purchased air, this would have been a problem. I do not think travel insurance would consider this a "cancelled cruise" since Viking said we were welcome to keep the original booking and be the only ones not part of a group. I could not imagine us being the only ones in the dining room not part of the group and having to listen to toasts for " nice job meeting last year's corporate sales goals!" or toasts to "best luck to the bride and groom" ! I would never book the first cabin again, I would wait until 10 or so are booked to be safe. I think it is not infrequent that river boats are taken by a single group.

We will be spending 2 nights pre cruise in QC in September. I have had mixed results with HOHO buses in various cities, really don't like waiting only to have a completely booked bus show up and you wait some more.... Anyone with experience in QC with this and availability of buses, are they usually full? The link above is very helpful, thanks.... I am wondering what this means, however: Available May 13th to October 29th Schedule may 13th, 2023 to june 22th, 2023 09h25, 10h10, 10h50, 11h25, 12h10, 12h50, 13h25, 14h10, 14h50, 15h25, 16h10 june 23th, 2023 to june 30th, 2023 09h25 july 1st, 2023 to october 31th, 2023 09h15 Does this mean there is only one bus running after June 22, while there are many buses running from May 13 to June 22, it is confusing..... thanks.

I can only give you a partial answer... we hired a private guide to give us a tour of Genoa, S. Margareta, and Portofino using public transportation. I loved all 3 stops including Genoa, which is an interesting city. She (our guide) took us up on the Funicular and at the top was a residential area with a small park and the views over the city were quite nice. I think without the guide telling us what we were looking at it would have been less interesting, however.

We walked from the ship to the bus station and took the National Express bus to London. It stops at a couple of metro stops in London. If your hotel is close to one of those stops, that might be a doable option and inexpensive. If your hotel is not close to one of those stops then you would be looking at another london taxi or metro to get to your hotel. The walk from ship to bus in Southampton is not short, but doable. In nice weather, it is not a bad walk. Maybe 30 min. You do have to go over some cobblestone streets with your luggage however.

Yes, our ship docked in a bit of an industrial area which was fenced off. Nothing within walking distance. There was a lineup of taxi's right outside of the ship, but I don't know if those taxi's would be interested in a day tour type of trip. We just took a taxi to Titanic museum, then we walked from there to downtown area.....

Dunmore East is not a bad little village to take a stroll through either before or after your trip to Waterford. There are good ocean views, etc from the town. We took a ship excursion to Waterford, I do not remember seeing any waiting taxis in Dunmore East. I think you would want to have transportation arranged. Our ship (Celebrity Apex) did not have a shuttle, perhaps Oceana will.

You may want to reach out to the whale watching vendor (if you booked directly with them) or the cruiseline if it is a cruise excursion. My guess is it would be no problem on either the bus or the boat. On our whale watching boat there would have been plenty of room.

Thanks so much.

Probably pros and cons to both. Cruising Southbound and doing the land portion first has the advantage of doing the busiest / taxing portion first then relax on the cruise. Cruising Northbound and doing land portion last has the advantage of the cruise leaving from Vancouver which is a great departure city. Spending 1 or 2 nights there is perfect pre-cruise, the ships dock right downtown, etc....

It sounds like fun,,,,, Could you tell a little more about the hike? Is there a parking lot at the national park? Trailheads and marked trails to the Statue? Restrooms? From the map, I don't see any parking available. Thanks..

Check 2024 wimbeldon schedule, you may be able to catch a day of tennis. We did that one time before a Southampton cruise. It was a fun day.

I like the 12, just because it is 12! Both have flam. With the 12 you give up geiranger, but gain those northern ports. I have not been to those northern ports but they really look appealing to me.