Itolami

What news did you see?  I'm can't find anything that isn't the same as the arrival news articles that started two weeks ago and in their emails yesterday, neither of my guides in Budapest mentioned anything of concern.

On 3/10/2022 at 10:27 PM, TakingFlight said:

We are also booked on Ama. I’m interested in the general vibe of the locals and their take on what’s happening in Ukraine. If they’re not nervous I suppose I shouldn’t be nervous. And as this will be my first AmaWaterways cruise I’d like to know your impressions of the ship and the services provided. Also which shore experiences you would recommend. Thanks in advance.

Will do!  I'll post here with a link to the new thread when I post.

8 hours ago, bethellen71 said:

It it were just me going or me and a friend, I probably would not cancel.  However I am going with my 83 year old mother and I left the decision up to her.  

I wish she would still go as the reason we booked this trip on a whim was because she was feeling her mortality as 3 of her friends died in close time.  

I still haven't cancelled yet; I'm waiting until the last minute. 

 

Oh!  You have no idea how I feel for you on this.  I was working on a cruise in 2023 for my parents, who have complained for years about how they were never able to travel like they wanted.  They are now refusing to even consider it, despite the fact that my Dad's parents had passed on and Mom's parents had stopped traveling at their current age.

I wish you the best of luck in regards to your Mom changing her mind.

4 hours ago, TakingFlight said:

Thank you for the encouraging words. Please come back here and post how your trip is going or start a new thread if you wish. I would love to hear about your experiences on your trip. Safe travels and enjoy every minute. 

I'll try my best to update.  There's so little information on river cruises out there that I'd like to do my part and add to the knowledge base.

We're going with Amawaterways.  Is there anything in particular you'd like to hear about?

Thanks for the well wishes.  It's been too long since the last vacation...

@bethellen71

I too sorry to hear that you're canceling.  But like Daisi and I said in our posts, comfort in risk levels is such a very personal thing.  It's hard to give others advice because of how personal it is.

My sister and I are doing a similar cruise, but in reverse in April, with about a week in Romania and a week in Budapest at the end.  We haven't heard much from the river cruise company about various worries, but I've talked to our guides on the pre- and post-cruise portions and I've chatted online with residents of each Capital city.  Everyone condescendingly reminds me that Ukraine is a different country (yes I know but Europe as a whole isn't that big...) and they indicate far more faith in both Putin's sanity and NATO than I frankly have.  The refugee crisis isn't a crisis in their minds yet and the belief that their country's government is handling and will continue to handle it well is strong.

No one can tell you what your comfort level with risk is, especially strangers on the internet.  We're still going despite my husband's reservations.

If you are an American, I would however highly recommend Dept of State's Smart Traveler Enrollment Program.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/step.html

On 2/4/2019 at 6:49 AM, oceangoer2 said:

Do you use your own (purchased) minutes using the app, or do you automatically connect with X wi-fi?  When you board, does the app connect with X wi-fi as you're going through the terminal so that the check in process is minimal?  DH prefers to depend on paper express pass and hesitant re using the app if it's still not working as it should.

I'm curious to know if people prefer checking in via app over checking in online too.  I understand both from this thread and from the app reviews, that the android app is less useful than the apple app on the ship, but what about the checkin process?

Thank you all for your responses, definitely have given me a range of choices, I am going to look into Hotel Pod Vezi and Savic as they both keep popping up. I prefer to not stay in the chains as I like a little more local flavor.

Not sure how we are getting from the boat in Nuremberg to Prague but I am using a travel agent for the first time and he says he will take care of it. I am always open to suggestions as I am still really doing most of the planning and he is booking with his discounts.

Sorry to butt in on your thread, but my sister and I are also doing a post-cruise stay in Prague and I was wondering if you found out anything more from your travel agent.

My travel agent has recommended we book the post-cruise stay through AMA (obviously, the company we're taking the river cruise on) but I keep suffering from indecision and would welcome input from anyone.

If we took the AMA option, they'd be responsible for getting us from Nuremberg to Prague, with a stop and "free time" in Pilzen. We'd be staying in the Art Deco Hotel Imperial for three nights and the first full day in Prague we'd have an undefined city tour with AMA.

The bonuses here are clear: I don't have to think about much because it's done for me, the Art Deco Hotel Imperial is in a not terrible location near old town Prague, and it would be convenient to the Convent of St Agnes of Bohemia which is pretty far from a must see on my sister's list, but interests me enough that if it's just a quick hop from the hotel I could sneak away and look myself.

Now doing it ourselves: my travel agent usually recommends the Golden Well Hotel, which while slightly out of the way sounds absolutely lovely. While Pilzen sounds like fun, my sister doesn't drink and there are other things along the way that would be higher on my list (like Kladrubsky Monastery or Karlstejn Castle). I also would like to spend our second day in Prague with a day trip out to Kutna Hora, but I suffer from the dreaded fear of missing out, and since I don't know what the undefined city tour will show us, I don't know if we'll see everything in Prague that we should see. It would be easy enough to throw money at the problem and get us a guide that does everything we want in Prague and would take us out to Kutna Hora, but that does start to get expensive and I've got a milestone birthday trip in 2019 that I wanted to go all out for. I also can't seem to find a good way of getting from Nuremberg to Prague that would allow us to do some sightseeing along the way. I found one company, but the prices seem almost too good to be true and you know how that goes.

So do any of you kind people have any thoughts for me? There's a part of me tempted to just go with AMA to stop fretting about the entire thing.

I weep for your tragedy.

Oh they exist (thanks Google)...and it seems like people pay a good amount of money for some pairs.

 

https://www.betabrand.com/gray-dress-pant-sweatpants.html

I'm honestly speechless. They have women's "yoga" pants that are amazing looking too.

as I posted above I wear a pr of sneakers and pack a pr of Clarks walking shoes. Neither are weather proofed. If one pr gets wet, I wear the other. To help them dry overnight stuff the toes with paper towel/ facecloth and/or warm them with the hair dryer.

Unless you're worried about your sneakers, why not just spray waterproofing on them .... I think it takes a few times to make it worthwhile..

Excellent advice on how to dry them and excellent idea on the spray waterproofing. I'll give that a try. Thank you!

How necessary are waterproof hiking shoes/boots? I normally wear sneakers and generally don't have have a problem with slipping - or to be more specific, I don't fall any more frequently in wet situations than I do in dry. We have one more shore excursion to book and we're not doing anything crazily athletic (the tundra wilderness tour, flight-seeing with glacier landing, whale watching and the Medenhall Glacier). We'll be in Alaska in May. Should I go out of my way to buy something waterproof for my feet or would I be okay with just normal athletic sneakers?

Thank you to both 3kidsncats & TXcruiser13 for answering my silly question about the USB stick.

I would have purchased it anyway, but I'm even more excited now!

I think Princess are on to a winner here. On our last cruise there were no print outs, just digital images on a screen. I never saw anyone looking at them.

I'm a little surprised that they have to scan the photos, but it makes complete sense to me that they would print them out. Having a glossy photo catch my eye would reel me in for a sale better than another screen I ignore.

It was good. Requires a bit of effort to go find the images, and I was told a few times that I needed to come turn them in at a later time (if the last batch wasn't back yet, they wouldn't take more for scanning). One picture didn't end up getting returned or scanned -- so our only port image is MIA. On my cruise last year (NCL) all of the images were available for review and purchase on a computer -- no hunting anything down. Hopefully Princess is moving towards this model, as it is a lot more efficient for everyone.

 

They have terms and conditions for the package, that no one gets when pre-purchasing online. That's a big issue for me. I don't like "bait and switch" situations, so am contacting corporate. The "All-Inclusive" package that "includes ALL your images from your cruise" does not actually include all of them, if you do any special events. Was forewarned by another CC member, but still feel the issue should be addressed. If they have T&C for the package, then provide them upfront and it's all good. If they don't provide them before purchase, then they can't expect me to abide by them.

 

Overall, I recommend the package. Photographers were fun, quick, took about 5 shots at each station onboard. I don't love the image backgrounds, so was happy that they offered some plain ones in addition to the ship, etc. We ended up with a ton of pics of ourselves. Not sure what I will do with all of them -- but it was a lot more enjoyable taking the pics, knowing I would get all that I wanted....mostly.

Any chance it's the cute ship USB stick that they save your photos on? I'll likely get the package anyway; I'm just curious.

While none of us have yet sailed Princess (my first Princess cruise is in May), I thought I'd chime in with a dissenting opinion about the Lanai cabins on HAL as there are so few of them.

My in-laws actually prefer (!) the Lanai cabins to regular balcony cabins and were disappointed to find out that they seem to be exclusive to HAL. They like the space and feel it is easier than on a balcony to rearrange chairs when you have guests over so you can look at each other during conversation. My mother-in-law also finds the space conducive to her knee problems as she would have problems maneuvering on narrow balconies.

Like a lot of people who have never stayed in a Lanai cabin I find the lack of privacy to be a huge disadvantage but if the in-laws have ever had trouble with peeping Toms or chair thieves, said trouble hasn't been frequent enough to deter them from booking the Lanai cabins.

I can't remember exactly when they started booking the Lanai cabins but it's been quite a few years ago now. They've booked them every time since that first.

Thanks for the clarification.

And I concur with both feelings: it would be nice in the matter of principle to make them honor the "inclusion" but practically speaking, drinking wine on your massive balcony is a much better use of time.

I was wondering too. Going on line to Princess and opening up the "Suite Amenities" it says Thermal Suite Access with an *. Well I swear that * used to say EXCLUDES Royal and Regal. Now that * says INCLUDED Royal and Regal. So I just hung up with princess, they verified that having the owners suite on Regal does NOT include the access to the enclave. VERY annoying that they can't get it right. I think paying as much as I did for the cruise, we should have access for sure.

I thought I was going crazy. I'm new to Princess and checked the suite perks a few weeks back and could have sworn it said "Excludes" but as you note, it now says "Includes".

Just to clarify though, it seems as if you got confirmation that your Owners Suite on the Regal does not have access, so the pdf should read "Excludes?" I'm very confused.