bookbabe

Yes, for our direction (ending in Bergen) that was what he felt was the better side.

As far as we can tell, we can call anywhere in any of the countries covered under the Global+ listing. We’ve definitely called Canada and the US with it. More complicated to call, need to use all the international calling codes and such.

Yeah, that’s the only reason we got the Global+ rather than just the Global. The only downside is that the number is from Austria, so occasionally people think we’re a spammer and don’t answer. The upside is that we renew the plan every year rather than letting it lapse and getting a new plan (and thus a new number) each trip, so most of the relevant friends and family now have that number in their contacts as us. We travel a lot, so in addition to our regular home (Cayman) cell numbers, we have a Mint US monthly plan and the Airalo Global+ for the rest of the world. LOL.

I’ll just add on to this part that some Airalo plans, specifically the Global+ ones, do give you a phone number in addition to data. So if you need a phone number, you have to pick one of the Airalo plans that includes one, it’s not automatic. We have the Global+ plan, which gives us more data in more countries and a full year to use it, because we go on multiple trips a year to different destinations. If you are only traveling once for a shorter trip, and to a smaller number of countries, one of the local or regional plans might be a more economical choice. @CDNPolar great minds think alike…. LOL

Your phone has to be able to use an eSim, which is a code you enter rather than an actual physical SIM card. Google your phone model plus the word eSim and you should be able to tell if it’ll work. In your phone’s settings, there will be a spot, likely under Cellular, where you turn on and off the different phone numbers. When you leave Canada, as you are putting your phone in airplane mode for the plane ride, you just turn off the CAD number and turn on the Airalo one. Then do the reverse on the way home. Whether it will work before you leave depends on what plan you buy. If Canada isn’t a part of that plan, then no, you won’t have access to the number or data until you get there. However, you don’t need to know your Airalo number to set up WhatsApp. You use your Canadian number as your username, and that makes it so that no matter what phone number or data plan (or even just hotel or ship wifi) is active, people WhatsApp your regular number to get in touch with you. In fact, you HAVE to set that up when you have your CAD phone working because they will text you an authentication code to confirm the number. WhatsApp is a program rather than a phone service, so it works like FB or Cruise Critic where you log in with the same username (or in the case of WhatsApp, phone number) and password no matter what device you are using or where in the world you are using it from. But, just like FB or Cruise Critic, you can only contact other people who are on FB or CC, so you have to have friends/family set up WhatsApp too. That help at all?

Not sure if someone would ever have a service dog that young, but the new US rules also forbid entry to any puppies less than six months old. At all. The dog rescue I sometimes escort for is a bit panicked about it. The new paperwork isn’t too much more onerous than what they were already having to do, but they just seem to be applying it to temporarily visiting dogs as well as ones being permanently imported into the US. But the no puppies rule is hurting the rescue’s efforts big time.

Most people seem to take a taxi or use the bus. Bus is $2.50 pp each way, I think, and a taxi would likely be around $50-60 each way for up to 4 people. No personal experience, though, we have a car.

It depends on your direction. Look at the itinerary maps and follow the arrows to see whether you’d be looking at distant land or open ocean from your current cabins. We just finished a 36 day B2B of Iconic Mediterranean Treasures and Trade Routes, Istanbul to Bergen, and DH determined that 5108 was the “better” cabin for our journey. He’s picky about that kind of thing.

Not quite true. Airalo has a voice phone option available for their Global (Discover+) plan. I know, because we have it. The negative is that it sets you up with (in our case) an Austrian phone number, but we have used it to call Canada without issue. For our elderly moms, we called them from the number first so they could just press that number in the recent calls log to call us if they needed to. Since then, we’ve got them using WhatsApp so it’s no longer an issue, but we were definitely able to make and receive phone calls with the Discover+ plan on Airalo. No idea if you can do call forwarding to that number from your home or regular cell phone, we’ve never tried.

If you are lucky enough to find something on one of the resort daypass websites, book it. The only one I can remember seeing with any regularity is the Holiday Inn, which isn’t on SMB. Generally, the hotels along SMB don’t tend to do day passes, especially during peak season. Your best bet is to try contacting individual hotels directly to inquire about day room rates and availability.

You can DIY almost anywhere along SMB. Popular spots include Governor’s Beach, Cemetary Beach (no facilities at either of those) or Public Beach (restrooms and usually has rentals and food vendors). For an actual beach club environment, your only option at present is Coral Beach. https://coralbeach.ky

You can find some options here https://www.caymangoodtaste.com Oceanside near port is doable, but the actual beach doesn’t start until the outer limit of your walking distance, so for true beachside you’ll need to taxi or bus.

These have all been mentioned, but the Dominica river tubing, the Old San Juan walking tour and the Virgin Gorda & the Baths tours were all great. I’ll add in that the chocolate making one in St Lucia was also great.

No issues in any of our deck 5 ES cabins

There is an ice machine at the WC drink stations.

We just got off Trade Routes in April, and had no issues (other than lack of sleep and caffeine) catching a 10:30am flight to LHR via Oslo with SAS. And we weren’t even on the first bus of people to head to the airport.

PayPal works for Canadians, so why couldn’t this “actor” just send her the money that way rather than during an in-person visit. lol. Scammer. You should be reporting the scammer to the cops, maybe a visit from an officer would convince your niece that she’s being duped.

We were on the Glimpse of Heraklion one. However, I only remember the palace ruins portion, I’m drawing a blank on what we might have seen during the town walk portion. Obviously, it wasn’t very memorable. Editing to add that the ruins were interesting, just not to the level of Ephesus or Pompeii. We were off-season, but it was still surprisingly crowded. I remember it being a decent bus ride from the port, not sure I’d want to DIY unless there was no other choice. “Home of the Minotaur and Venetian-Flavored Treasures -- You will drive with your guide to the Palace of Knossos, where an interesting walking tour reveals what remains of this once-sprawling building. This is the fabled palace where Minos’s wife Pasiphaë gave birth to the Minotaur, half-bull and half-man, and where Theseus of myth destroyed the beast. This site was uncovered in 1893 and took 35 years to excavate. You will view the Throne Room, a chamber located in the heart of the palace complex that was built for ceremonial purposes during the 15th century BC. Large and small pitharia, or storage jars, are sprinkled throughout, providing insight into the artistry of the day. Then, return to Heraklion’s Old Town for a walk past its most compelling sites. You will have time to explore on your own before returning to your ship.”

Our pre-stay tour guide explained what was going to happen at the rug demo and gave us tons of info about the various government initiatives meant to try to preserve and revive the art of rug weaving. Pretty much every guide on every subsequent tour in a Turkish port gave us much the same info, so I am relatively confident that the info was accurate. Stops at rug shops are mandated, shipping is paid for by the government, and a whole series of schools has been established to provide girls and young women with free training in the art alongside their regular education.

It’s mentioned in the Istanbul pre-stay tour description, but not in the descriptions for the various port excursions, I just double-checked. I guess it didn’t surprise me to have the rug shops at the end of every excursion because we did the pre-stay and heard all about the requirement then. It really wasn’t a big deal, though. I don’t see it as any different than all of the excursions where your “bio break” is at a gift shop, arranged in hopes that you’ll shop while waiting for everyone to finish. At least the rug presentation was interesting, much better than being funnelled into a tacky t-shirt shop or Diamonds International.

Has anyone stayed at the Great Northern Hotel at Kings Cross Station?

I’m just wondering what this woman’s FB account security settings are. Does she have her account set to Public? IMO, even Friends of Friends gives you too many people you don’t actually know potentially seeing your posts, so unless someone only posts food pics and cat memes, they should probably tighten up their FB settings. My FB security settings are set to Friends Only, so there’s a very limited number of people who could have cancelled a cruise on me if I’d been in a similar situation, and I know them all in real life.

We had a number of Turkish port stops on our last cruise, which had the OP’s itinerary as one of the weeks. We did the rug shop in Istanbul, very informative, no pressure and free drinks. We were easily able to skip the other ones, especially in Ephesus where you can easily see the ship from where they are leading you into the shopping concourse and just detour off back to the ship (we tipped the guide first and let him know we were leaving the group). Istanbul - if you have a smartphone and data, drop a pin at both the meeting spot to get back on the bus (for us it was the rug shop) and at your entrance to the Grand Bazaar. The Bazaar has multiple entrances and is a bit of a maze, it would be easy to get turned around if you aren’t paying attention or don’t have a GPS marker to aim for. Rhodes - I’ll second that the included excursion is definitely not for those with mobility concerns. Lots of walking, hills, stairs. And it’s meh. You won’t be missing much. Ephesus - AWESOME! Best of all the ports. We were there twice, did the included the first time and the excursion that stopped at the museum the second time. DH wasn’t really interested in the Homes of the Elite when we booked, but once we had visited the site he would have been willing to switch to go back and see the homes but it was full. Troy - yeah, it’s a tiny town with not much going on, and the historical site there was okay but not as epic as Ephesus or Pompeii. Crete - the historic site there was okay, it was the Knossos excursion, our guide was channeling his inner “long-winded university prof” so he annoyed us a bit, so that likely coloured our view of the site a bit

We got a good deal on the Mövenpick for this December using AA miles. No idea exactly where our river cruise is docking, but we figure it’s kind of central to the various docks so we’re hoping it won’t be too much of a hike for embarkation. (A bit further to the train station, which is how we are arriving, but it’s still doable.) In April, our Viking ocean cruise docked behind it, with a couple of river cruise ships on either side. The area wasn’t too bad of a walk to things, but we were intentionally walking so didn’t mind if it was a bit further to the main tourist areas. In December we aren’t planning to do much touring since we just did Amsterdam, so the Mövenpick seemed to be a better choice than the Doubletree, which was one of the other nearby options for getting a hotel with miles. Also, online reviews seemed to lean towards Mövenpick having a better breakfast than Doubletree, so DH voted with his stomach. I don’t know if it’s the best use of miles, but we don’t have any AA flights to book in the foreseeable future, and we’ve got a ton of miles from our credit card usage. We did all our hotels for pre/post for that trip using miles, so got some nicely upgraded rooms as a splurge.

I’ll throw a different opinion of the Alhambra out there…don’t stress about getting that excursion, we felt it was a waste of our time and money. We did the Viking excursion there on our March/April 2024 cruise, and it was definitely a one and done for us. Do some reading about the site. It’s got an extensive amount of 15th century reproduction in the Islamic style, and even then it wasn’t a wow for us. Probably one of our most disappointing excursions on that cruise. Long bus ride to get there, very crowded, rushed tour due to the distance and ticket timings, only okay architecture, mediocre lunch at a local restaurant. The gardens were the nicest part. Wish we’d done something else that day instead. Editing to add that we didn’t like the Sagrada Familia either, so your mileage may vary. Then again, our cruise excursions included Ephesus, Pompeii, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, the Colosseum, the Parthenon, Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral, among other stops, so we were pretty spoiled for epic architecture.