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We went port side for our Trade Routes, mostly because we had Iconic Med right before it and 5108 worked better for Istanbul to Barcelona. 😉 Overall, you’re generally far enough from land that you can’t see much, and when you are close to land and it happens to be on the other side of the ship, when you have an aft ES you can look across and see both sides easily enough. While I’m not happy about the change, I can see why the best of the ES2 cabins are now categorized as ES1 on the Vela. They really are the best cabins on the ship.

I can’t remember the exact timing, but the drive was at least 90 min to Rome from the port, plus at least a fifteen or twenty min bathroom break. And we had about a 10 min jog to the meeting spot, it wasn’t close to the bus drop off point, it was on the far side of the Colosseum. Our meeting time was 9:45 for the 10am tour and we just made it on time. Now, it was pouring rain that day, so everything and everyone moved a little slower, and it was very crowded, but I’d spend some time with Google Maps and see the distances involved. Your own transport would at least give you control of the variables. Or try to see if they can move you to a slightly later tour.

ES cabins 5108/5109 are our go-to cabins. Had one on the In the Wake of the Vikings itinerary that crosses the northern Atlantic in September. IMO, “somewhat bucky” is an understatement. You’d wake up with sore abs from bracing yourself in bed overnight. LOL. Things would slide off the table at times. However, in the Med it was smoother sailing even though it was early in the season (April) and we didn’t have much in the way of motion. You will likely be fine in the aft in the Med unless you get motion sick easily, or you end up going through rough weather.

@Ellis1138 I wouldn’t worry as much about the ship itself as I would about the ports. End-of-season Alaska can have weather issues, attractions closed, souvenirs sold out, staff shortages because people have returned home by that point…it’s not like prime season Alaska. Hopefully you’ve got your plan A/B/C for those kinds of issues. We did a beginning of season Alaska, and ran into lots of those problems from the other side (supplies/staff not arrived yet, etc) and while we enjoyed our trip, for our next Alaska we’ve booked in June to hopefully avoid those issues.

FYI, for our Rome visit with Viking in April, none of the tours they offered once on board included going into the Colosseum. Most were either completely on your own shuttle transports, or walking with a guide to see the outside of sites. We booked a “Colosseum, Underground & Arena Floor: Guided Tour” excursion with Tiqets.com last minute once we discovered that. Since tour tickets for the Colosseum have to be booked ahead of time in each guest’s individual name, that was one of the few companies that had last minute tickets available. The tour itself was great, would have been better if it wasn’t a torrential downpour that day, although the logistics of getting to the tour meeting spot were a little stressful. We were using Viking’s OYO shuttle to get to the colosseum area, then had to try to escape the guide who wanted to walk us all to the post-tour meeting spot and we just didn’t have time, we were running late for the tour at this point. Things with Viking just moved way more slowly than expected because of the weather, and the inexplicable need for lengthy restroom breaks halfway to Rome on the bus trip there. Your time in Rome won’t be as long as you’d like, it’s a long slow ride there and back, at least if you take Viking’s included shuttle.

Double check with the cruise line about your port time, maybe contact Capt Marvin’s to see if they have something that would work. Depending on the time of year, Cayman time can be an hour behind Miami time, so your 10:30 might actually be 9:30. Cayman doesn’t do Daylight Savings.

I would check online for reviews of that company before committing to either time…never heard of them, so no idea what their track record is for timeliness.

We had to turn in passports to the ship for immigration checks ahead of our Schengen ports after leaving Turkey on a recent Med cruise. We were never asked if we were leaving the ship at those ports, nor did there seem to be an option to opt out of this check. OP, I would assume your partner will need the visa.

We have the Jade garden villa booked for June 2025, and were allowed to book 8 in it based on sofa beds in two of the three bedrooms, the main and the third. We are hoping person 8 can camp on the living room sofa instead of in our (main) bedroom, and just use our shower when needed. I’ll be interested to see what the OP reports.

There’s no Uber, so it’ll be a taxi. Most taxis around the port are shared ride vans that will want to take you to one of the SMB beach access points, likely either Coral Beach or Public Beach. Unless you’ve got a big enough group to fill a 10-12 passenger van? This website lists the majority of restaurants possible. There’s lots of great ones, all different cuisines and price points, so you might want to browse through to see what appeals to your group. https://www.caymangoodtaste.com If you have the taxi drop you off at Public Beach, Duke’s is across the road and their food is pretty good, but they aren’t right on the beach. https://biteclubcayman.com/restaurant/dukes/ Or, if you get them to drop you at Coral Beach, the walkway to Camana Bay is right there, and that shopping complex has a number of great spots to eat. https://www.camanabay.com/

Flytrippers are Canadian. They have a whole section on Travel Credit Cards, and often do posts about hotel loyalty programs. Their goal in life seems to be to travel all over in style but as cheaply as possible. https://flytrippers.com/travel-resources/

Shopping is better at HC than at GSC.

Nexus cards have been arriving quickly lately, or so it seems. DH and I both got our renewal cards (done a few months apart) in under two weeks. But if you really want to see speedy service, apply for a British passport, those were processed in about a week, regular service not expedited. It seems to only be the Canadian bureaucrats that operate at a snail’s pace…

This article about the rescinding is in English… https://www.caymancompass.com/2024/08/16/honduras-rescinds-visa-requirements-for-cayman-travellers/

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