bookbabe

Thoughts on the area near the Liverpool Street stop on the Elizabeth Line? Specifically the Canopy by Hilton London City. Says it’s a ten min walk from the station, which is doable if the area isn’t too sketchy. So Elizabeth Line to Liverpool Street Stn from LHR to the hotel, then about a 40 min drive by pre-booked car to Tilbury. Would be traveling from LHR to hotel around lunchtime on a Friday and then to the ship on Sunday morning. Am I missing or not factoring in anything that would throw a wrench into this plan?

You can register a MasterCard from any country at check in, but not in advance. They will use a MasterCard over the phone for any payments, though. As a side note for anyone finding this thread later, for *online use* pre-cruise, your ACH bank account and credit card billing addresses and currencies must match the currency of the original booking. So for example, if you booked a cruise in CAD and subsequently moved and you now have bank accounts and credit cards in USD with a US billing address, you will not be able to use them online for that booking. You can use the credit cards by phone, but ACH is no longer an option. 😞 Ask me how I know… 😞

The CI:GO official taxi app says $14 usd each way for a party of 2, assuming I picked the correct locations. About 1.5 miles by car, depending on the route you take. Not sure I’d try to walk it, but I guess it’s technically possible.

Facilities equals crowds, at least on a cruise ship day. If you want chair rentals and such, you are going to have other cruise passengers to deal with. You can absolutely take a bus to the Kimpton, but since it will drive right past Public Beach and the other SMB beach access points, why would you? Just take the bus or a taxi shuttle directly to the beach of your choice.

We have done Germany for a weekend before, had a wedding to attend and no vacation time, so it’s not crazy imo. It’s really just potential flight delays that might be an issue. Watch the current versions of your chosen flights for a few weeks, see how their on time percentages look. That should give you an idea if you might be delayed or not.

Being close to the sights of London isn’t a huge priority, we do need to have something to do rather than hang out at the hotel for a day but really the priorities are nice hotel, decent restaurants, easy to get to from LHR on arrival and easy to get to Tilbury for departure. Somewhere along the Elizabeth line sounds good, but we really aren’t familiar with the areas. What are the Tottingham Court and Farringdon areas like? The whole Orsett Hall thing sounds the most convenient, with a pre-booked private car there and then a taxi to the port on embarkation day, but I’m leery of booking a hotel that seems to cater to weddings, and it does look pretty isolated so we’d be stuck just hanging out there and having all our meals there. Which is okay if it’s a fabulous spot, but less so if it’s not, or if we are the only guests not involved in a wedding. Would a private car to Chafford Hundred make more sense? At least it sounds like there’s a mall and other restaurant options besides the hotel. Thanks for all the assistance.

https://www.caymangoodtaste.com/restaurants Filter by the Seven Mile Beach and George Town areas, those will be closest to the port. Most seafood places will have shrimp on the menu. I like Lobster Pot, but there’s tons of options. Cayman has great food.

VPN if you want to book online, travel agent or by phone with Viking otherwise. Didn’t pay in full, but you might have to if you don’t have a USD credit card, unless you are willing to call in to make any future payments. That’s the only real catch, the later payments. See below for details, but whether or not it’s worth the hassle of calling in to make payments depends a lot on how much you’d save. We did recently move outside of Canada, and all our credit cards and most of our bank accounts are in USD now with a US billing address, so keeping bookings in Canadian also meant getting hit by the exchange converting our US funds to Canadian so that Viking could then charge us exchange as well. We originally had to keep our bookings in CAD, since they would not change currencies without also charging us the cancellation penalties and they also wouldn’t price-protect. But it’s a pain, since payments online of any kind can only be with a card or bank account with a billing address that matches the currency of the booking. So final payments and shore excursion bookings have to be done by phone to use our USD credit card with a CAD cruise. Pain in the butt. So, yeah, without a US credit card, I guess this savings is more of an advantage if you are willing to make final payment by phone, and you know that you aren’t likely booking any paid ship excursions (or you are saving enough that booking shore ex by phone isn’t a problem).

FYI, Canadians, Viking’s current exchange rate, in combination with better sale pricing for the US, means that your cruise may currently be cheaper if you book in USD. Saved over $800 Cdn per person on our recently booked British Isles Explorer cruise, even with forfeiting the $25pp deposit, by cancelling and rebooking in USD. YMMV, but it’s maybe worth checking just in case.

Thanks for all the responses. I have presented the options to DH, who countered with the suggestion of a taxi or private car of some kind to the ship directly from whatever hotel we stay at in London itself. Are we likely to find a driver willing to make the trek from say the Paddington Station area to Tilbury? Or are we still better off staying on the Tilbury side of the city somewhere, to increase our chances of finding a taxi easily? Not really worried about cost so much as convenience. DH has decided he does not want to walk very far or to have to switch trains at all while dragging suitcases.

Thanks. Why Grays rather than Tilbury Town?

That’s the impression I got from my reading about Tilbury, but I’m not as worried about having things to see and do as I am about having an easy trip to the port on embarkation morning. Yeah, a nice hotel and half decent restaurants are important, but the point of staying extra days in London is really to get to the ship without issues or delays, not to sightsee. Been there, done that, will go to London as an actual vacation there if we want to do a ton of sightseeing.

Everyone I know back home is on FB, the social media site that corporation runs, as am I, but they’ve never heard of WhatsApp. Those with iPhones will sometimes use iMessage, but most people either use Messenger (owned by the same company as WhatsApp) or just text via their cell provider. From my experience, it’s not a conscious moral/ethical choice, they have just never heard of WhatsApp. YMMV, just stating my experience. It’s a good app no matter who owns it.

Okay, so we have booked Viking’s British Isles Explorer itinerary, London (Tilbury) to Bergen, for March 2025. Yes, I know it’s fairly far out still, but I’m not sure what to do for our pre-cruise plan. We have easy direct flights from our home airport to Heathrow, anything else requires a connection, likely through the US so adding complexity. We’ve flown into Heathrow before, it works for us since the flight itself is so easy. Previously, our plan has always been to fly to London for a couple of days pre-cruise, then fly from Heathrow to our embarkation port elsewhere in Europe. We have usually stayed at the Hilton Paddington, based on an initial recommendation from folks here on CC, and the location works for us, again, because travel to/from the hotel is so easy via the Heathrow Express. You will notice a theme here. We don’t like convoluted travel plans, and we will pay extra if we have to for ease and convenience. However, Tilbury, our departure port, is far enough from Heathrow to be inconvenient but close enough that another flight to get there doesn’t really make sense. 🙂 So, my questions: Pre-stay in London itself for better hotels, restaurants and attractions, or stay nearer to Tilbury to ensure easy embarkation? I’ve seen the various threads with tube/rail/taxi routes to get to the port from Heathrow and/or other tube/rail stations. The routes all make me a bit hesitant to rely on all the various pieces falling together smoothly on embarkation morning. But Tilbury doesn’t seem to have much to offer. If staying near Tilbury, nicest hotel? I’ve seen a few that look interesting, in a fewer-amenities-but-lots-of-atmosphere kind of way, Orsett Hall and the Bell Inn. Thoughts? Is the Gravesend side of the river an option or does it throw transportation risks back into the works? Would like to avoid Travelodge and the like if possible. Or, are the safe, convenient, nice options around the Tilbury cruise port limited enough that I should just get the Viking pre-stay even though we really don’t need a guided tour of London? Any other options that haven’t occurred to me? Am I overthinking this?

I know you can have multiple Airalo e-sims in your Airalo account but you cannot have more than one active at a time. We did that earlier this week because Jamaica isn’t on the supported countries list for the Airalo global, so we had to buy a small single country one and activate that for a couple days. I’m not sure if you can have multiple e-sims from different providers active on your phone at one time, we haven’t tried. That might be a phone-specific thing. I vaguely remember seeing something in an article I was skimming about some way to prioritize what sim was used for what calls, but as we only planned to use one at a time I didn’t pay any attention to what the procedure was. @FoggyEthan you may want to either turn off two-factor authentication while you travel, or switch it to an emailed code instead of a texted one. We had to do that when we were in the middle of moving and were trying to switch over various accounts, and it was getting totally frustrating having to continually swap sims back and forth between our old and new cell numbers to get all the stupid codes texted to us. Luckily we still had both phones active, I don’t know how we would have done it if we couldn’t still access our old phone number.

We had a 2bdrm family penthouse suite on the Jewel for the 2022 KissKruise. Had a butler, but service was scaled back from what we’d normally have gotten. Wasn’t a problem, since we were so busy we really didn’t notice a lack. Concierge had a desk in Moderno at breakfast time. Lunch was in Cagney’s. Le Bistro was closed entirely, and was where the talent & such ate so you won’t share dining with them unless they choose to go elsewhere. Haven courtyard was closed, and was where the main talent lived. Smaller bands were scattered around the ship in regular cabins, as far as we could tell. Suites that were available for general booking were only the suites outside the Haven complex, and did not include Haven access even if they normally would have. The Sixthman website for your cruise will have a section on the ship and suites, venues, etc. Read all of that info, and look at the deck plans there. They edit out anything that isn’t available, and describe the services/venues that are open and/or included with your cabin choice. It does NOT match info on the main NCL site, and it can vary from charter to charter, so ignore any previous experiences and info for that ship and go with what’s on the Sixthman website only.

We just did a date/itinerary swap earlier this week, so I can tell you our experience. Had Pharoahs & Pyramids booked for March 2025, British Isles Explorer for September 2025. Our PCC was able to turn P&P into BIE, similar but not identical dates, kept same booking number and deposit. Had to email vcmail@viking.com to cancel the extra BIE since our PCC said he couldn’t do that. Emailed with booking number, itinerary/dates, passenger names and a brief reason for cancellation. Got a cancellation confirmation email the next day. Only lost the $25pp deposit on the BIE that was cancelled.

We were clueless about WhatsApp until we moved to the Caribbean. It’s the most common means of communication here, and we’ve gotten used to using it as option one to contact anyone. It’s so weird that Canada and the US haven’t really picked up on it.

Look into WhatsApp. Works on Wi-Fi or data so we use it in combination with an Airalo data plan on shore and ship internet while onboard. You set up the account with your own cell phone number so family and friends don’t have to learn a new number. Other WhatsApp users can call or text you for free, plus it allows video and audio messages to be sent back and forth in addition to regular phone calls and texts. Easy enough that both our elderly moms have figured it out. The only negative is that you can only contact other WhatsApp users, it doesn’t work for calling landlines, etc. But for calling family back home, it can’t be beat.

The beach itself was great all through Silver Cove, the water was pretty shallow and calm in the lagoon area, less so in the section closer to the main non-SC area. DH liked the swimming in the non-lagoon area better. The lagoon area would be better for kids or weaker swimmers.

If it works the same way as it did when we had a villa a couple years ago… - one person books the villa - onboard, you’re asked for numbers, and I think names if you are not in the same cabin - there’s a way to pay extra for additional guests above the standard inclusion, I think it was $50 a person or something crazy like that, we didn’t need to so no idea how many extra they’d let you add - you receive excursion tickets for the villa, can’t remember whether it was one ticket or one each - we were in the haven, so no idea how tendering would work if you aren’t, sorry, but I’m assuming the number of guests specified could all get priority tendering - when you get to the island you go to Silver Cover Villa checkin to sign in, and they give everyone on your guest list a wristband - that’s the important part - no wristband, no silver cove access - golf carts will take you to and from the tender area to check in and from checkin to the villa and vice versa

We have the Airalo global+ or whatever it’s called, the one with the data and calling that’s good for a year. They assign you a phone number, ours is Austrian, I think. It’s a European-style number, so it’s tricky for elderly Canadian relatives calling us, but it worked fine for me calling Canada while in the covered countries, plus calling local numbers like taxis or restaurants. It doesn’t cover all countries, so look at the full countries list on their website or app to make sure it works in all the countries you’re stopping in. I highly recommend Airalo. Good product and good customer service, as far as we’ve encountered so far. We have been working to transition our parents to WhatsApp, which lets people call or text or send video/audio messages using data or whatever internet is available. Most individuals here in Cayman use it to avoid pricey phone company charges for regular calls and texts (data is generally unlimited on plans, texts and calls are not) so we’ve gotten used to using it on a daily basis. It’s pretty easy to use, and you set up your account using your regular cell number, so people wanting to WhatsApp you just use your same number no matter where in the world you are.

Technically, yes, I guess it's possible.. Routes run around both ends of the island as well as in town. It would be pricey, at $2.50pp a leg. There's no day passes or anything like that as buses are independently run. Practically, I personally wouldn't try it when visiting by cruise ship. Especially in the further reaches, buses can be infrequent and sometimes skip areas if they are full or don't have anyone to drop off at a certain stop. Not really supposed to, but they do. Your better bet is to rent a car and DIY an island tour that way, so you have control of your route and return timing.

It's not really near Rum Point either. You can't get there from shore without an excursion or your own watercraft. Yes, by water it's technically a bit closer to Rum Point, but since it's a 45 min drive to Rum Point and there's only one tour operator there, you're better off booking something that leaves from town. Coming in on a cruise ship and wanting to visit Stingray City as well as visit a beach, your best bet is to book an early excursion (through the ship or privately) and have them drop you at the beach afterwards, then taxi/bus back to the port. Or book one of the excursions that also stops someplace like Starfish Point and have a bit of beach time that way.

What Cruisematic said. And it's not on the Seven Mile Beach side of the island, so you won't find an operator at the beach there making runs out to Stingray City.