teacherman

I believe that San Antonio is about 90 minutes by bus from Santiago and I do not know how far it is from Valpo nor how you would get there.

We are on the same cruise. We selected a balcony cabin on the port side so that we could have afternoon sun, which might be too warm, but also can watch the sunset over the Pacific.

We will be flying out of EWR on Friday, July 6, aboard Delta. This will be following disembarkation at Port Liberty from Adventure of the Seas. I am ready to buy our airline tickets. Our choices are 12:30 or 2:30. People have said that EWR is a difficult place to get to and then to get through security. How bad is it normally? I realize that anything can happen but if we leave the ship by 8:30, is the 12:30 flight iffy? I would hate to end up sitting in the airport for 4 hours with 2 little children, as I hear the Delta terminal is "lacking" in ambiance. Any advice/information is welcome. Thank you.

This will be our first cruise as D+. I am told that we are allowed BOGO in specialty restaurants, but they have to be on the first 2 nights. This is a 15 night TA. Is it possible we could do them later in the cruise, as there will probably be a lot of people having this perk? Some people said we could pre-pay and reserve for 1 person on-line, and then have both of us show up for a BOGO. Have any of you ever done this? Also, I am told we will have a bottle of wine and beverage of choice waiting for us in our cabin. Do we have to pre-order/request these items? Any information is welcome. Thank you.

Interesting. We are Diamond Plus (not bragging), so we have been on MANY RCCL cruises. The only time this towel charge has ever happened to us was also on the FREEDOM, last October after a trans Atlantic. We only used towels 2 days. On the last night, when we returned to our cabin after dinner, there was a note saying that we owed 2 towels and would be charged $50 if they were not returned.

I took the note to guest services and waited in a long line that also had other people with the same note. When I reached the desk, the customer "service" person suggested that I GO UP TO THE POOL DECK AND GET THEM TO CLEAR THE TOWEL ACCOUNT. I suggested she had to be kidding as we were very repeat customers. Also, when returning towels, the attendant had scanned my card over and over and finally said it was all OK. Obviously not. My only suggestion is to actually look at the computer screen to make sure that the account has been cleared and NEVER leave a ship until you check your final bill.

By the way, the service person asked me to wait. She then went into the back room for a couple of minutes and then told me it was all cleared. I don't know what magic occurred in the back room.

If money is "no object" then why not really enjoy the flight and go in Business class. Or, at least, for the east bound flight as you would have the lie flat seats and might get a few hours sleep, which I feel is very helpful. Business class is MUCH better than the others. We were just making this decision ourselves and have booked business class.

We flew to Europe in Delta One class last fall, and I will never fly long haul again in economy class. My DW "hates" to spend the money and says she would just as soon sit in the back. My reply is always, "OK if that is what you want to do. But I will really miss you." So far, she is still sitting next to me in the front.

Just coming back on to say that after MUCH advice and information sharing, we have purchased our flight home from Paris on American Airlines. It is a 787 (?) to O'Hare, a 2:50 stop, and then on to DTW on another AA flight. We were considering an Air Canada flight to Toronto, but decided against it because IF we had missed the connecting flight, we would have been in Toronto over night.

We booked Business Class and selected seats in the smaller 2 row cabin, with one forward facing seat and a rear facing seat across the aisle. DW does not want to be looking at a "stranger" for 9 hours, although she may get tired of looking at me, too.

Thank you to all who offered suggestions and information. Hopefully, it will all work out well for us and I will report back after the trip is over.

We are staying pre-cruise night at the Renaissance Tampa International Plaza Hotel. Is there somewhere within walking distance to buy some wine for the ship? I know there is a mall near-by. Also, we will need transportation from the hotel to the ship. Any info/advice on these items is welcome. Thank you.

I have asked several questions concerning our upcoming Air Booking to be made on Air2Sea, and have received some great advice. But, now, we have been offered a very low Business Class fare, compared to the others, on Air Canada. This would be from CDG to Toronto, a 3:50 layover, and then on to DTW on a smaller commuter jet. I understand that we would clear US immigration in Toronto, but other than that, I know nothing about flying on Air Canada. Any information/advice from those of you that have experienced using them would be most welcome. Thank you.

We figured that we would be "toured out" by the time we reached Invergordon, so we made a reservation at a very nice countryside hotel to go and have a relaxing lunch. BUT, we could not find ANY taxi driver who would take us there, as they all wanted longer fares for the day. As it turned out, we walked the town a bit and then returned to the ship for a relaxing day. And we were glad we did as it was the only stop where we had pouring rain. We did see a crowd of people getting on the local buses to go somewhere.

For all of us American citizens, come February we are all going to get such a large increase in disposable income we should be willing to share a little with the less fortunate.:D:halo:

I think we are on your cruise. We were in Dublin last summer on another cruise. We took the ship's shuttle into the city and then walked to meet one of those "free walking tours". We felt it was excellent. We stayed with it until we reached the Temple Bar Area, and then, due to port time, we left them and had lunch in a pub. We caught the shuttle back to the ship.

This coming April, I think we will tout some other areas we missed, and then try to find a "real" Irish pub for dinner, drinks, and some music. I am glad we are staying there until 10:45.

We will be on a TA that disembarks in Amsterdam, most likely at the terminal in the downtown area. We will need to go to Amsterdam Central Station to catch a train to Paris. We are in our early 70s and will each have a large suitcase and a carry on. What would be the best (easiest) way for us to get to the station? Any information/advice is welcome. Thank you.

I know that there are many things that can happen when you buy a ticket through Air2Sea, but when we have previously used them things worked out okay. Never having flown on AA, my question for those of you who have done so is-If we book an international business class ticket, one way, through Air2Sea, will we get a "locator" number that we can then use to go on the AA site and do seat selection? If so, is there an extra charge to select a seat? This is the way it worked when we used Air2Sea to book on Delta, so we are just wondering if it works the same way on AA. Any information is welcome. Thank you. (I did call Air2Sea but am not sure if the person really understood what I was asking)

I used TripInsurance Store 3 cruises ago, and have used them since, because of the "personal" service I received. After purchasing, we received a follow up e-mail from them, and also a reminder of what coverage we had prior to leaving for our trip. We have not had a claim, and hope we never do. We have also started to use our credit card to buy the cruise (it includes insurance) and buy a policy to cover only the air portion, but that also has medical evacuation.

We will be taking either the high speed train, or flying KLM, from Paris to AMS on Wednesday, April 25. (The price and times involved are similar) I believe that the train has a stop at Schipol airport. We need a hotel room for that night which will offer us a quick and easy transit to the airport for our flight home the next morning. Also, we would either need a hotel restaurant or easy access to other restaurants for Wednesday night. We have visited Amsterdam several times previously, so we just need a hotel for this one night.

This whole thing is following our eastbound TA and a five night visit to Paris. We have found that it will be FAR less costly to fly home from AMS than Paris, even including the train and hotel.

Information and advice is welcome. Thank you.

We are taking a TA to Amsterdam and then a train to Paris for a few days. We are looking to buy one way Business Class home to DTW. Prices for Delta, which flies non-stop are way high. But in playing around on the Air2Sea site, it appears we could take a flight from Paris to AMS, on our own, for about $50 each, spend the night at an airport hotel, and then take a Delta flight home for almost $700pp less than from Paris. Or we could take the high speed train to AMS.

Another strange thing is that if we were in AMS, we could also take a flight that would take us back to Paris and then transfer to a non stop home to DTW. This would still be far less than just booking from Paris. Now, we have more choices. This is all so strange, but these are the choices being offered.

We do not currently have Global Entry, but we do have Mobile Passport, and it saved us a LOT of time at Port Everglades. Would it save us time in Chicago?

We have decided to fly AA business class from CDG to DTW in April following our eastbound TA. ($500 pp less than Delta) Now the problem is where to do the transfer. The connection times are Charlotte-2:15, Philadelphia-2:30, and Chicago-2:40. TOTAL trip times are about the same. The Chicago flight is a 787, the other 2 are 330s. We are leaning towards the Chicago flight. Advice and info is most welcome. Thank you.

We always try to get a flight about 11:30. We usually leave the ship about 8:00, pick up our luggage, get a taxi, and are at the airport by 9:00.

When we booked one way from AMS to Detroit, we selected our flights and paid for it. We then received a confirmation from Air2Sea and an airline flight locator code. We used the code to log into the airline site to select our seats.

We never really had much conversation with our waiters and cabin steward on our recent Freedom TA, but that is okay with me. They are there to do a job, and I think that they are getting more to do all the time, just as many workers in the US are. When I was under a lot of stress at my job, I did not want to have to deal with customers who just wanted to "chat". Food is one of the major reasons people go on a cruise. On our TA, we eventually gave up on the dining room and ate most dinners in the Windjammer, which we were pleased with. We still had a great cruise, and are scheduled on the Brilliance for the April TA. Hopefully, we will also enjoy that.

We always fly Delta as we are in the Detroit area. If Delta, we MAY be able to fly non-stop, or stop in Amsterdam. If AA, we have to stop in either Charlotte or Philadelphia. I know nothing about these airports. Both stops would be about 2 hours. Currently, aircraft are all 332.

We flew one way to Europe in Delta One service and thought it was very nice. We are now looking to fly one way from CDG to DTW in April. The seats for AA business class are currently about $500 pp less costly than Delta. I do not know why, but just wondered if the quality of the service is that much different. Any advice is welcome. I have looked on You Tube and it generally shows the AA fleet to be older. Both flights would be on 332s (I think).

We purchased one way to Amsterdam for a trans-Atlantic cruise this past October. We picked out the flights we wanted and had to pay for them. We then received a flight locator number and went on the Delta site to select our seats. I do not believe the RCCL insurance will cover the airline tickets. We booked the cruise with our Visa card which included trip insurance through the credit card company. We then bought our own trip insurance through the Trip Insurance Store ONLY to cover the cost of the flights.