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Fairgarth

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Everything posted by Fairgarth

  1. The stingrays are free, not captive at all. The guides told me that on days with no tourists they still go out and feed them anyway.
  2. Watch the opening hours. The ground floor market closes - around 2:00pm?? - but upstairs stays open.
  3. I now believe that the seat map doesn't tell you anything. Here's what I think is happening. The Barcelona flight has 398 seats in economy. There is a whole range of fares that people may choose. With higher fares, you may select your seat at booking. For a lower fare, you may select your seat for an extra charge, which some people decline. So they are booked but there is no seat blocked. Then there may be fares where seat selection is delayed until check-in at the airport. Again, there is a booking but no seat selected. So you might easily have 398 seats available, 300 people booked but only 200 seats selected. In which case the seat map shows 198 open seats i.e. the flight is only half full. T'ain't so. If anybody else can shed light, please do.
  4. Sorry to rain on your parade but your flight will be full. My wife and I flew Vancouver to London back in October. The flight was only two thirds full so that meant there was well over 100 open seats when we did seat selection. Two together? Easy, right? Nope, none. A and C were all taken and there was a whole row of empty B's the full length of the aircraft on both sides. I'm disappointed that my fellow Canadians would be so inconsiderate and selfish but there you have it. Don't know when you get to select your seats but it may already be too late and there's nothing left but singles. If you find two together grab them, don't get fussy. You will have fabulous time over there, enjoy!
  5. Have you got one ticket for CDG - YYZ - YHZ? Or two, one for AF and one for AC?
  6. Here you are: a QM2 crossing in April 2019.
  7. Yes, indeed, Hank. Don't know if they still do it, this was pre-Covid. They had two convertible Ferraris available. You can have ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes..... Luigi wrote down details from my Canadian licence and off we went, He comes too. Of course, you are in city streets so you can't get the thing out of second gear. Still, bucket list. Check!
  8. Oh my, where to start? It depends very much on your interests. Academia, yes. Uffizzi no, we were bored. Sorry! Santa Croce is much more interesting than the Duomo except that if you are up for it, excuse the expression, you must climb to the top of the Brunelleschi dome. The same ticket will take you to the top of the Campanile. Palazzo Vecchio is worth the visit. Walk across the Arno and up to Piazza Michelangelo for a great view back across Florence. Rent a Ferrari for twenty minutes. If you have time, go to the top of the hill to San Miniato. Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli gardens. There's a super museum, the Galileo, just upstream from Uffizzi if you are interested in science and engineering. Incredible what these renaissance pioneers got up to. On the way to Mercato Centrale you will pass through the San Lorenzo street market. OK, enough, already.
  9. I can't iamgine that Cunard could detain you on board against your will. What if there was some major health emergency and you needed a hospital? They would get you off PDQ. I speak from experience. We were on a ten day cruise from Venice to Athens last October and had to jump ship after four days and fly home to Vancouver. No problem. And, since you ask, everything is fine now, thank you.
  10. Good decision! As you walk to the Sofitel, you will pass a row of shops including a Marks & Sparks that has a huge selection of food and drink. Don't know what time they would close. If open, you could pick up food items to take to your room and therefore avoid room sevice.
  11. Well, arriving - late - at T5 and then departing from T5 it's the Sofitel. Case closed! We have stayed there a few times due to flying out of T5 and it's very nice. You have already bought a flight from Rome to Dallas. What is your time worth and the wear and tear on the old body?
  12. Much as Canadians revile Air Canada, the flights I have been on were packed tight. They can't all be touroids, surely?
  13. Good advice, I agree. On our last cruise out of Civitavecchia we spent three nights in Tarquinia. It's a medieval, hilltop town. Lots of atmosphere, very attractive we find. The ride to the port was only 20 minutes.
  14. I wouldn't. There are no sidewalks and my personal feeling is that such a walk would be more of a chore and not be enjoyable.
  15. My dear Sir, thank you for this latest GSJ which I stumbled across by accident. I have enjoyed every page. I'm sure you will enjoy HAL. We were on Koningsdam in June and had a good time. Just a couple of comments. Your photos remind me that the Princess ships have that gorgeous, expansive, welcoming atrium. The atrium on Koningsdam was tiny, pathetic and miserable and might as well not have been there. I play trumpet and that thing is loud. When I go to a night club in a confined space on Koningsdam and see a trumpet player with a mic clipped to the bell, I'm outta there t-de-s. Dear God, really? Is that necessary?
  16. I find it ironic that Venice actually builds these huge cruise ships at the Fincantieri yard, chases them away and says don't come back. But I still love visiting Italy 🙂🙂
  17. Here's another suggestion. On our last cruise out of Civitavecchia, we did not want to stay in Rome. Been there. So we took out a map and followed the railway line up the coast from Civitivecchia. Not too far, you come to Tarquinia. So we booked into "I Tre Camini" for three nights. Federica picked us up from the train station and then gave us a ride to the port, only about twenty minutes. Tarquinia is an attractive old Tuscan town, just exactly the kind of thing we enjoy. Your choice, of course, but we would certainly do that again.
  18. Good luck with that one. On a ten day cruise we could not get any specialty reservations so cannot offer an opinion on any of them. We were offered 8:30pm at Chartreuse but did not want to finish eating at 10:00pm.
  19. Oh my, are they ever! We flew back from Heathrow last month. Taxes were $405. Each.
  20. I suspect it goes back to the early days of computers when storage was limited and expensive. So don't enter the year. But it actually has one major advantage in avoiding foul-ups. If you want a flight on 17th June, for example, there is only one 17th June in the res system. For a cruise booking, in contrast, you would have to specify 17th June 2024 or 2025 or even 2026. Given Murphy's Law, how many customers and agents would get that all screwed up?
  21. Sorry, my bad, incomplete reporting. Yes, our carry-ons contained laptops, meds etc as required by the airlines. We had to take those out and hand carry on board. In what, exactly? And for years now, we never board an aircraft without carrying enough essentials to keep us going for 48 hours if our checked baggage gets lost. That's what worried me.
  22. Here's another approach that we had not seen before. We had a very unfortunate experience on British Airways last week. We were flying from Heathrow to Venice on an A320. As we waited in the departure lounge, a smiling agent approached and asked us what group we were. We were group 4. Would you like advance boarding? Come with me. So we did and only then realized we had been mightily conned. Oh dear, such naivety and innocence for world travellers! They absolutely insisted on taking away and checking our carry-ons. Too big, they said. Outright lie. They have been on aircraft all over the world and you could see what all other travellers were carrying. But, but, we said, they are full of valuables, medications, essential documents, lithium batteries and enough stuff for us to survive 48 hours if our checked bag got lost. So what if they now lost our carry-ons as well as our checked bag? See if they cared. So if you are caught in that situation, my advice is to lie in your teeth. If asked, of course you are Group 1. Get lost, sunshine.
  23. This was at the Fincantieri shipyard in Ancona last week. Looks good! Grandeur on the left and the ship on the right not yet floated out is, I believe, Viking Vela. I was familar with Fincantieri at Marghera (Venice) but did not realize that Fincantieri has eight shipyards, two naval and six civil. Ironic really, Venice builds these huge ships, chases them away and says "don't come back". One of the cranes was loading a lifeboat on board as we watched.
  24. Good point, I agree. In fact, for our next cruise out of Venice, we start with four days in Padova. We were there a few years ago and loved it. It also has the advantage that you can get a taxi for yourself and all your baggage right to the door of the cruise terminal. You can't do that from Venice itself.
  25. Regent is doing itself no favours. Flying in on day of departure is a no-no. How could they not know that? (I've said it before - your faith in the airlines is touching and entirely misplaced.) Further, there are non-stops between Chicago and Vancouver. I suspect they have 'arrangements' of one kind or another with various airlines so you end up with an itinerary that you would never choose yourself. Very sorry you had such a miserable experience. We get older, sadder and wiser so I'm sure that will never happen to you again.
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