davekent

I am slightly relieved that our 7 day Greek intensive cruise in an Oceanview room still appears to be a good deal but not a ridiculously good deal so presume unlike the unfortunate people in this thread we should not be impacted. As it was booked as a TA package with direct BA flights to Istanbul and from Athens, 2 nights hotel in both cities and 4 private transfers I have no idea how much the cruise itself actually cost to do comparisons. We join the cruise on the 8th June and with the dramas around the repositioning cruise to Athens and the subsequent uncertainty around the following Athens to Istanbul cruise I guess it is not surprising that Azamara have revisited who has booked and the pricing around this cruise. It all tends to reinforce our view that the complexities around cruising as against land/air/rail holidays mean that it does take a good deal for us to want to book one

whatever you get you as Liam Gallagher would say you just have to roll with it

Thanks for asking and answering the question with regards sparkling water. When looking at the drinks packages I did wonder if any was available without paying for the upgrade or each time we wanted one. In terms of the gins offered the upgraded ones within the Premium drinks package were ideal for my wife who is another gin lover. Is there any information available as to the tonic waters that are available? The price rises mentioned in this topic did finally prompt me to make a decision and purchase the premium drinks package as this covers my wife's gin needs and my desire to hopefully have a choice of non lager beers! I did think that if this doesn't work I could then pay onboard the small upgrade price for the Ultimate package. I'm now thinking that perhaps the upgrade price charged per day might be the difference between the lower price I have prepaid before the cruise for the premium package and the post price increase of the Ultimate package when we actually cruise in June which will potentially be quite significant? Do you think this is the way it will be calculated? Thanks all for any clarification

At a guess averaging more than 3 posts every day on here for close to 20 years presumably pretty well everything? I'm an admittedly exiled East Londoner having spent most of my first 30 years in East Ham then a shorter period in Leyton and continuing to travel to the area multiple times a year ever since I certainly accept the problems and issues the area has always had but I am not so ready to write it off so comprehensively Anyway apologies for this little spat and for hijacking the OP's original post so dramatically! Everyone enjoy there trips!

Stratford is an area of East London where normal working Londoners live, work and play. I would not recommend staying there to a tourist wanting to get a brief glimpse of the history and architecture of historic London. It does however have one of the largest shopping centres in the UK, the Olympic stadium and surrounding park, a top quality London football club, the unique Abba Voyage extravaganza and some decent pubs and micro breweries in the area. It is basically still hanging on as a working class district of London and I suspect that the throwaway line Stratford, which is a dump says more about the person making the comment than it does about the area itself

Must confess I have been lazy in researching this. We enjoyed the 3 cruises we have undertaken to date but to be honest probably prefer fly, train and UK holidays so this current year had no intention of going on a cruise. Then a month ago we saw a stay and cruise offer (this time on Azamara) that seemed too good to be true for next June. Our current annual policy until next March does not include the cruise add on but of course we would purchase the add on for the cruise at the time of our next renewal or just before this when we need to fully pay for the holiday. I guess should anything dramatic happen in the meantime we would lose our deposit (no big deal) but not sure if not having cruise insurance at the time of purchase would have any impacts after this? I guess in the back of my mind is surely we do not need to pay for the extra cruise cover for 2 years just for a single 7 day cruise (asking here but at some stage would probably get around to asking the insurers!!)

Thanks for the review. Filled in a number (of many) gaps in my knowledge of Azamara in particular with regards the entertainment on board, overviews of the various venues and the port of Cannakale. I was thinking of a tour to the Gallipoli sites but not having any OBC find the Azamara tours a bit pricey so good to see there are lots of interesting places to see in the town should I decide on an alternative. Just flicked straight through the food entries as a bit of mystery before we set sail is good but it suggested we will not starve on board!

We were in a similar position with my Dad around 10 years ago. The main issue we had was that though his house was unsuitable for someone in his eighties, as he had become virtually blind the only place he could find his way around on his own and have a level of independence was in the house he had lived for 15 years. We had the benefit that there was 3 of us me, my wife and my sister to share the support work. he had in place his meals on wheels to provide a lunchtime check, we arranged for a neighbour to help clean his house an hour or so 3 times a week (basically she kept an eye out for him and made sure that he was ok for everything during weekdays). As mentioned above some form of personal alarm pendent is a good idea. My Dad was very resistant to any connection directly to a paid monitoring system. We purchased a device from BT that we programmed with our house number, my mobile and my sisters phone and when pressed it would call each in turn until one was answered (it was clever enough to ignore answer machines). We could then assess whether we needed to go around, ask a neighbour to pop in or potentially call the emergency services We managed like this for around 8 years. This worked for him but of course every situation is different for each individual. If your Mum's sight is starting to fade but still at a reasonable level then I would suggest that finding somewhere with a suitable level of care should be sooner rather than later whilst she is still in a position to adapt to new surroundings The postal service in Medway is very strange at the moment. We seem to have little or no issues with a post person calling 3 or 4 times each week. Neighbouring streets however seem to go weeks without any delivery Good luck with everything

Reading with interest as we have our 1st Azamara cruise leaving from Istanbul next June. Would it be safe to expect then in terms of our having no status with Azamara and having a basic cabin that by turning up at our due time at I guess around 4:00 we should hopefully miss any carnage driven by the scramble for early boarding? We would want to maximise our time in Istanbul anyway and would not be the end of the world on a 7 day cruise if timings for the speciality restaurants should we decide to use them were limited

We have stayed at this hotel on 3 or 4 occasions on theatre trips into London and have had no problems on any of the stays (in a previous life the hotel was a BT British Telecom office that I worked in!). Most of the issues I can see in reviews appear to be around low level or ground floor rooms which you could avoid by booking a Super room. The foyer is busy but always seemed well organised. The major shortfall for a 3 night stay would I suspect be storage but if you are happy to live out of suitcases that would not be a problem Location wise I do not think it can be beaten. This is reflected in the price, similar Travelodges 20 minutes walk away up towards Kings Cross are usually around 30% cheaper. It is 5 minutes walk from Covent Garden, lots of theatres and the British Museum. 15 - 20 minutes walk gets you to Trafalgar Square, the Thames, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and the start (though not the nicer end) of Oxford Street shopping. Lots of pubs and restaurants including chains such as TGI Friday and the Hard Rock Cafe are within 20 minutes walk Just over 5 minutes walk away is Holborn underground station where probably the 2 most useful tourist lines interchange, The Piccadilly line will take you to the Kensington museums, Hyde Park and Green Park, Buckingham Palace etc, the Central line directly to Oxford Street, Marble Arch, St Pauls and Stratford in East London for your Abba extravaganza. In saying that there are some real experts on visiting London and transportation options on this forum and I'm sure they can help you!

Just back this week from a trip to Lisbon. Transport is cheap and plentiful in Lisbon. Our prebooked car was 17 euros from the airport to our apartment in Alfama which was only around a 10 minutes walk to the cruise terminal. Taxis would probably be cheaper (booked the limo as some of the taxi drivers are reported to overcharge) and Uber is also an option so no real issues with regards transport from the airport

The Hung Drawn and Quartered is a good shout and for me is the best of the pubs that are very close to The Tower. Within 15 minutes walk I would also suggest that you take a look at the Hoop and Grapes at Aldgate which though I haven't been to for a few years seems still to get good reviews or else one of the pubs in Leadenhall Market (Old Tom's or the Lamb Tavern), it's a very pleasant arcade with good pubs and cafe/restaurants should you not fancy the food on offer in the pubs. The Hoop and Grapes website states in 1666 the building was saved when the Great fire of London was halted just 50 yards away from the building. It has a large majority of positive reviews but I do like the recent one presumably written by a very disgruntled customer titled "if only the fire had burnt 51 yards further" I completely disagree with the post above. We have very many excellent, historic, sociable and well run pubs in the UK (still have about 42,000 pubs left). I would highly recommend they be used rather than the soulless bar/restaurant type of operation that seem to open then rather quickly close again around the country. As with pretty well everything a visitor may consider experiencing in the UK there are good/not so good/awful examples of pubs and the OP is doing exactly the right thing, checking reviews and asking questions to hopefully find the better ones

We have stayed a few times in Bruges. The stand out hotel for us is the Hotel Navarra. Just a couple of minutes walk to the main square but in a very quiet location the rooms were very clean and pleasant, the bar very comfortable and the small indoor swimming pool a bonus. We thought it well priced for what you get

Only a tourist like yourself I'm afraid so no idea on this one. Perhaps a local such as Hallasm may be able to help with anything particularly difficult to get or expensive in Denmark? Or possibly something very specific to where you come from may be appreciated?

Apart from a pleasant stroll through the city, prior to everything opening up we did enjoy the harbour bus (boat) as a comfortable and bustling way to pass 30 minutes zig zagging across the waterway with a number of points of interest on the way. Also the Museum of Copenhagen though not as dramatic as either the National or Glyptoteket museums opened at 9:00 and was an interesting way of spending some time prior to moving on to the bigger attractions