aungrl

6 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

This was one of our favorite itineraries in Sept. 2019. A plus that the ports are not major tourist stops. Also nothing wrong with sea days in a cold climate. Only regret is that we missed Shetland due to the tail end of a hurricane from the Gulf—have been trying to get back there ever since. Our fourth try since Covid hit is this June. 🤞

Couldn't agree more.  Our favorite itinerary with Viking so far - we loved the quirky, small ports, and also we like stretches of sea days, so this itinerary worked well for that - and we did manage to hit all the scheduled ports on our particular sailing.  I hope you make it to Shetlands at some point...one of our happiest port days.

5 hours ago, Zach1213 said:

Virgin is just fine. I wouldn't plan your trip around the (very) small chance that the flight is cancelled. Just do what's most convenient, which sounds like Boston. 

 

That being said...do you have a reason to restrict yourself to Virgin? There are a few airlines flying that route - Virgin, Delta, British Airways, Jetblue. If you're up for an early morning, British Airways has a particularly appealing morning departure that gets you to London by dinner time and sleep in a real bed that evening...I highly recommend daytime flights to London. 

Plus one on this.  I often fly to Boston just so I can fly across in the day time.  

2 hours ago, cruisepro19 said:

Thank you aungrl, much appreciated. I'll have a look and see if they also ship to Canada.  

They do, but there's an up charge that I've seen Canadians post about on their forums...it seems to me that it might be a little pricey, now that you mention it.  Across the U.S., it's a flat $10. charge, which is reasonable.  Good luck!

4 hours ago, cruisepro19 said:

My mom (senior), is looking for a new lightweight travel backpack that she can use as her carry-on for the airplane.  She is looking for something that has a padded section for her iPad, exterior waterbottle pocket, a few compartments for organization, a light coloured lining or interior so things are easily found, a separate pocket for a cellphone and/or keys would be great.  She also wants something that she can carry comfortably.   She doesn't use any wheeled carry-on luggage because for her, getting it overhead to put into an overhead airplane compartment isn't an option.  Any recommendations from travellers would be greatly appreciated.  

 

Thank you all in advance!

Take a look at Tom Bihn.  They have a few options that satisfy her requirements, and all of their products are both lightweight and indestructible.  (Physical location in Seattle, but most all their business is done on line.  TomBihn.com)

5 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

OMG, new favorite main dish onboard. The feta crusted rack o’lamb is so so good. Sorry that it’s unlikely it will be offered again before they make us leave on May 6th😢. 

Just ask them for it, Clay.  I'm pretty sure they'll make it specially just for you! 😉

3 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

Diagram of all the USB connectors 

Well this is super helpful!  Where did you find it?  Thanks for posting.

8 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

 

 

 

 

Great day in Walvis Bay! While we didn’t get the grill surprise that those on the included tour got, we did get a surprise when offered the chance to sand surf!  Mike says he felt like a 10 year old again!

Highly recommend the From Dunes to Ocean optional excursion! We saw lots of springbok, an ostrich, flamingos, pelicans, oryx, and a clear gecko. And the ride up and over the dunes was better and any roller coaster!

Most awesome video ever!  That looks like So. Much. FUN!!

11 hours ago, med02 said:

Following up my original concern with SW Airlines online capability.  After working on this for a couple of weeks I finally received the answer from SW yesterday. Because NCL booked the second segment of travel with a different airline than SW, I am unable to check in online and am not able to print boarding passes online. I will need to call them when the check in window opens to check in and get my boarding passes. Not ideal, but at least I have a workable answer. Because of all the hoops I have had to deal with this process, I tend to agree that NCL's free air is a mess. But also, I will not willingly book with SW in the future. Thanks to all who replied here. 

I don't think you're getting a straight answer from NCL.  Southwest has no trouble accepting a one-way reservation - they sort of pioneered this concept, IIRC - and there is nothing in their system or set up that would prevent you from viewing that reservation, checking in online, and printing or downloading your boarding pass.  I wouldn't be satisfied with that answer, even though I'm sure the thought of spending even more time on it makes your eyes roll back in your head.

13 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Shall I leave some of ours on the pier in Réunion for you?

 

I can also leave some of the chocolate work they did for the Easter lunch today if you’d like. 😂

Wow, these are impressive.  I mean, they're always impressive, but for some reason, these are real standouts!

You'll be fine with the scarf across your shoulders as long as your knees are covered with something else, like capris.  

Sounds like you've answered your own question!

21 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

This incident meets the classic definition of the "Swiss Cheese Model" where numerous issues all aligned.

I remember this being your hypothesis early on when discussions about the situation first began.  This final report confirms your points of view, unsurprisingly, and I - along with many others, I'm sure - very much appreciate you coming back and giving even more details to help further explain and interpret the report.  

17 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

 

You might want to consider Rome / Florence / Venice by train as part of your land excursion. We did a 10 day trip a few years ago and it was fantastic. 2 days in Venice is more than enough. Spend as much time in Florence as possible.

We did exactly this a few years ago, and I completely concur!  We split 14 days across Rome/Florence/Venice, and traveled by train in between.  If we had it to do over, we would shorten Venice and lengthen Florence.  (Spent 7 days in Rome, 4 in Florence, and 3 in Venice on that trip, and would try to take one day from each of Rome and Venice and add them to Florence.)  

14 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

I’m Great time in Koh Samui yesterday.  We did the Elephant Encounter and really enjoyed it.  I saw over on the site that cannot be named that one of our lecturers did a private tour at the same sanctuary and rather than being only on the skywalk, actually was in the ground with them, hugging, being wrapped in their trunk etc.  That would’ve been really great but the time we spent feeding and interacting with them was longer than what a poster over there said was 10 min. We stayed on the raised walkway until they made us leave. FYI-lunch was delicious-if they run out of Pad Thai, it’s definitely worth waiting while they make another batch. I asked our guide if it tasted like what his mother made. He said no, it was sweeter and not as spicy to suit American’s taste. They had packets of pepper flakes which we added to ours.  
 

DVs and Vs recieved tour descriptions for Capetown to London at turndown last night.  Forms were to be turned in between 7 and 9am this morning at Star Theatre. Mike got off the elevator at 6:52.  The line reached to the Nordic Gift Shop and the first person in line was already leaving having turned in their form -he told me later he had arrived at 5:45😳 

 

Did you get what you wanted?

12 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Damn you’ve got good eyes….or maybe it’s I’m just so damn big. 😂. That’s Mike in the light blue shirt to my left. 

If it makes you feel any better, I spotted Mike before I spotted you! 

11 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

FWIW, the rest of us didn’t get our forms until about 11:15 am. 

So how did it turn out, Clay?  Did you get the excursions you wanted?

2 minutes ago, aungrl said:

What ship/line did you end up selecting? And, did it meet your expectations?

Sorry, I was reading backwards and just saw your reply.  Too late to delete this one, though.

13 hours ago, sandiego1 said:

For our 1st WC (in 2019), our requirements were - not in priority order:

 

- full circumnavigation. I wanted to go completely around the world, not start in 1 country and finish in another (now not as important for future long cruises)

- East to West travel since it’s much easier to gain 1 hour every few days, than lose 1. Plus it’s harder on the crew. They still have the same amount of work to do, but only have 23 hrs to they lose an hr of sleep.

- Few, if any, included excursions. We are very active and much younger than a typical person on a WC. We don’t want to be stuck on a bus of 30-40 people. The tour can only go as fast as the slowest person. Plus all the long waits for people after a bathroom stop or “free time” when few people show up at the meeting spot at the designated time. We wanted to be independent.

- I don’t drink alcohol, coffee, or soda. Included beverages would be wasted on me and not worth the all inclusive price. DH does drink alcohol so he just pays by the drink or buys wine packages for dinner.

- Ratio of port to sea days. We wanted more than 50% port days.

- Price per day was a consideration, but not the driving factor.

- Availability and location of a desired cabin. Since we were newbies, we didn’t have preferential allocation of cabins (HAL allows current WCers the ability to book the same cabin year after year). We were very lucky to get a cabin we liked in the desired location.

- Ports - we wanted to experience as many new places as possible and not cities we had previously visited.

- Didn’t want to have to dress up for dinner every night in the main dining room. Some lines require a minimum of “country club” clothing. We wanted to be able to wear nice jeans (or capris for me) at dinner most nights and get dressed up for formal nights. DH didn’t want to wear a sport coat or jacket 

most nights.

- Size of ship - we thought ~1000 passengers was a good size. Didn’t want to go on a ship that only had 200-500. Many people are repeat customers and we didn’t want to feel left out since we didn’t know anyone. With a larger ship, we thought there was a greater chance of more newbies.

 

Hope this helps.

What ship/line did you end up selecting? And, did it meet your expectations?

17 hours ago, cruising denise said:

Thanks, Clay, for capturing yesterday so well.  It was indeed a very depressing day.  It was such a joy to see all our friends who had worked so hard for this performance.  They did a wonderful job and I hope I am still onboard when they give their next performance.

 

The Liar's Club gave some much-needed humor, too.

I love the idea of a guest choir! What kind of music did they perform?

I've come in to both numerous times over the years.   As @CruiserBruce says, if you have Global Entry, it's not usually a problem at either airport.  Without GE, a lot depends - at least in my experience - on the time of day you arrive and how many other international flights are arriving in that same window.  Setting those variables aside - which you can't do in reality, of course - I've never found one airport to be particularly faster than the other one.

Just now, millybess said:

help@cruisecritic.com

Thanks!  I actually looked around for a link like that and failed.  Much appreciated.

On 2/11/2024 at 8:19 PM, SantaFe1 said:

Tried that today.  Didn’t work.  Yes, having problems for several days.

Still not getting any notifications, and when I click n the icon, each thread is still showing last Friday as the last time something was posted.  Any ideas as to what I might try next would be appreciated!

On 2/11/2024 at 8:19 PM, SantaFe1 said:

Tried that today.  Didn’t work.  Yes, having problems for several days.

Tried that, as well.  No joy.  Still problems with the other two threads I'm following, but I did get one new note when I logged in just now, @millybess's note to me that she was having the same problem.  But otherwise, still "broken", at least for me.

Loving all these pictures from everyone!

Quick question: Is anyone else having trouble with notifications for the posts they're following?  I've been following the LIVE from Neptune, LIVE from Sky, and the Sky roll call since each one began.  I normally get an email when there's a new post, and when I log in here, if there are new posts on these threads under the little bell icon, the thread titles are in bold until I click on them and read the new posts.

Since Friday, I haven't gotten any notification emails, and the thread titles are showing the last updates as being on Friday.  

I've checked all my settings and everything appears to be set up correctly/no changes since I first started following.

Not sure what else to do, so I thought I'd ask here.  Thanks for any input!

Another vote for Eurodam.  As @Essiesmom says, not only more ports, but (much) better ones.