ontheweb

OTOH,. we on the cruise before you sailing in the other direction had a sea day. And on our scheduled day we checked out that botanical garden, the most northern most botanical garden in the world.

Good so you now know. The idea is for people to learn. Do you really think it would have made a difference if the OP had wanted to pay the TA for the cruise with Visa or Master Charge?

The port is Piraeus, not actually Athens. Not as far as the real ports are from Rome, Florence, or Paris on a British Isles cruise that says it includes Paris, but still not the port city.

This would truly be an improvement on the Prima/Viva ships. It would hopefully mitigate one of the problems with the small lounges where music was played. Often one would go there and there would be no seats. And part of the reason was that tables were taken up by people playing cards or board games. There was really no other place for those folks to do that. A library with tables would go a long way to solving that problem.

But I assume you do know that all cruise lines do take credit cards. The OP was not asked if he had a different card, but was told to use Vell (whatever that is). Has anyone ever heard of any cruise line taking that form of payment?

The one consistent thing about the ETIAS deadline is that it is always extended.

Yes, it can be used if it is part of an excursion that ends at the airport. We did that in Reykjavik.

Right, if going by what happened this past cruise season, that is absolutely correct. And I am sure they will sell excursions there right up until they officially cancel the port.

Yes, and it is not blaming the victim when I write not taking American Express should have been a re flag because Carnival like all other cruise lines accept Amex for payment. It is a warning for others who may not realize what a red flag that was.

They did a Bob Marley tribute on our Prima cruise this past summer. That was great! And I even had chose to put on a Bob Marley tee shirt that morning even before I read the activities for the day!

Has anyone ever asked you to use Zell, whatever that is? A credit card whether Amex or another card is the standard to use when booking a cruise.

I understand that and in fact have dealt with businesses that will not take Amex, but the charge should be straight through to the cruise line which does take Amex. That is the first red flag. And rereading the original post you will see the sham travel agent did not say use a different credit card. That would be the second red flag.

I have purchased travel insurance from our TA several times. It's a benefit to him as he makes a small commission (no extra charge to me). For us, we have him as a resource to deal with the insurance. Twice we tried to make small claims, and he has provided us with the instructions as what to do. The first was paid, less a deductible. For the second, we had to wait to see what our other insurance would reimburse before finishing the claim. And when we were reimbursed 100% by our other insurance, we no longer had a claim for anything from the travel insurance. Still he had led us through the process of how to get the claim form.

Did she look like Mae West? 🤣

It should not even be a question about which credit cards the TA accepts. The charge should go straight to the cruise line, and they take all major credit cards. At the point the agent said, American Express would not be accepted, you should have run away from that transaction, unfortunately, an expensive lesson.

And they had Slam Allen, a musician from my hometown. The person in charge of entertainment attended our meet and greet. I told him I was very disappointed. When he asked why, I told him I did not realize we were cruising during Slam's 6 months off. I also later told Slam when we went to see him in a club, that we had missed him on the Epic for our 35th anniversary cruise. I also got him to autograph a CD of his that I have.

Our last cruise had 2 adjustments after final payment. One I expected as the Prima never made it to Isafjordur last summer. The other, not going to Zeebrugges for Brugge, was very unexpected and disappointing. The reason they gave was an extremely low tide of only 1 foot. Actually, there was one other that happened on the ship. Since we were not doing that stop in Belgium, we were supposed to port in Amsterdam in the late afternoon that day in addition to its scheduled day the next day. Then that too was missed due to sea conditions. (I did wonder whether the passengers on our roll call who were saving money by booking online for that afternoon ever got their money back when the ship did not port.)

I actually once had a girlfriend who was always late. My friends and I would always give her a time earlier than the real time. It worked for a while, but then she caught on.

This is an unfortunate situation, and I don't know how you get out of it. However, there should be a lesson here for others. Always pay by credit card and make sure it is directly to the cruise line. I know when we book a cruise through our travel agent, the charge always shows as directly to whatever cruise line we use. And since cruise lines take American Express, if a TA says no to charging the Amex card, that is a huge red flag. I realize this does not help you, but at least it should be a lesson for others.

We also have that saying here in the United States. Since our river cruise is at the end of March, I am hoping for the lamb part.

I mostly agree. Maybe the only time that was different was on a very boring HAL ship and we had some days booked in Montreal afterwards that we hoped would be exciting, (And they were.)

One other factor to look at is time in port. This is especially true for those ports that are not really ports, but hours away like Rome, Florence, Athens, etc.

We were on the Prima this past summer, and I am glad that they downsized from the Epic which I found much too large. And I would never consider booking one of the RCL monstrosities of the seas.

Thanks, I actually already read your review as someone else cited it. Glad they are still using the earphones as they did on our land tours (Central Europe in 2017 for our 40th anniversary and Peru including Machu Picchu in 2019 as my hearing is shot. We were looking at river cruises, and DW said March. I started looking at 2025, but she picked a specific date this March. I was pleasantly surprised to see it not sold out.

That is the airport. This might provide useful information for getting from the airport to Reykjavik: Getting from Keflavík Airport to Reykjavík city centre - Routes North I can't help with your other questions.