christieSF

1 minute ago, flwinejunkie said:

 

Hello!  Could you please share the name of the tour company for this food tour?  Sounds delicious to me!

 

Thanks!!

It was through Corfu Walking Tours.  We didn't get to go on the tour, but I highly recommend them based on their communication and the quick refund when our cruise was cancelled.  Hopefully we will get to Corfu one day and will be able to take this tour!

5 hours ago, Jskorick said:

Does anybody know at what point the booking will show cancelled online? I received email this morning but I’m still seeing my booking as planned. Lol

My July cruise was cancelled on April 1, but not removed from my planner until April 18th (2 days before the final payment date).

Just now, MsTabbyKats said:

Same...but I booked casino rate.  When I try Early Saver it changes to "30 days" before the sailing.

I booked Early Saver, but I booked last summer so maybe that has something to do with it?

My cruise planner still has the original due date (April 20) for final payment.  😔

Yes, but it says "You may also cancel up to 30 days prior to your scheduled departure date. Any cancellation charges will be held as a future cruise credit (FCC) to be redeemed on a cruise within one year of your original sailing"

That implies that there is still a cancellation charge, so I'm trying to see if it's the same cancellation charge as I would incur if I cancel now (4 months out) or if it would be the charge based on their normal calculations at 30 days (50%).

So it seems like the cancellation fees will still be the same, but instead of losing that money it moves to FCC.  Do you think that is correct?

From the Carnival site:  "From 55 days prior to sailing to 30 days prior to sailing, the penalty is 50% of the total fare or the standard deposit amount, whichever is greater."

So if we cancel 31 days prior, 50% of our fare will go towards FCC, but if we cancel prior to final payment date, only our deposit will go to FCC and we would get the rest of our money back.

Thanks!

Just now, luckyinpa said:

is it out of statistical curiosity or so you can take certain actions. 

Statistical curiosity.  I'm a numbers person.  Also, I have two daughters in two schools that play on three sports teams between them and it would be nice to have an idea if everything is going to get cancelled!

Our cruise isn't until July and we're still counting on going on it.

10 minutes ago, glam mistress said:

Hard to keep track - I guess these are new cases from the Grand.

I wish they were tabulating the cases from the past sailing of the Grand.  Living in San Francisco, I would really like to know what the numbers look like.  So far, it seems like 2 in Placer, 2 in Santa Clara, 2 in Toronto, 1 in Alberta, and now these 2 new ones in Contra Costa.  I have yet to find a single source so I've been trying to keep track on my own.  

We have a Barcelona to Venice booked for July.  We are flying round trip to Barcelona.  If our cruise is cancelled, we will evaluate the situation and consider flying to Barcelona and doing a land trip.

My parent's April cruise in Japan was cancelled and they were thinking of replacing it with a trip in the US somewhere, but are rethinking that now because they don't want to fly and are worried about closures.

3 minutes ago, Vinny Joanna said:

Just curious, how come no posts from passengers? Is the WiFi on the ship still working?

I've been wondering this too.  I've been looking here, twitter, and facebook and have found very very little from the ship.  Seems so odd.

Thanks!  We decided to bite (hahaha) the bullet and booked a food tour.  It's more pricey than we were planning for Corfu, but I know my family will enjoy it!

I do have the Rick Steves Med Port guide, so we will supplement each day with his suggestions!

I'm having the hardest time deciding which direction we should go in Kotor.  We are a family of 4 with daughters 11 and 15.  We are not beach people, but do enjoy snorkeling and swimming.  We will be in Kotor from 7:00AM to 6:00PM at the end of July. 

My first instinct was to hike the fortress in the AM, explore Kotor on our own for a couple of hours, and then do one of the 4 hour boat tours where we go to the Blue Cave, snorkel a little, go to Lady of the Rock island, and maybe go to Perast.

Then I read something that says cruise passengers will already have seen the scenic parts of the boat tour on their cruise in and out, so it is a bit of a waste of time.  I can understand this, so now I'm wondering if we would be better off doing one of the land tours that explores multiple areas of Montenegro.

Would love to hear others thoughts on this and what they have loved about visiting Kotor!  Thanks!

Hi Terry, I wanted to thank you for the amazing posts you have put together for so many locations.  We are currently planning a Med Cruise for this summer and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts (and viewing your pictures) of the places we will be going.  I saw the link in those posts to this current one and I had to see what you thought about my city of San Francisco!  I enjoyed reading this so much!  Having lived here my whole life, it is easy to get a little jaded about the day to day problems of the city and it is refreshing to view it through someone else's eyes!  It really is an amazing place!  Thank you!

Thank you everyone for the feedback.  Please continue to give some as I know Jess is looking at this option still!  We decided to take the train to Avignon and go on a Wine Tour from there.  Since we want to drink the wine, we decided not to drive ourselves 🙂

Thank you again for your valuable advice!

We will be in Corfu from 700 to 1700 on a Saturday in July. We are the only ship in port that day and our ship carries 2600. We are a family of four traveling with our 11 and 15 year old daughters.

I have been scouring both TripAdvisor and Cruise Critic to try to decide our day and still haven't figured it out. However, I know for sure that we want to do a walking tour of Old Corfu. We love to do walking tours in new places because we learn so much from our guides as we walk and orient ourselves with the city. I have found several self-guided tours that we can do if we have to, but I do find we learn more and have more fun with a guide.

Oddly, I'm not finding any walking tours of Corfu. Most of what I have found is either very expensive private half day tours, food/wine tours (which is great, but we're doing those in other places), or tours on a coach. The couple of actual walking tours I have found have no reviews.

I was hoping someone would have experience or a recommendation. Thanks so much!

I've been doing more research and it seems like driving in Marseille is a bit of a mess.  So now we are thinking of taking the train to Avignon and then renting the car there.  There is an express train from Marseille to Avignon that only takes 35 minutes.  I'll let you know as I continue to plan.  Good luck!

We are a family of 4 with daughters who will be 11 and 15 when we are in Marseille at the end of July 2020.  We prefer to DIY whenever we can in ports and we are very active travelers.  We are in port in Marseille from 7:00 - 17:00.  We are having a hard time coming up with activities to do while we are there.  It will be our only French stop on this trip and the girls number one priority is croissants.  Hahahaha.  We love walking around towns, eating good food, and drinking wine!

The nearish towns that looks the best to us are Avignon, Aix-En-Provence, Arles, Gordes, and Lourmarin.  Obviously there is no scenario where we can do all of these towns, so we will limit it drastically.  If we stick with the bigger cities, we can do it by train.  However, if we wanted to get to the hill towns or wine areas, we would need to rent a car.   BTW, we came up with that list from a combo of Cruise Critic and this article:  https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/the-10-most-beautiful-towns-in-provence/  If you think we're missing anywhere that would be better for our family, I'd love to hear it! 

I was wondering if anyone had experience with a one day DIY car trip from Marseille and how it went for you.  It'll be a Monday and I've been checking rush hour traffic which there is some, so we would have to account for that.

Thank you!

1 hour ago, xDisconnections said:

You have to do what works best for your travel patterns.

 

I would never make the mistake of doing Carnival in Europe again and I’ve been lucky to subsequently do Europe on Princess and Royal Caribbean soon with another European cruise in the early planning period. Luckily I learned not to make the mistake of taking Carnival to Alaska.

Can you expand on why Carnival in Europe was bad?  We're doing a Med cruise next summer on the Legend and I have only read positive reviews about both the Legend and Carnival in Europe.  I'd love to hear the other side of the coin.  Our financial alternatives would be a shorter Norwegian, RCI, or MSC cruise or doing it by land.  Princess would be about $5000 more expensive for our family.

5 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

OP: your plan not a great idea. 

This was actually my first thought which is why I was so wishy washy when I wrote the post and said we would likely not do it.

4 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

I will disagree with the above -- it's not a bad idea.

However, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea!!  We wouldn't have to worry about getting back to Livorno at any certain time.  We could either spend longer in Florence or get to Rome for dinner and walk around the fountains at night.  Then we could get an early jump to the day in Rome before it's too crowded and hot and return to the ship early enough that we won't be stressed about the distance.

This will only be our second cruise (unless we squeeze a bonus quick trip in!) and we are choosing to cruise because we like the convenience of getting to lots of places while staying on a ship and enjoying the amenities of the cruise, but forgoing that for one night doesn't seem like it would negatively affect our cruise experience.

I will reach out to Carnival to see if it's a possibility before we go further down this path.  Thank you all for your thoughts.  It helps to hear the pros and cons!

Duplicate sorry!

2 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

Call the cruise line & ask 

they have the final say

Yes, if we decide to pursue this, we will definitely contact Carnival ahead of time and if they approve it, we would let our steward know on the ship. 

I was wondering if anyone had done this before or if it's something that is likely to be allowed.

1 minute ago, John Bull said:

 

Nope.

Still confused 

Where does Naples come into this ? 

Can you post the ship's ports in sequence, noting the turnaround port. And the port/s where you want to get off & back on?

 

JB 

(heading for bed right now, so don't expect a quick reply)

Sorry!!  Thanks for sticking with me 🙂  I appreciate the feedback.

This is the cruise.  It's a 9 night 1 way cruise from Barcelona to Venice. We are planning on spending a couple days in Barcelona and Venice.

Day 1 Barcelona
Day 2 Marseille
Day 3  Florence (Livorno)
Day 4  Rome (Civitavecchia)
Day 5  Naples
Day 6  Cruising
Day 7  Corfu
Day 8  Kotor
Day 9  Cruising
Day 10  Venice

We would either get off in Florence and back on in Rome (leaning towards that) OR get off in Rome and back on in Naples.  Either way we would spend the night in Rome.  

22 minutes ago, John Bull said:

 

But b2b creates a complication. Same ship? And same cabin? If not, it's not really going to be feasible at the changeover port - luggage, re-registration etc.

 

Yikes.  I realize my wording is confusing!  I tried to edit it, but could not.  I meant back to back days, not cruises!  I would use my newness as an excuse, but as I've probably read these boards for 100 hours, I should have known better.  Hahahaha.

What I'm thinking (if we did this) is we would get off the ship in Livorno and travel to Florence (ship ports at 7:00AM).  Spend the day in Florence and then take an evening express train to Rome.  Then we would wake up in Rome with a full day in Rome.  The ship doesn't leave Civitavecchia until 10:00PM, but we would shoot to be back around 7:00PM to leave loads of wiggle room.

I very highly doubt we will do this, but I was wondering if it was even allowed.  We are going to do a Mediterranean cruise next summer and we have back to back to back days in Florence, Rome, and Naples.  Would it be allowed to get off the ship in Florence and make our way to Rome ourselves and get back on the ship the next night or get off in Rome and get back on in Naples?  Again, I doubt we would even do this, but I like to know all my options!  We are on Carnival if that makes a difference.  Thanks!  

We are likely taking a Mediterranean cruise next summer as well.  I was shooting for $5000 max for our family of four.  Since the kids are a much reduced price, it's close to the same budget as yours (though we can only travel in July which is the most expensive month!).  I've done a ton of research along with posts here and we decided on the 9 night Carnival cruise that starts in Barcelona and ends in Venice.  It has 4 Italy ports as well as 1 France, 1 Greece and 1 Montenegro (I would have preferred Croatia, but can't have it all!)

The other cruises I was looking at were Royal Caribbean, MSC, and Norwegian.  Celebrity was just out of our price range (and I didn't think the best option for the kids) but it might work for you.  Most of the cruises with Norwegian are on the Epic and that ship doesn't seem to get the best reviews.  Most 7 night cruises either do Western Mediterranean (includes Barcelona) or Eastern Mediterranean (includes Greece or Croatia).

We ended up choosing Carnival for the two extra nights and the fact that we could do Barcelona and Venice.  Have fun planning!