jabrown40

Bitob, I just booked the Hotel Santa Chiara for next summer. It is located in the Piazzale Roma area, the last area buses and taxis can drive to. There is a vaporetto stop right by the hotel as well, to get to other areas of Venice. It also comes with breakfast, and receives good reviews on trip advisor. You can either get a taxi to the port, or take the people mover. For next July, it was 365.00 a night.

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We are thinking of a West Coast cruise leaving out of San Francisco, down to Ensenada and back up. We haven't cruised with Princess before, but like this itinerary. We have a couple of days at sea, and I was wondering if it's warm enough for pool time?

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Aqua class is a cabin level. To upgrade, you would need to pay the fare for that particular cabin level. Passengers that have aqua class cabins have their own restaurant, Blu. The menu items are supposed to be a more spa type of cuisine, which my husband and I truly enjoyed, meals were delicious. it also gives you free access to the Persian Gardens spa area. However, both of your rooms would have to be aqua class category for all of you to be able to dine together. I wouldn't say that there is a must try specialty restaurant, certainly I've eaten at better restaurants at home. But seeing that there are four of you, you might enjoy Qsine as a family. It's a shared plate experience, with interesting food presentations and I believe there would be something on the menu for everybody. I'm sorry, I don't have Verizon and I'm not very tech savvy so I can't help you with the Internet question. I know that once you are connected to the ship Wi-Fi people just turn the roaming off.

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I am booked on Viking for November, looking forward to the overnight stay as well as Key West. Love that it will be a new ship. Would have liked Oceania as well, but these itineraries sell out fast!

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Interesting since the other two lines, Royal Caribbean and Azamara do not seem to have those same concerns and are visiting Cuba. They also carry passengers to Russia and China, two countries that certainly have their own human rights issues. I have also read that Cuba can only support the smaller ships.

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Mvpinboynton, I thought the same thing about Oceania. And yes it was about the same price for my eight night cruise compared to a 10 night cruise on the constellation for my Europe trip next year. However, I just looked at a sale that they are running over the Memorial Day weekend with free upgrades, and actually the prices are not that far off from celebrity. With the perks that I received from my TA, and the premium economy airfare that I received from Oceania, I feel like I am getting much more for my dollar spent. Not to mention that all of the specialty dining is free.

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I wouldn't know what to do with all the time off that people receive in the UK and Europe, but I would sure like to try! After working as a nurse for 37 years, I get a little over three weeks off. Unfortunately this also includes any sick time and the holidays. Next year we will be doing a European cruise, eight nights on Oceania, with a couple of days pre-cruise in Venice, then a couple of days post cruise in Athens. This is the longest vacation I have taken in all the years that I have worked. So I do understand why cruise lines are offering shorter vacations. I will be trying Viking and Oceana in the next year, but unfortunately they do not offer very many short cruises. Those 9-11 night cruises on celebrity are very attractive to someone like me for an occasional splurge, but unfortunately most of my vacations will remain one week for the time being.

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Going to Europe next summer. Terrorists can strike anywhere.

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This will be our first Viking cruise, and all of the reasons you listed are exactly what we are looking forward to. We have the same opinion on excursions. Although we will stay with Viking on our Cuba days, everything else will be on our own at our own pace. our favorite moments are stopping at a local cafe and just taking time to absorb the fact we're on vacation, and enjoying the views around us.

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We love a balcony, always had one. However, on our Alaska cruise in mid July I never used it, except to step outside to see how cold it was, and to take a peek at the scenery. No sitting out there in the late evening. There are plenty of areas to get greater views than the balcony, I'm not sure I'd pay extra again.

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We received free air when we booked our Cuba cruise for November. There was no air credit available for not taking the air. We paid the $200 deviation fee to fly down to Miami from O'Hare the day before. We will be flying out on Thanksgiving day.we were not able to choose our flights, or the times that we fly. Does anybody have any experience with this? I'm just wondering if we're going to automatically get the dreaded 6:30 AM flight from O'Hare, even though we are going the day before.

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As you could see on my expanded signature, our next three cruises will be on Viking, Oceana, and then celebrity in a sky suite on the Edge. All three of these will be first for us - we have been in an AQ cabin on the Silhouette but we are in a suite on the Celebrity cruise for the first time. We will be on the Viking Sun during its second sailing, so also a new ship. It will be interesting to see which provides the best experience, and will help us decide which to use for future travel.

Although we loved our cruise on Silhouette, we are booked on Viking next cruise, and I switched from constellation to Oceania for Venice next summer. I really don't like the direction Celebrity is going. Soon they will be nothing different or special anymore. With that being said, we are going to try the sky suite on the Edge in March 2019. Anything after that, will be based on itinerary and our impressions after being on all three lines.

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I guarantee that QSine is nothing close to Alinea.

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I hate their whole excursion policy. It's ridiculous that anyone has to get up at 3 AM to hopefully reserve a spot on an excursion. Unfortunately on the Cuba cruise, we must stay with Viking excursions, so at the mercy of whatever is left over by the time ability to book gets to my DV category. Fortunately will be doing our own thing on the other stops.

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Celebrity does not go to Cuba. We are currently booked on Viking. I only mention celebrity, because we enjoyed our celebrity cruise very much and it seems that people who have tired of celebrity have moved on to Azamara. So my hope was that if I liked Celebrity, there would be a pretty good chance I would like Azamara.

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DH and I discussed what to do if approval isn't granted, and decided we still wanted to try Viking, especially since our cruise will be the Sun's second voyage, and the idea of a new ship is kind of exciting. I did look, and noticed Azamara has almost an identical cruise sailing on November 20th, with a stop in Key West, an overnight in Havana and an overnight in Cozumel. I haven't sailed with Azamara, but we had a great time and were pleased with our cruise on Celebrity last year. But we really want to try Viking.....!

We are currently booked for Cuba on Viking in November. We are a little alarmed that our final payment is due in the next few days, but I have learned that Viking still has not obtained the necessary permits to land in Cuba. So my husband and I are considering of changing to Azamara Quest for our trip. Does anybody know if they have obtained the necessary permits to bring passengers to Cuba? We have been on celebrity and enjoyed the S class ship, and we are aware that this would be a much smaller ship. Hoping that if we enjoyed the celebrity experience we would be happy with the Quest also.

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This is very upsetting. What are they going to do with all of the people that have booked expecting to go to Cuba? I know fine print always says they have the right to change ports, but this would be ridiculous, I can't imagine the PR nightmare. My husband and I have discussed the same - we booked this to go to Cuba, and I could do more days on Celebrity at the same price if it's just a bunch of islands in the Caribbean.

How did you hear this? My TA says that Viking is providing our visas. They have informed her that we are all set to go. I had also talked to a rep from Viking, when the question of the visa came up. At no time did it sound like there was any question of going. Maybe another phone call to Viking is in order, because I have to pay my TA my final payment on may 17.

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You might want to check out trip adviser or the port boards and see what types of activities might be found on each island. I remember being in St. John's but that was almost 20 years ago. Can't remember much of anything being there.i'm sure other people will be able to weigh in and give you plenty of information.

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Congratulations on your retirement! I love planning for a cruise, and I admit to being one of those people that like to have all their ducks in a row, and a trip pretty much planned out. Cruise critic and trip advisor provide such a wealth of information, it's so much easier to plan for a vacation compared to when we just bought travel guides! I always start with my pre and post trip plans - are you planning on arriving early for your cruise? Head over to the ports board, and look at recommendations for hotels and things to do in Stockholm. Head over to trip advisor for things to do, and places to eat. Same for each of the ports while on your cruise. Also, there are trip reports on this board from people that have already done your cruise, just use the search function and look back on what they did. I look at roll calls of those that have returned recently, or are planning the same cruise before mine to see what types of excursions people have arranged privately as well. Also, since there may not be a lot of posts on the Viking boards since they are a fairly new line, check out Celebrity or other cruise lines boards, and again use the search function to enter those ports and get more opinions. There is so much info, its overwhelming sometimes. Have a great cruise!.

Isn't this the worst start of May ever here in Chicago? We have a Cuba cruise planned with Viking day after Thanksgiving, I'm hoping we'll still get nice weather in Cozumel, key west and Belize. We went on a Western Caribbean cruise two or three years ago, in The first week of January, and the weather was horrible. Temperature barely got over 72°! Rained almost every day. However, this was the year that it was -22° at the same time in Chicago. Still made a terrible time in the Caribbean, barely felt like getting off the ship, yet it was too chilly or rainy to swim. Unfortunately, we were on NCL, so no solarium. Even though I'm really excited about our cruise in November, I still prefer going in the spring. It seems like between November and December there's just way too much to do with the holidays, and that empty four months between January and Easter of snow and rain just beg for an escape to warmer climates!

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What months are offered? I tried to look on my phone, but the only one that pulled up was November 2017. I know I have seen the cruise in the spring though. Where do you live? We are in Chicago, so anytime we can get away after our winters, it's my favorite time to go.

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On our silhouette cruise, our meal in Tuscan was the worst of the entire trip. We were sorry we gave up a night in Blu to pay 90.00 for dinners that were not worth the calories. Neither of us finished our entrée, it was a disappointing finish to an otherwise awesome cruise.

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