Lindancer

9 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

That's an interesting way of justifying no choice of excursions!  

 

I much prefer AMA (and Scenic, also in my experience) for an extensive list of excursions that works for those who want a 'postcard' tour as well as those who want to do something off the beaten track [especially useful if you have already visited the area].  I'm sorry you had a poor Cruise Director on AMA (my experience has been better), but as you note the CD doesn't lead the excursions – local guides are hired for that purpose.  I also disagree about the photo previews: seeing the details is very helpful for those who are still debating between choices. 

Maybe, but the awe factor is gone when you've already seen all the castles in the Loire Valley that were on the next day's agenda!  And since this was a Loire Valley extension, there was no debating among choices.

I have been on 4 Grand Circle river cruises, 1 with Gate 1 and 1 with AMAwaterways.  Grand Circle was by far the best. And it is all because of the GUIDES.  Your personal guide (and there is usually one guide for every 25-30 passengers) will call you at home before you leave to ask if you have questions and then of course your number will be in his/her phone.  I once got lost in Antwerp and when I dialed our guide, she picked up saying "what's up Linda?"  The guides are also from the area in which you are traveling and extremely knowledgeable.  My AMAwaterways cruise was in the Bordeaux region of France and our guide was from IRELAND, currently living in Hungary.  He knew nothing about the French or their customs and embarrassed us by sending us into a full cafe in the middle of their extremely short lunch hour window, among other shortcomings.   He also had 160 passengers to deal with, although AMA sends you off with a local for whatever tour you picked.  His idea of a port talk the night before a stop was to show you photos of what you were going to see the next day - hello, can you say spoiler alert?  GCT doesn't make you pick your one shore excursion - they simply take you everywhere of interest you need to go.  Occasionally when there is an optional excursion offered, for which you do have to pay additional.  I also thought the food was quite good.

I haven't sailed with GCT since 2018, but I doubt that they changed their modus operandi.

L. Conrath

I'm sure you can get your own ice and, unlike ocean cruises, AMA doesn't care what you "sneak" onboard.  As I recall, they have a daily happy hour where drinks are free for an hour so that might be all you need.  Yes, someone will certainly come in daily to clean and make your bed.

Anyone know of a river cruise (or other cruise) that also takes people to Munich for Oktoberfest?  The only one I can find is with Tauck and the price is WAY out of my range.

Thanks in advance.

L. Conrath

When we booked, the ship was supposed to stop at Amber Cove, but switched to Samana instead.  Anyone have any info on this port?  I get the idea that there will be nothing there if we just walk off the ship?  Probably need to book an excursion?  Any info would be appreciated!

We'll be in Bonaire on December 22 and our ship's sunset cruise is sold out.  That being said, not sure I want to pay $109.95 pp (and there are 3 of us) for a 2.5 hour sail anyway.  Just wondering if there's another sunset sail I could book through a local.  Thanks for any info.

I thought I saw a swimming pool last time in Grand Turk,but didn't know if it was for the use of cruise ship passengers. Does anyone have any info?  Sometimes we're in an ocean mood and other times we just want to lounge by a pool with a drink.  Our stop at Amber Cove was changed to Samana, DR so won't be doing that there!  Thanks in advance.

My husband and I were in Bonaire in 2010.   I remember we really enjoyed a particular beach where a lot of people were windsurfing.  The water was very, very shallow and you could walk quite a long way out with the water barely higher than your knees.  There was a bar and restaurant.  Does anyone know the name of this beach?  We will be stopping in Bonaire this December and want to go there again.  Thanks!

9 hours ago, Polos12 said:

Any recommendations on taxi pickup; I read Welcomepickup. Do you mind sharing which hotel you stayed - we are finding Hyat in terms of budget/standard but its a bit far...not sure about most small boutique hotels (because of mixed reviews) unless someone can chime in here for strong recommendation, please. Thanks

Well, don't use booking.com like I did.  I paid for an upgrade at my hotel so the price would be over $250, which would give me a free taxi ride to my hotel.  Well, the taxi never showed up so we hung around the airport for way too long, tried to contact booking.com (headquartered in the U.K.), and ended up getting our own cab.  After much ado after we got home, submission of receipts and at least a monthlong wait, I did get reimbursed for my taxi fare.  But that did not make up for such an inauspicious start to our trip, the time wasted, the aggravation and I will never use booking.com again.  

We stayed at Athens Gate and the location was perfect.  Breakfast with the Acropolis in the background wasn't bad either!

20 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I would have been asking to get out and go back to the ship! 

Ha.  Not after paying $537 for this excursion, for 3 of us!

20 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I had an excellent cruise in Costa Rica in January. It was a boat ride in a canal and a "hike" (really a walk on a path) in the rainforest. Other reviews have complained that the canal ride isn't very long, and the boat just went up and down the canal and didn't really go anywhere. But the point was to see wildlife, not to go somewhere--a good guide and a good driver spot wildlife and stop so everyone can look. I wanted to be able to say that so people reading the reviews could understand why the canal ride was not a long distance. And the driver always turned the boat so both sides could have a chance to see the sloths and monkeys and birds. And a crocodile! An excellent guide with correct and easy-to-understand ecology lessons made it fantastic.

 

Most of the times I've left negative reviews have been because the time on the bus was grossly underestimated. The previous time in Costa Rica, the "45 minute" bus ride was an hour and a half, much of it on a bumpy unpaved road. The place we went to was okay, but not good enough to justify three hours on a bus.

Yes, in Santorini we sat on a hot bus (after being on a sweltering tender) for 2 hours before we got going anywhere.  It was awful.

2 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I haven't received any, and my cruise was in January. I went on one that was particularly good, and I'd really like to say nice things about it.

I hope you can.  I'd love to hear about a good one.  I did have a great excursion in Sorrento/Pompei with a great guide named Roberto, but that was back in 2006.

21 hours ago, QuattroRomeo said:

Just off Rotterdam last week and thought I would submit a few excursion reviews on the HAL site, since there wasn't much to go on back when I was booking them. I haven't received any emails soliciting them. How are they submitted nowadays? 

I rarely see any reviews.  Personally, I don't think they publish the negative ones.  Most of their shore excursions are overpriced crap and I do not hesitate to tell them that in detail when I return.  (I usually book shore excursions with locals, on my own, but I do seem to end up on an HAL excursion every now and then for one reason or another).

4 hours ago, Shippy said:

  Is there a cocktail hour in the lounge ?

Is it open 24 hours for coffee & tea ?

thanks

Last summer on the Oosterdam, the Neptune Lounge had a complimentary cocktail hour every day from 4-6, I think.   They said it was an experiment.  We would have a drink and then make another one (or they would make one for us if they were free) to take into the dining room for dinner.  We were glad we didn't bother buying the drink package, especially since I also get free drinks while in the casino.  I have not heard anything about the Neptune Lounge continuing this "experiment".

They will be a gathering the first day or so where free drinks will be served and people get acquainted.  On the Oosterdam last summer, it was held late morning the first full day of sailing so mimosas and bloody marys were there for the taking.

On 3/7/2023 at 3:29 PM, AtleeH said:

Less than a month ago, an excursion on St. Martin (the semi-submersible one) was dropped.  Now this week the stop at Barbados was eliminated, with Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

 

I had an excursion  scheduled that I was really looking forward to doing.  It was the photographic Expedition.  Too bad.  I don't think Kingstown, St Vincent equals Bridgetown, Barbados.

We have a stop in Freeport in 2 weeks and HAL isn't even offering any shore excursions there!

On 3/3/2023 at 3:45 PM, DesertRat46 said:

We had 3 good HAL cruises last year. The food on the Zaandam, Zuierdam and Noordam was OK, but not great. Service was mostly good. Getting drinks in the MDR was a hassle every time, but otherwise we were pleased.

We have another cruise book for January of next year and hope that the experience will be just as good. 

We usually sail with HAL or Celebrity, and what I'm reading on CruiseCritic suggests that, so far, HAL has not made some of the more drastic cost-cutting steps that Celebrity has taken.

Guess we'll find out in January.

Ha, we were on the Eurodam's first cruise after Covid, out of Athens.  It was IMPOSSIBLE to get a drink in the MDR.  So we started stopping at the bar outside the Pinnacle and just getting a drink to carry in to dinner.  

8 hours ago, IamHungry said:

Has anyone received casino deal lately? Has it been dried up?

No, my most recent one was a couple of months ago and expired yesterday on March 8.  It was a literal a page and a half of Alaska cruises, and a small list of Europe and Canada/New England sailings.

1 minute ago, Lindancer said:

Strangely, my Holland America cruise isn't offering any shore excursions in Freeport the day we are there, end of March.  I wonder what' going on.

From their website:  There are no Shore Excursions available to be booked for this port at this time. Please check back later. For now, there is still plenty to experience on board.

Strangely, my Holland America cruise isn't offering any shore excursions in Freeport the day we are there, end of March.  I wonder what' going on.

It has to be a "closed loop" cruise - leaving from a US port and returning to a US port.  Google this - do not just take someone's word for it, because it depnds what specific cruise you are on.

We were in a Neptune Suite on the Oosterdam last July going from Venice to Rome.  The Neptune Lounge was "experimenting", as they said, with having a Happy Hour in there every day where drinks were complimentary for 2 hours.  I was hoping that this "experiment" was successful and that they would continue this tradition henceforth.  But reading everyone's comments here, well, I guess not.  Although they may still do it for European or longer cruises!  We will be on the Nieuw Amsterdam in 2 weeks so I guess I'll see for myself.

Just my two cents.  We are usually a party of 3, so it is NOT AT ALL COST-EFFECTIVE to use the ship's transfers.

Wow, we are going on a cruise out of Port Everglades in March.  We are flying in the day before but our flight gets in at night, and there will be no time to do anything in the morning before the cruise.  So it is killing me to see all these hotels asking $350 - $500 (by the time all the charges are factored in), because we won't be there long enough to enjoy any of their amenities.  Does anyone have any suggestions for a place more reasonable, anywhere in the area?  Will possibly end up at the Harrison Hotel in Hollywood for sentimental reasons but it's getting bad reviews these days and will still cost us about $240.  Thanks in advance.

1 hour ago, Torquer said:

Very interesting and not fair in this case, but I can certainly see why HAL does it this way, since it could very easily be abused.

 

Traveler A wants to cruise solo, so he initially pays the deposit for his friend B to be his phantom cabin-mate, and then buys cancel for-any-reason insurance for both A and B.  Later he cancels B.  Now if HAL would not enforce the solo supplement in this case, A would get a solo cabin for much cheaper than his normal fare plus the solo supplement.

Yes.  We have been traveling with our grandson, who gets a much lower rate as the 3rd person in the cabin.  So, along the same lines as this discussion, if my husband or I were to back out, my grandson would become one of the 2 primary travelers and (assuming we have insurance) would only get a refund on the 3rd person's lower rate.  This make sense, otherwise people would be pulling this trick, too, hoping to end up with a cheaper fare all around.

On 6/24/2022 at 10:32 AM, dizzneebabe said:

Since Italy has dropped the COVID testing requirements, do we still need to test prior to boarding our NCL cruise in Trieste?  I'm getting conflicting responses! 

This is from the NCL site:

 

Do I need to take a COVID-19 test prior to arrival at the terminal?

Unless otherwise stipulated by local regulations (Cruise Travel Requirements by Country) that would supersede our policy, at time of check-in:

• All guests above the age of 2 will be required to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 antigen or NAAT test (I.e. PCR) result administered by a verified third party or via medically supervised home test:
  • Within 2 days prior to embarkation date for cruises departing from a U.S. port
  • Within 3 days prior to embarkation date for cruises departing from a non-U.S. port
  • If embarking from a Canadian port, antigen test is required within 2 days prior to embarkation date, or 3 days prior for NAAT test (I.e. PCR)
  • Guests must bring digital or printed proof of negative test results.

I am on a Holland America cruise leaving from Trieste July 16.  Same as for NCL, it appears, I will need a negative Covid test taken no more than 72 hours prior to embarkation.  Will try to get one at the airport when we land on July 14.