nana&papagotosea

We are doing our first River Cruise on Viking the Danube Christmas markets in early December.  For the markets, is it mostly cash? Are the markets usually close to the long boat?  Is there shopping after dinner?  Sorry, I just have so many questions.  🙄

On 6/7/2019 at 7:46 PM, Coral said:

I am going to be the bad person here...... I struggled for packing for my November/Thanksgiving river cruise. November in Austria/Germany is similar to November where I live (midwest). Unpredictable. Let's see - we had warm weather, we had rain and we had snow. I brought 2 different jackets. I am not going to use baggage fees for an excuse but I wanted to stick to one suitcase under 50 lbs which was tough since I was packing for an odd season.

 

For dinner (I am female) - I often wore jeans, black jeans or tan jeans. I do not own torn jeans, I wore a sweater (it was cold - remember November) and often loafers of some sort.

 

I am not a girly girl. I work in IT and work with guys. I hate dressing up - I carried formal wear for my first couple of dozen cruises and refuse to do so anymore. I don't want to take dresses which means different shoes with each outfit, more luggage and I want to be able to carry my own luggage. I am tired of carrying multiple bags and I am tired of dressing up. While others enjoy it, I dread it.

 

I probably was under dressed compared to others. I would like to think I ruined anyone's meal.

Thank you for this post, was wondering about dinners. We are going on the Christmas Market cruise early December. Worried more about keeping warm outside than being fancy for dinners. I was hoping the jeans I would wear during the day with a nice top would be adequate.  

Thank you for your review. We have been on the Ruby twice already, and will be again the end of March headed for Hawaii. We’ve been to Share a few times, thanks for showing the menu. Most of it is completely different from our last times there.  And we actually did this cruise last year, great trip. 

We will also be stopping in Moorea without plans. Bora Bora is taken care of.

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My husband and I will be in Papeete in April. We have not booke an excursion, hate the big bus tours! Is there a beach close by that we could head to to maybe swim and snorkel a bit? Or should we rent a car to find a nicer beach?

sorry

Thanks for posting, we're booked with Odyssey for a tour with people from our roll call on our British Isles cruise next May. Your review makes us even more excited.

Are they going to pick you up at the ship?

We will be doing the British Isles cruise next year and plan on doing the Military Tattoo while we are there. We will be on the Caribbean Princess and I know the ship will have an excursion there. Has anyone ever booked a private trip to the Tattoo and could you recommend the company you used? I am assuming we are going from Greenock since we don't leave until 2:00am. The day we are in Edinburgh, we leave at 7:00PM.

As for online shopping, Scrapbookpal is great for basic supplies. And you get free shipping for any thing over $25. I also use Scrapbook.com, Blitzy, Travel Scrappin is great when you need papers or embellishments from countries and other states you've traveled to. There are so many places to choose from Just wish I had to opportunity to actually touch things before I buy, lol.

Basically the difference is you need to use a computer with the Explore. It works with a program called Design Space and you can add images or text weld things together. You can buy a yearly subscription and not have to buy any more cartridges (unless they are licensed) because all the images are available to you. You can use any font on your computer. So much fun to play with!

Hi all, I am a scrapbook addict too, lol! I have been on 8 cruises but definitely haven't scrapped them all. I did finish a 12 x 12 book of our cruise to Tahiti and the Cook Islands. Never finished the Disney cruise to the western Carribean with our granddaughter, then age 5. I did finish our cruise around the British Isles and our Disney cruise to the Baltics with the same granddaughter age 10 this time. I made a small special chipboard book of our Alaskan cruise as a gift for my husband. And started but never finished our West coast week long cruise. We just got back from a transatlantic cruise ending with a 4 day stay in Venice. I've bought tons of paper and embellishments for this and between my husband and I, we took over 2000 pictures!

I go to a four day crop three times a year, the next one coming up the beginning of July. I also wanted to do another chipboard book for my husband for this trip too. I really need to find some time to work on this at home, but I too help my two daughters with some babysitting.

Does anyone else have the Cricut Explore? I love mine,it has been great for titles and making special embellishments. Glad I found this thread, maybe we can share ideas!

They usually post excursions about 90 days out. There is still time.

We just got home from our transatlantic cruise on Princess. Reading this thread I decided to try RIL. I booked two tours with RIL, one in Rome and one in Naples. By joining the Roll Call for our cruise, I was able to find three other couples for each cruise with no problem.

This was a great experience! First off, many people cautioned us about taking a non-cruise line excursion in Rome as our tour was on Good Friday. Jany at RIL assured me it would be no problem and it was a perfect day. Vinny our driver took us to the Vatican where we met our guide Federica. (You should definitely invest in the guide, we learned so much more then we would have on our own). We bypassed the very long line and were in quickly. The whole day was wonderful.

Our next day in Naples we had Enrico meet us at the port. We went first to Pompeii where we met our guide Alena. Again, I highly recommend a guide. Alena was extremely knowledgable and we had a fun time and learned way more then I could have hoped for with just using one of those audio guides. What a great place! Alena brought us back to Enrico and we continued on to Positano and Sorrento on the Amalfi coast.

Both trips were very special. I enjoyed the size of our groups. We could all ask questions and all hear the answers, learning things that we might not have thought to ask ourselves. Boths trips we were met on time and were brought back to our ship with time to spare. Don't let the ships scare you with their bit about being safer with their excursions. RIL is a very reliable and professional company. And Jany in the office, answers all email inquiries in a timely manor. You can bet next time we are back in Italy, we will be using RIL again!

I used an online TA for my first two cruises. Since then I have done all the research and booking myself. I periodically check the cruise line website to check for any specials or change in price. This next cruise I have done great! Since I booked, I have upgraded from a mid grade balcony to a mini suite and still got just under $1000 back. My husband is pretty impressed with my "TA" abilities, and I really enjoy doing it.

Thanks for your review. We saw a program on AWE TV about Christmas river cruise and are very interested. It was with another line, but Viking has much better prices.

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A river cruise is definitely on our bucket list. Thanks for posting this trip comparison Wayne. I haven't ever really been interested in sailing on one of the bigger ships, so I don't think The Royal is in my future, but Viking has been in my sights. One question Wayne, this is the first time we are trying anytime dining on a Princess cruise, is it usual to have to have long waits for dinner? I like the idea of going anytime, but I wonder if we will miss the extra care we got with the same wait staff.

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I got a laugh or two reading this thread. I also am not a newbie, but I wear a lanyard on sea days (it's pretty). I carry a small cross shoulder purse on shore. I almost always have a camera with me, I am a scrapbooker, so you never know what may make a good layout until you are home with thousands of pictures, lol. I HAVE to get a sail away drink, it's part of the experience. I know port from starboard, but I too get lost at least the first day. Love getting to the shows early for a good seat. And my biggest problem is always overpacking. I just like to bring choices!

I have booked RIL for two tours on our upcoming cruise next March. This thread has been so informative, I am so excited to enjoy our time in Rome and Naples with this company. Thanks for all the sharing.

Naps on sea days, love the gentle swaying of the ship.

TRY to avoid the elevators for the whole trip.

Try a new food.

Buy a new piece of jewelry, mostly in a port but sometimes on the ship. LOL

My husband and I really had a good laugh over this!

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Oh, I forgot about Norwegian. Obviously it wasn't quite as memorable for us, lol.

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We have been on Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Princess and Disney. Granted we did take our granddaughter with us on Disney, but we met many retired couple without kids on it! Disney would be our favorite (with a kid), the service and shows are outstanding. And they have the best ship stabilizers in the business. But by ourselves, definitely Princess! I think there were much more retirees on Celebrity, but we liked everything about Princess much better.

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