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16 hours ago, Anna32 said:

For dinner, people are wearing what I would call „smart casual with an expedition twist“. Lots of woolen sweaters, with or without shirts underneath. But also some of their expedition layers, like fleeces or down vests. Bottoms are mostly slacks, jeans or even some (nicer) sweatpants. For the captain‘s reception I put on a dress - nothing fancy at all, but I felt a little overdressed. I have seen hardly any jackets on the gentlemen, and no ties. 
 

Our hand luggage on the charter flight was not weighed or checked at all, so I would say no.

 

Yes, for dinner at the Mandarin Oriental, you will receive a $50 dinner voucher per pax, to use in any of the hotel‘s restaurants. It converts to 43.000 Chilean Pesos, I believe. Important to know: it cannot be used for in-room dining, and you need to make a reservation at the restaurants. The Italian restaurant and the bar should be able to accommodate you. For the Japanese-Peruvian restaurant, Matsuri, reservations are really essential. I saw them turn people away when we were there.

 

Have a fantastic adventure on the Cloud!

Thank you, very helpful. 

Wonderful daily reports. We are on Cloud from 28 January. I have a few questions. Please can you tell me what people are wearing for dinner in the evening. How casual is it?

Is the charter flight strict on the weight of hand luggage?

I read elsewhere that Silversea offer a voucher for dinner in the Mandarin Hotel. Is this true?

Thanks for the detailed review. We are sailing on Thursday on Royal Princess.

Do you remember if there is a Happy Hour in one of the bars in the late afternoon. Other Princess ships have had this.

Thanks everyone for your helpful advice. We have dollars in cash and a Halifax Clarity card so if Alla will tell us what the cost is in Roubles on the day we will make our decision. Before the referendum we would have had no hesitation in using cash but we now want to keep our precious dollars, bought at a pre referendum rate, as we have a US holiday booked and the exchange rate at the moment is terrible. However the pound/Rouble rate has also plunged.

We have booked a 2 day tour of St Petersburg with Alla tours. We have been quoted a price in US dollars and as we are from the UK we asked what the cost was in roubles and we were told that, because of fluctuating exchange rates, they could only tell us on the day. We understand that if we pay by credit card that we will be billed in roubles. Can anyone confirm this? Can someone from the UK who has used Alla tell us what is the best way to pay to get the best deal-credit card or US dollars cash?

Great reviews with lots of useful info. We are doing the same cruise on 9th July. We have a tour booked with Alla in St Petersburg meeting 8.30am so it would be useful to know what time to get off the ship to allow for Russian immigration etc.

I now just returned from Gouadeloupe.

I finally booked beforehand a tour with a German speaking guide, but there were several local people at the pier, were I'm sure one or the other would have spoken english...

 

We went to see a Waterfall (Chute du Crévisse) and a rum distillery on the "Basse-Terre"-part of the Island But then we went also to the other part of the island and drove to St.Anne and the Castle Point. It took us 7 hours and the cost was 195 Euro for the three of us (to give you a price to expect). You should have Euros with you (the might except US, but they will be much happier with Euros).

 

For more informations (or if you speak german, I could even give to the

homepage and e-mail of our guide) just write me.

Gouadeloupe is probably one of the safest, richest and cleanest islands in the caribbean.

GO OUT AND EXPLORE this beautiful Island.

We are visiting Basse-terre later this year. Please can you send me details of your German tour guide geaztravel@gmail dot com

Thanks

We enjoyed a cruise in late November visiting Alexandria & Port Said. We booked a half day city tour in Alexandria and a Pyramids and Cairo museum tour from Port Said, both with Ramses Tours.

All communication with George at Ramses was prompt. We requested Karim as our guide as he had been recommended on these boards and he guided us on both days.

Karim was excellent-very professional with an incredible knowledge of Egypt and great sense of humour. He always kept asking us what we would like to do so we felt in total control. As we had been on a Nile cruise a few years ago we did not want to visit papyrus factories etc and he respected that. We also did not have lunch on the Cairo tour; we just had a good breakfast before leaving the ship. Karim had bought some typical Egyptian sweets which he let us sample.

When we left the UK on 23rd Nov the demonstrations had resumed in Egypt so we were unsure whether the ship would dock there. We docked in Egypt on 26th in Alexandria & 27th Nov in Cairo, the day before the elections but felt completely safe the whole time. The ship's tour had cancelled the Cairo museum visit but Karim asked us if we would still like to visit it if the people were not demonstrating in Tahira Square. He said he would only take us if he felt it was safe to do so and if we were happy to go. He had a contact at the museum and he phoned him just as we were approaching the outskirts of Cairo. All was quiet so we decided to go. We saw the demonstrators but they were peaceful. The museum was much quieter than normal which benefited us. The museum was fantastic and we were so pleased to book with Ramses or we would not have seen it. There were no queues to visit the room to see Tutankhamun’s mask and other items buried with him. This was the highlight of our trip to Egypt-fantastic.

We continued to the pyramids and the Sphinx. Karim bought us Arabic headdresses which we wore for photos in front of the pyramids and Sphinx.

We actually arrived back at the ship well before the ship’s tours.

We have just booked 2 tours with Ramses for November and they have replied promptly answering all our questions. Really looking forward to our tours. I also asked for Karim as our guide as he has had lots of recommendations on these boards.