courtneyMC

Hope this is an easy question- I'm going with a group so we're talking about getting 2 or 3 beach beds for our group.  We would want the beds for our group to be together- next to one another- so our group can hang out together.  How do we make this happen?

I know we reserve a bed in advance.  How do they assign the beach beds- is it first come first served so we can just find a couple open ones next to each other that morning or is there a process to select the bed in advance?    I've done a cabana before and I know with those you reserved a specific one at some point in advance.  If the beds are the same way, would we want one person to reserve all the beds so they can then pick available beds that are next to one another?

thanks!

Are the menus the same in both main dining restaurants each night or is there a reason to book one dining room over the other?  We're doing a 2 week cruise on the Star and it's almost time to book dining.  We plan to try out all the specialty restaurants, but I'd also like to book a set time the other nights just so we have it.  that's why I was wondering if there's a difference or we should just pick the time we want and the menu will be the same in both main dining rooms. 

any other tips on dining on the Star?

thanks!

Hello,

Hoping someone can help me out.  we are looking at a Western Med itinerary for the summer.  Ports include Naples, where we'd want to do Pompeii, Rome, but I know Rome isn't actually the port city, and Florence- same thing. 

The problem is my daughter gets motion sick on long bus rides... we would not want to do a cruise that involved several days of long bus rides to and from the sites we want to see.  Up to an hour, hour and a half tops would be my hope.  But I just don't have a clue and when I look at listed excursions it says things like 'ride the motor coach to Rome' but not how long the ride is.

Can anyone help me out with this- are these ports the type where to get to anything we'd really want to do we'd need to be willing to do bus tours with fairly long travel times?   The other ports are Cannes and Palma Majorca so if you happen to know about those even though this board is Italy I'd appreciate the insight there as well!

Also- traveling with my mom who is in her 70s so long walks to and from train stations to do things on our own aren't an option.  we could possibly do private tours but the drive time is an issue no matter how we get there.

thanks in advance!

Hello,

Just booked for next summer with all the free at sea offers.  Now there are upgrade offers to the free ones.  the internet deal looks ok- offering the premium internet for the non-upgrade price of the regular internet, and around $70 off the regular package  - but I don't really want to pay now when I just put down the deposit on a suite.  do they ever offer any better deals than that on internet?  I know RCCL will put them on sale occasionally. 

Can I wait to purchase internet using this upgrade offer until a little closer to the cruise? 

thanks!

6 hours ago, John Bull said:

For the vast majority of ships, unassisted disembarkation at Southampton starts around 7 am, with regular disembarkation starting at 7.30.

 

By road, Heathrow airport is a bare minimum 90 minutes on sundays & most saturdays, up to 2 or 2.5 hours on weekdays.

A pre-booked car will cost somewhere south of £100

A bus (ship's transfers or National Express) takes mebbe 15 minutes longer, but  you need to add a significant amount of time before your journey starts - the first ship's transfer buses depart about 8 - 8.30 am, for National Express you need a short taxi hop to Southampton coach station and are also limited by the bus' infrequent departure times.

There's no sensible rail alternative to Heathrow.

 

By road Gatwick is something under 2hrs on sundays & most saturdays, 2.5 to 3 hrs on a busy weekday.

A pre-booked car will cst somewhere north of £100.

Buses take about the same time but again limited by departure times.

Except on sundays there's a direct hourly train, takes about 2 hrs & the station is in the airport.  Again needs a taxi hop at Southampton,  &  again limited by the train departure times. On sundays it's a convoluted journey with changes of train, not sensible..

 

Ships offer their transfer buses for both airports. Some folk prefer the simplicity of this, but it's not the way to go if time is short, and  it's poor value (though Princess' $59 is actually much cheaper than RCI, Celebrity or Cunard).

 

Airports suggest arriving 3 hours before flight time - that's a very belt-and-braces approach, 2 hours in enough.

 

So the earliest flight I'd advise for Heathrow is around 11am on saturdays & sundays and 11.30  on weekdays.

For Gatwick flights the earliest I'd advise is 11.30 on sat / sun and 12.15 for weekdays.

Those times provided that you disembark unassisted at 7 am, with a private transfer car booked for 7.15.

Those times allow only a little wiggle-room - IMHO worth the small risk for the only flight of the day, but much less stressful to take a later flight if available. A later flight also opens the prospects of a more leisurely disembarkation and cheaper public transport to the airport.

 

A very few trans-Atlantic flights arrive at London's City Airport.

Transfers to / from there will take a lot longer

 

And do check your earliest disembarkation time with your cruise line before booking air - but if they say something like 5 am they're wrong, because that's about the time ships sail in 

 

BTW - there's little difference in the ease and cost of travelling between Southampton (or central London) and Heathrow or Gatwick.  So I suggest you don't worry which airport, concentrate instead on air fares and convenience from your own airport.

 

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en

 

JB 

thank you SO much, this is exactly the kind of info I need!  We'll be doing NCL but not til next summer so lots of time- more trying to plan where we should look for flights if that mattered (sounds like it doesn't) and how much to budget for transfers.  If we'd done NCL air they were adding $130 usd/pp. 

When you say the private car is upwards of 100Pounds, is that per person or for the car- we will have 3 people. 

thanks for your help!

Hi,

Looking at a 14 night Northern Europe cruise for next summer.  they're offering free at sea and Specialty Dining is one of the options.  How do we see how many nights that would be?  trying to compare offers and see what we'd benefit from the most.

Also, free WIFI, how does the WIFI pricing on NCL?  we'll have 3 people- I assume the free wifi would only cover two of us?  how do they price it - I'm used to RCCL with the pricing being based on per device/per day.  does NCL offer similar packages or is it by minute or mB or something (please say no!!!)

thanks,

how much was your airport ride not thru the cruiseline?  was that semi recent or a long time ago? thanks! 

Perfect, thank you!  Haven't booked anything yet - but looking into it and wondering if we'd need to stay over an extra night on both ends or whatever due to the distance to the port.

Hi,

I know there is more than one airport in London, I have no idea which airport we'd be using...  But can anyone give me some guidance as to timing for a flight home to the US after docking in Southampton?   I couldn't find a good way to search for this topic although I imagine it's been addressed before.   What is the earliest flight time you'd suggest even considering, and from which airport? 

thank you!

Thanks for the in depth thoughts.  She is pretty happy with a book and never does teen clubs on bigger ships.  On a previous European trip on Princess we were all so tired it didn’t matter if anything was going on onboard in the evenings, we skipped it.

I see that Viking is 18 and up to sail with them.  Has anyone taken an 18/19 year old on a Viking cruise, and what was your experience?   How about AMA? My mom, daughter, and I are looking at a river cruise and Viking has the itinerary that best meets our needs.  AMA has one possible trip.  I know she won’t have other people her age to hang out with but that’s fine.

on another note, does anyone know AMA’s drinking age? I didn’t see it posted on their website.

Does Viking enforce the 21+ policy even at dinner for a glass of wine while in Europe?  Other lines let 18 year olds drink if it’s a non-US based itinerary.  I know it’s trivial but she was looking forward to being legal on a European itinerary. 

Thanks!

thanks!

Just wondering what is a good price to pre-order the refreshment (non-alcoholic) drink package?  I know the prices tend to change, so just curious what a 'great' price per day would be so I know when to snap up the deal.

currently the deal offered is $20/day for a 5 night on majesty.  is that a good deal or a pretty typical price?

thank you!

just took a quick look at the RCCL excursion to Tropicana and it shows an adult and child price, both the same, but in the fine print details it says 18 and over.  Not sure if that's a restriction or an age appropriate recommendation?  My daughter will be 4 months shy of 18 when we go.  Will she be able to attend?  Seems odd that they'd even list a child price if they're going to restrict it to adults.

thanks!

thank you for clarifying!

Sorry if this has been asked before but I didn’t see it in the ways I searched. Going on Majesty of the seas Royal Caribbean.

if we do ship excursions, do they include a visa or do we also need to get the visa separately?  I’ve seen you can get a visa through RCCL, and that’s what we’d do, but I wanted to be sure we need to do that if the only tours we would do are through the ship.

when we were in St. Petersburg, Russia the tours included the paperwork needed to leave the ship so I wanted to make sure.  I don’t want to pay for something we don’t need, but more importantly don’t want to miss something we do need to do!

thank you, and sorry if this is answered already.

Looking at the forward facing suites on the NCL Sun.  On the deck plans it looks like there are 3 different layouts/room shapes.  I've found a few old you tube room tours but nothing since dry dock in 2018.  Just wondering if anyone has more recent pictures of those rooms?  it's hard to tell which one is larger or if any has a slightly better layout or anything?  the rooms 9001 and 9201 look like the balcony is bigger/room smaller and 9002/9202 the opposite, maybe a little larger room/smaller balcony?  9003/9203 maybe a little bigger but the balcony might be shaded...

any input?  thanks!

thank you! that's what I was hoping. with a weekend cruise and no sea days it's less expensive to use my $10/day international plan from ATT than to get an internet package from the ship. My plan includes the Bahamas in that pricing, but wasn't sure if there would be coverage at the smaller island.

Well Dang! You are correct... On the Explore and Plan page the only offer is for the 100 minute package BUT if you look under gifts you have other options. Makes you wonder why they "hide it".

I tried that and still the only internet that shows up is the 100 minutes! Guess I have to call them and see what's going on. At least I have hope if some of you have been able to order the unlimited package. thanks~

is there cell service on the island? Not from the ship but actual Bahamas cell service so I could use my international plan which is much cheaper than the ship based cell service.

Thanks!

You can buy an unlimited package for the full cruise. They will probably offer a social media, internet, and streaming option.

There is nothing like that offered for pre-purchase. They list one option-100 min for around $63

If they have unlimited on that ship, shouldn’t I be able to buy in advance for the discount?

Hello,

Sorry if this is posted somewhere, my search didn't find anything specific to the sun about this.

Just booked kind of last minute for a May cruise on the Sun. the only internet package I see in the pre-planning information is per-minute. I saw the links to the NCL internet packages and those show that there are per day pacakges as well- but that's not showing up.

does anyone know, is the only thing available on the Sun the per-minute packages??? If not, any idea how/when I can book the other package? I just want the simple no streaming $13/day or whatever they showed on the website.

thanks!

Price on board for Stream is $20 and Surf is $16. Surf is not usually offered pre cruise any more.

So if my math is right- if I buy surf only on-board with my 15% emerald discount it will be about $13.60 for one device.

Any idea how much it is on-board for two devices? If all we need is the surf package it sounds like it might be cheaper to wait and get surf only on-board once the Emerald discount is factored in??

thank you!

Just booked a 3 day on Majesty in the spring. was looking at internet packages and the only thing I see as 'choice' is how many devices you want to use. I thought you could do a less expensive 'surf only' package- but that doesn't seem to be an option.

pricing is 14.39/day 1 device, 25.58/day 2 devices, 35.97/day 3 devices. that's listed as 'surf plus stream'

I have no idea if that's a deal/sale or what...so I'm not sure when the best time to buy is. If that's regular pricing there's no need to buy early.

I'm emerald, so I assume there is still some discount if I wait to buy on board, but I can't figure out what on-board pricing would be to compare if this is a deal or not?

thank you!

We have never cruised Princess before so I'm looking for menus for the Regal Princess for the 11 night Baltic itinerary.

Is there a set of fleet-wide menus somewhere or do we need ship specific ones? Either way can someone point me to a link that has 11 night MDR menus?

Thank you!