cruisinqt

Cucina Del Capitano costs extra but on the Excel class ships it’s free.

We’ve done AT&T’s international day pass while in both England and Spain and loved it. You can’t beat $10 a day for unlimited use of your phone. And every time we were in port on our cruise we had great internet through that plan. But we haven’t tried AT&T’s cruise ship plan. Have you tried it before? Is it good? I’m wondering how well the speeds are.

It wasn’t the best I’ve ever had but it wasn’t the worst either, overall I’d say it was in the middle. It was good enough that I’d get it again. They had sausage, bacon, eggs, bread, bagels, croissants, muffins, cereal, yogurt, lunch meats (ham & turkey), sliced cheese, and several juices. I know there was more but that’s all I can recall right now. I made a bacon turkey Swiss breakfast sandwich on croissant that was pretty good. My husband liked it as well because the eggs were real (not fake) and everything had seasoning.

Personally I love the makeup/vanity area by the bathroom. My husband loves the living room with the curtain that separates things so his late night tv watching or gaming doesn’t disturb me. We both love the larger balcony and bigger bathroom.

I just wanted to thank everyone here that recommended staying at Hotel Jazz in Barcelona. We are currently staying there and are quite impressed. It’s not very expensive and the location is perfect. We are about a 5 minute walk to La Catalunya and 7 minutes from Las Ramblas where all of the restaurants and shopping is. You can tell they’re the main hot spots to hang out at. The restaurant next door, Ramen Kasa, has some of the best ramen I’ve ever had. And there are amazing tapas bars and little grocery stores all over. And it’s just a 10 minute drive to the pier. The hotel itself is very nice with an amazing rooftop pool with beautiful views of the city. So thanks again for all of the recommendations, we are really enjoying our stay here. If anyone has any questions about the area feel free to ask.

Thanks for the heads up on the ferry situation and the restaurant recommendations. We will just make a day of it in Hamilton.

Sorry I forgot this thread was specifically about Bermuda. I was thinking about our hotel in Barcelona that has a rooftop bar and pool only accessible to guests.

I would imagine any bar or restaurant in a hotel that’s on the ground floor is open for business to anyone that walks in. But for those that are on upper floors (or like the hotel I’m staying at that has a rooftop bar) you may need a hotel room card to use to access the elevator to go upstairs. Lots of hotel elevators need room cards to work nowadays. If you call in advance or email them in advance you could probably find out.

Yeah they expect a tip everywhere its really frustrating

Carnival’s website was down over the weekend while they upgraded it. Normally it works really well and is much more user friendly than other cruise lines websites. I think they’re still working out the glitches though. Hang in there it should be resolved pretty quickly.

We just got back from a 16 day London trip and I never thought to look and see if we were charged in euros or dollars. I bet we got charged in dollars but never knew it. I also got a Travelon bag with locking zippers and slash proof fabric. I saw a lot of them in Europe. I think it’s a good idea if you plan on traveling abroad a lot which is what we’re doing now that we’re retired.

We will be heading to Barcelona in a few weeks. I’d heard about the pickpockets and all of the games they try to get you into. I knew to avoid those things but I hadn’t heard about the flowers or the stain. We will definitely be wary of people standing too close to us. And we planned on using taxis or Uber a lot so the tip on being sure they charge you in euros is something I’d never thought about. Thanks for the heads up.

The cruise was absolutely amazing! As far as debarkation goes, this is the earliest and quickest I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been cruising over 20 years). But I’d heard from cruisers on the previous trip that embarkation and debarkation is very quick and smooth and to expect to be off very early on debarkation day so I was prepared. We docked at 5:00 am, self assist started at 5:30, and by 6:30 the many of the regular non self assist cruisers had already gotten off of the ship. We left our cabin at 6:30 and by 6:45 we were off of the ship. We literally just walked right off, there were almost no crowds inside the ship (they were all outside waiting for their rides.) I heard the ship was cleared by 8:00 am. We had blackberry car service booked for 7:00 am and we were on the road at 7:05 am. The drive time from the port to Heathrow is 1 hour 45 minutes but traffic can have a big effect on that time. We arrived at Heathrow at 9:15 and this was with extremely heavy traffic due to a train strike. Everyone that had booked the train was scrambling to get a ride and the traffic was crazy bad. Our flight was at 2:05 so even though there was tons of traffic we still had tons of time to chill in the airport. A 12:50 flight is very doable. Of course there’s always the possibility of bad weather or some other problems delaying the ship’s arrival but that’s a rare occurrence so I wouldn’t worry about it. If you have any other questions just ask away.

Those are great suggestions thanks.

We are very interested in the forts so combining a fort along with the beach and a nice meal is a great idea, thanks.

Sorry about the lack of info. We will be arriving on the Carnival Freedom on a 14 day transatlantic journey from Barcelona to Orlando. We are from Texas so while the 70-80’s daily temperatures will be welcomed, any water temps below 80 degrees is intolerable for us. But exploring the town sounds fun so we are fine with that. Our ship is 110,000 gross tons so I’m assuming we will be docking at the Royal Naval Dockyard. So we will either go to Hamilton or St George’s via ferry then. Thanks for the info I appreciate it. And I’ll definitely be keeping that list of restaurants with me.

This is our first visit to Bermuda. Since we are visiting in October the water will be too cold so beaches are out. I’ve had total knee replacement surgery so hiking or strenuous activities isn’t a good idea either. So we were thinking of walking around the downtown area to shop and sightsee a bit. Then we wanted to try a local restaurant with some authentic food, we are foodies. Is the walk into town from the cruise ship a short distance? Or do we need to get a taxi? Any recommendations on things to do while in town or for good restaurants would be appreciated.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. We are back home after 16 days in Europe and the jet lag hit us hard. Here’s his info: Email: bigjohn@silverservice.ie Phone: +353 87 221 6900

I just wanted to share what a great time we had in Dublin and what our experience was like for all of you first timers out there. This was our first time to Dublin and we didn’t know what to expect. There are taxis lined up in port but you can easily walk into town. The city has lots to do and see. We walked to a nice little cafe called Insomnia that had great coffee and scones. That’s where our driver Big John met us. He was 6’8” and the funniest most down to earth person I’ve ever met. With his big hearty laughs and corny Irish jokes we had a blast. He drove us all over in his large van and stopped whenever and wherever we wanted to. For $550 for 4 adults that was a bargain compared to the cruise lines tour prices that started at a minimum of $200 pp. He took us to Powerscourt Gardens, the mountains in Wicklow, Martello Tower, Lough Tay, Millionaire's View, we saw Enya’s home, Glendalough Tower with the monastery, and Enniskerry. We had great fish and chips at a nice Irish pub along with some amazing local beer. We saw all of the sights and it was so nice to have the entire van to ourselves to do whatever we wanted to. Big John has lived there all of his life and he has so much knowledge of the area which made the trip so much more interesting. Big John mainly arranges multiple day trips for people where he arranges their hotel stays at different cities and meets them at the airport then takes them all over Ireland. He had a 5 day trip for a large family he had just finished and after us he had an 11 day trip planned with another family. But in between when he has days open he takes cruisers out sightseeing for the day in Dublin. I’m so grateful he was able to fit us into his schedule because with over 20 years of cruising I can honestly say he’s the best guide we’ve ever had. If you have any other questions about Dublin feel free to ask.

Did it? I don’t remember doing it pre covid. But we cruise all of the time and to be honest it’s hard to remember details like that.

You arrive at your prearranged check in time which you choose online at Carnival.com 2 weeks prior to the cruise. It’s a new rule Carnival instituted after the pandemic. It helps a lot with the congestion and crowds at the cruise terminal.

I agree. All cruise lines prices have skyrocketed. That’s what happens when your business is shut down for a couple years. I’ve really enjoyed some of the improvements like adding Rudi’s Sea Grill, Shaq’s Chicken, Chibang, and Emeril’s. I’m eating jambalaya at Emeril’s as I write this. Which reminds me of another much needed improvement, WiFi. The Starlink wifi is so much better.

Normally check in for cruises is 14 days prior to the cruise. Platinum & Diamond guests can check in 2 days earlier (16 days prior to the cruise.)

Carnival doesn’t offer it as a paid for excursion. They only offer it as a perk for the casino guests. I emailed the hotel and they told me to just show up and ask for a day pass and that it was $68 pp. It was well worth that price.

We got there fairly early and stayed till 2 or 2:30 which left us an hour to shop back in port. Yes all beverages including alcoholic ones was included. Just be sure to eat something before you start drinking. They make those drinks very strong. There’s a sports bar and a big poolside bar to get drinks at.