cruisinqt

We are staying 4 days in Spain before our transatlantic repositioning cruise out of Barcelona. We are staying two nights in Madrid then two nights in Barcelona with a train ride in between. Does anyone have Madrid hotel recommendations? I’m not even sure what area is the best to stay in. I’ve booked Hotel Jazz for our Barcelona stay (it had tons of good reviews here) but there’s not many recommendations here on CC for Madrid (that I can find anyways.) I haven’t booked the train ride between the two stays either so any help there would be greatly appreciated too.

That sounds very similar to what we are doing in Seydisfjordur. We booked a premium package with locker rooms, a sauna, a cool mist shower, bath robes, a free hot tea bar, and there’s even a swim up bar. I love doing things like that.

Thanks for the info. We booked the Golden Circle tour in Reykjavik and decided to do the geothermal baths in Seydisfjordur at Vok baths instead. But we will be in Reykjavik for 14 hours so it’s nice to know about Sky Lagoon if we decide we want to hit a geothermal bath that evening.

I just order the bottled water online, it’s $9.95 for a 12 pack and will be waiting for you in your cabin. Each person in your party can bring a 12 pack of canned drinks. It can’t be in your checked luggage it has to be with you as you board. You can also bring more 12 packs of soda on board at each port.

Thanks I’ll check him out.

I booked with Saga Travel for our stops in Reykjavik and Akurreyri. They have some of the best prices out there. And they have really good reviews too. Our cruise lines tour is the exact same itinerary but double the price. I’ve gotten to where I really dislike booking with the cruise line. It’s so crowded and you’re always waiting on someone that’s wandered off and can’t be found. I can’t wait to see Iceland

We live in the countryside on a couple of acres in a small town so that sounds wonderful to me. I figured seeing various animals along mostly deserted roads would be the case in Seydisfjordur and Grundarfjordur (our other ports) since they are so small. But with Reykjavik being much bigger and being the capital I figured there would be a lot more traffic to deal with initially right there in the city. Being from the countryside I hate big city traffic, especially if it’s in a foreign country with different traffic laws. But driving in the rural areas of Iceland sounds wonderful.

Oh my Ottawa has extremely cold winters. I don’t blame you I’d do the same thing. October through December it’s usually in the 50’s-70’s. January and February is our winter with a few cold snaps then it’s back to the 50’s-70’s until June when summer hits. We do have incredibly mild winters. It was in the 80’s today. Austin is a great place to live with lots of growth and job opportunities. It’s a couple of hours from where I live. I’m 30 minutes south of Fort Worth.

Yeah it was a real bummer. People around here are pretty sore about it.

I looked through my notes (yes I keep notes when I’m planning something like this) and I did look into getting a rental car in Seydisfjordur. I just didn’t like the tours offered they sounded boring and I really wanted to go to the Vok geothermal hot baths in Egilsstadir which is a 30 minute drive away. It has a swim up bar in the pools, a free hot tea bar, a sauna, and a really nice restaurant. But the only bus going that way left before we arrived and a taxi was super expensive. So I looked into car rentals but they aren’t available in Seydisfjordur. Then I found a private driver that will drive us round trip for $163 (that’s for a total of 4 people.) All we had to do was book Vok baths ourselves which was very inexpensive. He told me that there aren’t any rental cars in the smaller ports but it’s easy to get one in Reykjavik. Good luck.

I never looked into it because I read some posts about it being a complicated and time consuming process in Iceland. But since we are in Reykjavik for 14 hours it might be worth it there. I just didn’t want to mess with traffic in a large city in a foreign country.

Reykjavik and Akurreyri are with Saga Travel which uses mini buses that carry no more than 15 passengers. The reviews often say there were only 8-10 people in their groups. With Grundarfjordur I used Sandra’s Tours which uses the large tour buses with reclining seats and a toilet. It’s a long tour with lots of long distance traveling so I think that’s why it’s a bigger group. I’m not crazy about big groups but there’s not a lot of local cruise tours to choose from and this bus sounds pretty nice.

Finding tours in Ireland and Scotland were easy since the ports are large cities with a big tourist industry and lots of cruise ships visiting. But Iceland was challenging. Reykjavik was easy since it’s the capital and a very large city. But the other 3 ports are small with only one or two small cruise ships visiting occasionally so they mostly cater to land based vacationers who will be there for a few days. So most of the tours I found online were very lengthy with no pickups at the port mentioned. I did finally get some amazing tours booked for decent prices though. Here’s what I booked all prices are for four adults: Dublin- Boyne Valley Tours. A private tour with just our family where we choose where to go for a whole day for $550 Belfast- Giants Causeway Tour with Odyssey Coach Tours for $238 GBP Reykjavik- Golden Circle Tour with Saga Travel for 79,600 ISK which is $580 USD Grundarfjordur- National Park, volcano, & waterfall tour with Sandra’s Cruise Tours for $476 Akurreyri- Lake Mayvatn Tour with Saga Travel for 79,600 ISK which is $580 USD Seydisfjordur- We booked a private taxi with Asgrim’s taxi’s to Vok geothermal baths for 150 Euros or $163 USD Invergordon- Dunsrobin Castle & Distillery Tour with Thistle Excursions for 500 GBP or $619 USD All of these have very good reviews online and have good ratings with TripAdvisor

I’ll do that thanks for the information it helps a lot.

That’s good to know because I was contemplating some longer sailings with them. On the longer journeys you need extra stuff to make those extra sea days more fun so I’ll probably stick to cruise lines that do more things. Lectures are interesting but I really like the throwback days and dance classes. My favorites were the 1950 throwback day and the 1987 throwback day. It was fun learning the jitterbug and the Charleston too.

I’ve had total knee replacement surgery so I doubt I’d be able to hop some fences but my daughters love history and would jump at the chance to do so (pun intended lol.) 😆 Thanks for the info.

I’m looking at a private tour that’s more personalized so I can request places to go to. I’ll look into those places I appreciate the suggestion.

I guess that’s why most of the tours go there instead of Boyne Valley. I’m glad I researched it ahead of time thanks for your input.

Hmm this worries me because my husband is 6’6” and has a bad back. I watched the video and the inside of the tomb didn’t look near as fabulous as I thought it would. I imagined all of these tunnels, tombs and carvings on the wall. It’s still very cool though. I wonder if my husband could get through there. If you were visiting Dublin again and had to choose only one tour which would you choose to go on?

It’s not on the room service menu. But you can order from the pizza place or any of the restaurants and have food and alcohol delivered to your cabin. It goes onto your bill as a room service charge since it’s delivered to your cabin so the casino comps it if your offer includes room service. Or at least they comped it for us.

We are looking for a tour in Dublin and came across a tour going to Boyne Valley (Bru Na Boinne). Most tours go to Wicklow and Glendalough (along with Sally Gap and Lough Tay) and that area does sound interesting. But now that I’m reading about the tombs in the Boyne Valley area I’m more inclined to do a tour going there. It sounds like such a unique experience and I love historical sites. It includes a visit to Hill of Slane and Hill of Tara and possibly Trim or Slane castle and some Abbey’s too. Can you really go inside of the structure where the tombs are? Is it as interesting as it looks? Or is the Wicklow/Glendalough tour a more interesting area to visit?

I’ve been on several Elite cruises and I really like them. They will send you an email about 3 weeks before your cruise. There’s a link so you can arrange for free parking or car service to and from the cruise. It’s in a nice luxury sedan or SUV. It can be from anywhere not just the airport so we usually book ours from the hotel to the port pre cruise then from the port to the airport post cruise. You also select your choice of alcohol and mixers to be in your cabin. You can choose a free excursion from the list or use the $300 elsewhere like the spa. They have several cash giveaways at the Elite party and everyone gets an Elite lanyard. In the casino they have lots of cash giveaways for Elite cruisers too. You’ll get a big fruit basket with cheese and crackers it’s the $50 one in the fun shops. They give you several gifts and more bottles of wine mid week. The free room service is really good you can order anything steaks, bottles of wine, dessert etc. We usually order a couple 12 packs of soda to keep in our fridge. The free drinks anywhere is really nice on the ships with the Shake Spot. Their spiked milkshakes are amazing, especially the white chocolate truffle. If we see an Elite cruise we usually try to book it because we love being pampered.

It’s the same situation for me. I booked an Alaskan cruise almost a year ago with Royal and I just checked the price and it’s more than doubled for me too. Cruise prices are crazy right now

I never thought of it that way but you’re probably right it makes sense.

I think Carnival has changed their strategy since the pandemic. All of the cruise lines, having been shutdown for 2 years, are hurting pretty bad financially so they’re looking to make up for all of their losses as quickly as possible. Carnival seems to be trying to do so by appealing to their main moneymakers, the gamblers, so they’ve revamped their casino players program. They are trying to get as many gamblers as they can on the cruises because they spend way more money than other regular guests. I’m not a huge gambler but I’ve been getting some insane offers with lots of very cheap last minute cruises. I used to never get offers like this because I’m not a whale I’m more of a guppy lol. I bet the minimum and limit my spending. But even nobody’s like me are getting great offers so I think Carnival is betting on the gamblers to help them get back on track financially. And they’re saving their last minute cheap cruises for gamblers as a perk for them so maybe there won’t be cheap last minute cruises for non gamblers anymore.