MikeD1000

Yes, August - sorry

One  month looks rather like another these days.

Thanks, Travel Cat.   I too think it is unlikely that Splendor will get to Europe this year, especially as it is heading away from the Panama Canal.

What a pity, though, that Regent is still offering cruises in July, and expecting us to pay the rest of the price for our cruise in October when they know, and we strongly suspect, that there is little chance of our cruise taking place.  If we don't pay, we lose the deposit of over £5K, and if we do pay it could be 2021 before we see our refund.

Not good customer service, Regent.

Meanwhile we are waiting for news of Splendor.  July now cancelled, and Splendor is still on the west coast of Mexico.  Is she really going to come to Europe just for August to November?  We have a large deposit and it looks as if we pay the rest and hope.  We wish Regent would be more upfront about their intentions.

Thanks to Flossie009 and mrlevin.

We're hanging in there hoping for Europe to open up .  Regent are still advertising July in the Med, but it's going to be tight.  We're watching with interest.

Thanks to Flossie009 and mrlevin.

We're hanging in there hoping for Europe to open up .  Regent are still advertising July in the Med, but it's going to be tight.  We're watching with interest.

We are still very interested in Splendor, and whether it is likely that she will come to Europe at all this year.  Splendor is heading to Puerto Vallarta.  Does anyone know why she would be heading there?  

Many thanks to all of you for this detailed info on where ships are.

We have a cruise booked in October from Istanbul to Venice  on Splendor  (having already had a May cruise cancelled).  We would dearly love to be able to do this one. 

Splendor is currently taking bookings from 3 July in the Med.  This seems rather late to arrive for the European market, and it is not obvious that they will be able to get a crew together in time to cross the Atlantic by July.  Unfortunately we are supposed to pay the rest of the cruise by the end of May, probably before Regent choose to tell us they have cancelled after all. 

We are still waiting for a refund from Oceania.

Any further inside news would be really helpful.

Many thanks from us too.  Anne has watched the thread avidly, and can't wait until we join Splendor in October.  We have so enjoyed reading all your reports.

Mike

Most grateful, and we are so enjoying your blog.

We are hoping to be on Odyssey in 12 month's time for a pre-Christmas cruise Barbados to Barbados.  We haven't been on Odyssey before so news is most welcome.  I guess nothing is perfect but hope they dealt well with your undercooked meat.

We're hoping for better seas, as I think (they never tell you in advance, do they?) we have a few tender ports.

Hope the rest goes well.

Mike and Anne

Thanks to all of you who replied. Encouraging about the staff area, a little less so about the adjoining room. We'll take up the advice to have a chat with our neighbours.

Mike

:)

We have just been allocated from guarantee V3 to suite 747 and it appears to be next to a void area which is possibly the staff staircase. Does anyone know if this is likely to be noisy? Other suites similarly placed are 745, 645, 643, 841, 843. We don't want to argue too much as it is a midship suite.

It also says in the brochure that we can be a connected cabin to 749. Does having a door to the other cabin affect facilities?

Mike

We are first-timers on Seabourn. Travelling on 6 October on Encore.

If anyone still has a referral, please contact on mikeanne.dixon@ntlworld.com

Loving the idea of the Seven Seas Terminator. But don't think it will make it. How about the Seven Seas Traveler. After all we're all traveling the world.

Just to prolong the agony, that would be "Traveller" in British English.

Not yet tried Explorer. We are due out of Southampton in September. It's good to hear about restaurants, elevators and suites. We are in F2 and at the bow end so there seem to be some wins.

Thanks to HDS and TravelerThom for the helpful comments. I agree about the mushroom allusion, although I don't think it's just Viking. Hopefully there won't be too much water either, but at least we'll be warned; I had looked at that official site, thanks - mentioned in another thread.

We were on the Douro a couple of years ago, when Viking were about to launch a new ship. We could see no mention on the Viking site until the week before we travelled, which had us wondering if it existed. Then the cruise ahead of ours did almost the whole journey by bus, some very long trips. Ours turned out to be fine because the Captain hadn't been able to get down to Porto, through the lowest lock, so he was moored above the problem. We did the whole cruise in a different order, and it was a superb trip.

Mike

We are due to sail with Viking on the Elbe in mid-March. It may be that at that time of year there is enough water for ships to sail the whole journey, but if they can't I suspect we may get little notice of the change. Has anyone sailed at this time of year?

Many people have written about having to do long coach journeys because there is too little water to sail the whole way, and sometimes there has been no sailing at all. May I ask where the ships are usually berthed, and how long the coach journeys are from Prague and Berlin? Is it to one ship at a mid-point, such as Dresden, or is there a ship at each end with coach journeys to all the towns en route?

Thanks for all who have contributed - especially knowing the usual price of a glass, which cruise lines are bad at telling you.

At least one of the packages has always seemed a good way to use on-board credit, but three more questions:

How do waiters and bar staff know you are on a package? If you have to flash your room card and they have to check it each time, isn't it going to slow things down?

Is there a wine list? I assume that on the premium package, at least, you can choose which wine you have with a meal, which champagne before the meal.

And how does a mixed table manage if couples are on different packages?

Anne and I are cruising in September. Interesting to read the whole thread and hear about the early problems. It would be good to hear more about this year. Are all the excursions worth it? Is the dinner at the chateau still as good as it appears to have been last year?

We have done one Viking cruise last year on the Douro. We did that in April when the water was high and some bridges and locks impassable the week before. We started in a different port, but the captain and brilliant crew managed to change the order of ports so that we didn't miss anything, or have any extra coach journeys - brilliant.

We have just left Antaliya on the way to Rhodes. We had intended to do a city visit, but we arrived at the old town to be greeted by rain, and decided to stay on the shuttle bus and return to the ship, bathed in sunshine. We once did an archaeological tour of Turkey and have seen most of the Roman sites in this area, including Ephesus. We will walk off in kusadasi, sample coffee in the Caravanserais (definitely not to be missed) and have a look at the shops selling what they describe as genuine fake watches.

Rhodes tomorrow, which we have also visited before. We are on a tour to Lindos, which is new to us. Hope everyone enjoys the walk through the old town.

On another tack, we are booked on an Oceania cruise around Britain next summer. Can anyone offer advice about drinks packages? Our taste is mainly wine or beer with meals plus some pre-prandials, but not much in the way of spurits. How much is a bottle of wine?

If Rich is on for it we fancy tomorrow's name tha tune about film music.

Mike

Cirque is brilliant. Not quite my era either, but I can appreciate the skill involved. Quality of singing and dancing is outstanding, and I am glad there i still another performance to come.

Anne and I took a brief trip to Limasol but it was uncomfortably hot. As it happened some shops closed until 4 pm, and what was open was OK but no more. We'll do the same in Antalya tomorrow. We visited most of the incredible Roman sites several years ago.

We went to the "Name that tune" tonight after the show, and Rich got us to equal third place, so 4 more points to Shaunee.

Rachael I do so agree about how dirty the city of Cair is.. Saw the funniest sight while people watching from the bus. In the backseat of the family car was a live sheep!

 

Today in Alexandria a cow carcass being hosed down in the street. That's Egyptian water too!

 

Mike

TravelCat wasn't the only couple not to take the long trip to Cairo and other places. Anne and I had originally booked the carriage tour, but decided in the end to stay on board. We ventured to the bazaar on the quayside, but nothing worth buying.

Mariner was pretty quiet until the Cairo returners arrived. We had booked Signatures for Anne's birthday. As she said, she never expected to spend her xxth birthday in Port Said. Great experience again, with a special 'happy birthday' from the waiters. If any of you were around she has a beautiful necklace from the brilliant Austrian jeweller on board. And for whoever posted this a couple of days ago, my third helping of escargots!

I guess the late departure will make little difference to our arrival in Alexandria. We are booked on one of the short tours and hope to see some of the Roman remains there.

Jamie's show tonight was pretty empty, probably because people were so late back from the tours. We discovered he comes from the next village to the one I was born in, and is a good friend of Tony Christie (The way to Amarillo).

It's now Sunday, so yesterday we also took a trip to Jerusalem. We had a rather younger guide than other posters, Eyal, who was excellent, brilliant English, and a fun approach. Our trip didn't involve as much walking, so we didn't traverse the whole of the old city. We had some great views from different places around the city, and our walk to the Western Wall was only through the nearest gate. The Wall really is as amazing as everyone says, and it's quite a surprise that no one seems to mind Gentiles being at the wall. This is one of the more amazing things about Israel - the tolerance shown to us and each other.

On the other hand, they don't want to talk about the Palestinian areas. We came back to Haifa on a road that skirted the wall, but it wasn't possible to get an answer, even when there was a checkpoint on the road we were on. It is a lovely country, the people are great, but there is a feeling of unease beneath it all.

Back on the ship, we went to the evening show by Seana Lee, the resident pianist in the Observation lounge pre-dinner. Apparently she was asked only a voyage or so ago if she'd like to do a cabaret spot, and she agreed. She is really good and engaged with the rather small audience really well, especially the men near the front. The old handshake or a word, even a kiss on the top of the head - unfortunately I still have to much hair for that.

We had also been at Jamie's show the night before. It's a great act and his voice is really good. He comes from England, and it sounded as if he might come from Yorkshire, as we all like to talk about it when we do. And a boy chorister at King's College, Cambridge too.

Tonight is the second show by the team and we are very much looking forward to it.

We met Mr and Mrs Rumor at the Backstage Show this morning, and knew that once I saw Mr taking notes I'd be in trouble for not posting since we left home.

So here it is from Istanbul onwards.

The Intercontinental Ceylan was very comfortable. We went for a short walk the next morning around Taksim Square, but there isn't a lot to see. It is very much work in process, with a lot of repaving, presumably to replace what was taken up and thrown around in the protests last year.

We had dinner in the Safran restaurant in the hotel. Views to die for, and excellent meal and wine, and perfect service - oh, and a little birthday cake with a sparkler and candles.

We had decided not to take the tour of Istanbul, as we had seen most of the places they were visiting on our earlier visits. We had thought of taking a taxi to the port, but the local rep said "why would you want to?" so we took the Regent bus. In fact it left earlier than scheduled, and we were on board not much after 12.30.

One tip for future travellers is that when we met the Maitre D to ask if we could have an extra dinner in Signatures he said that there are always vacancies on the first night. As others have posted, it was a very good meal, and we are so looking forward to our next visit on Monday (Anne's birthday).

it was great to meet the other Posters yesterday and to be able to put faces and real names to those we have met only on line.

We enjoyed last night's show too. Very skilful dancing and singing and good music from the band. That made meeting the artists this morning even more special.

We are in our second day at sea. Yesterday there was a bit of a swell, but today is very smooth. We mare only making 14 knots, presumably to make up for our missed port of call at Lesbos.

Now to pore over the details of how to get from Mariner to the buses tomorrow on the trip to Jerusalem. We have never been to Israel before and are very much looking forward to it.

Thanks, Rich, for the weather forecasts.

Thursday @ 11 sounds good for us too. Look forward to meeting you all.

Anne & I happy to meet and greet. "Friends of ... ?"

We currently have the Port Said carriage ride, but may change our minds. We only have one trip in Haifa - Jerusalem first day.