jms

3 hours ago, beatnix said:

I never had to show up for immigration in Italy. 

This is in my experiance usual for Great Britan. 

beatnix - thank you for this info!! 

journeyazamara - Have a wonderful cruise!! We're going in July so I'm going to try to get answers this week and then book the flights and tour with the option of changing/cancelling the tour within 15 days of reserved date.

Happy to hear that early disembarking is available - never worried about it before, but we have a commitment 2 days after we get back home so we'd prefer to get back as early as we can. I just hope the luggage has already been shuffled into the terminal building. You're right about talking to guest relations onboard - they're very helpful - but if we can help it, we don't want to drag the bag with us from our stateroom. Some people can travel with carry-on only - but we aren't those people 🙂

Bon Voyage!!

(We're sailing on American Cruise Line's "Constitution" in May - never sailed with them before so looking forward to seeing New England in a different light.

journeyazamara - that you so much for this info. I haven't been able to speak with anyone who knows more than how to book a cruise for a few weeks because they're transferring everything over - moving away from Celebrity. Supposedly tomorrow I should be able to get through to someone.

However - the info you provided about early disembarkation (on the actual day) is just what I need. I thought there should be no reason to get a private transfer for the 4 of us since so many flights back to the Florida area leave very early.

I do have another question that I'm hoping you can answer. We're concerned about immigration/customs upon disembarking - if we get off the ship at 7AM!! A few questions actually:

1) Did Azamara retain the passports upon embarkation

2) Did they return the passports without individuals having to present themselves to immigration officers who sometimes board the ship on the 1st day in port (day before disembarking)?

I ask this because we want to do a private tour that will not return us to the ship until 4:30 in the afternoon and I'm concerned about "missing" getting the passport stamped and processed. Last November on Oceania, we had to present ourselves to officers day before disembarking in Southampton - in the show lounge.

Did you take any tours in Livorno or Venice? Interested in how they're handling these as there don't seem to be many in Venice that don't involve all day walking. Age constraints on a few of us dictate not going crazy on walking (especially in the hot sun). Looking forward to Azamara - haven't sailed her in quite some time!

Thank you for your response to my first post - and hopefully you can enlighten me as to procedure with immigration. (On some cruises, the ship hold the passports and you just walk off and pick up your luggage!). On that note - was your luggage in the port for your early fight???

Thanks again!

We are on Onward in July and want to find out if each passenger must process with immigration on the day of arrival (we are there overnight). We're trying to plan a private tour and have an early flight the next day - so we're concerned about timing the immigration process. Thanks in advance!!

We are overnight in Venice in July and we understand that Immigration will clear the ship upon our arrival the first morning. 

Do we need to present ourselves with passports for this process? We are trying to plan a private tour for that day and will have an early departure on Disembarkation day (which is the following day). Any help is greatly appreciated. The Ship - Azamara Onward - will be in Chioggia.

THANK YOU!!

Our ship - Azamara Onward - is in port overnight in Venice - July 19/20 2023.

There are only a few transatlantic flights which meet the 11:30AM requirement for the ship's transfer to the airport.

Does anyone know if it's possible to disembark the ship the night before (on July 19) so that we can find an airport hotel near VCE and take an early flight back home.

We need to be back home on the 20th.

Any help will be greatly appreciated concerning this issue. Thank you in advance. 

We are looking for a private driver to pick 4 of us up at the tender port in St Malo and do the one hour drive to Mt St Michel just to take some photos (too strenuous walking for our age group) and return to St Malo for a brief tour there. I can't seem to find anything close to this without spending the.day at the Abbey at Mt St Michel. Anyone out there have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Thanks to all of you! I do remember another itinerary that we looked at which said Barcelona embarkation and then it was changed to Tarragona!!! We'll stay over 🙂

Our London to Barcelona in October says that ship arrives into Barcelona at 7AM (Sirena). The flights back to Orlando look kind of close - as in 10:45AM or 11 at the latest. I'm thinking that's not enough time, but perhaps someone has done this and found that the ship really arrives much earlier than posted 7AM. Any help will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance 🙂

Thanks to all of you who responded to my question a few weeks ago. We got our docs today for a November West Indies and next June we are traveling with neighbors from Venice to Rome on the same ship!  Husband does like fine wines, but I can rarely have more than 1 before falling asleep - so I think we'll probably bring some onboard wherever we can and buy a day at a time. Often this works best for us. Thanks again!! and Happy Sailing!

Does anyone have a copy of Viking's Wine List? Or do they just serve different wines for purchase every night?

This is our first Viking Ocean and we do understand that wine is included with lunch or dinner - but are wondering if that wine is their house wine.

We often like to splurge on a nice bottle of fine wine.

Thanks for your help!

Does anyone know anything about the 2 youngsters who missed the ship in Nassau?

Today I googled safety issues in Tunisia and there were advisories from the UK, Australia & Canada - but the ban has been lifted by the USA.

Seems kind of strange to me - and we sail on the 20th from Venice to Rome with a stop in Tunis, Tunisia.

We are quite concerned about the shore excursion planned there to Carthage (which looks very close to port) and to Sidi-Bou-Said - which looks like it's in the center of the country. I could be wrong.

Anyone have any experience with this port??

Our favorite is the Albergo Cesari on the pedestrian zone midway between the Pantheon & the Trevi fountain.

Check out their website.

I have to put my 2 cents in here because we were on the Idun from Apr 27 to May from Budapest to Amsterdam. We were given the same "story" about the ship change - that because of christening, the Embla wasn't available and in fact was doing a 7 night itinerary. We, too, had a ship change. Our documents said "Embla" as did everyone else onboard. From Prague our bus trip to Budapest was similar (much longer than expected with a too long stop at an inefficient restaurant) but the entire busload of us was manned by a driver and guide who knew nothing of the ship change so we rode an additional 45 minutes around Budapest, first on one side and then the other - with them trying to find the Embla!!! It was very frustrating to think that Viking could have avoided this by inserting something in our documents or at least notifying its Prague land crew!!! They never offered to notify our "emergency" contacts - which they require in advance. Additionally many of us were meeting friends along the cruise itinerary and it was up to us to contact them with the change. In Cologne - where they had told us in advance about the docking area when I phoned Viking to let our friend know where to meet us - we were docked in a completely different area with the original location blocks away staying empty. In Nuremburg there was no real dock, just a muddy incline for passengers to walk up with no assistance from crew (a fellow passenger helped some of us up the hill) and on the return from our excursions, still no crew to help getting down the muddy slope!

The Idun had major troubles with air conditioning before we boarded (we spoke to couples who had embaraked in Bucharest for the 3 week journey). This trouble repeated itself for 48 hours when it was suggested we "open our balcony doors" at night. Some passengers obviously had no balcony doors. On our last full day when we should have been able to pack after a tour of Kinderdjik, we could not reboard the ship because it was in drydock in Rotterdam. Their answer to the airco problem was to offer us a few drinks and tack on another excursion (which they laughingly said they would not charge us for) on that last day. It was a grueling end to an already seriously lacking 2 weeks. Except for the dining staff and reception staff and the wonderfull people we met onboard - this cruise was a disaster.

I have no respect at all for Viking's customer service levels. Our cruise manager, Vlad, was totally not engaged with most of the guests. He had a gruff personality and on more than one occasion he seemed to be yelling at me. I will never cruise Viking again (this was our first cruise with them) and much prefer the wonderful service on both Uniworld and Amawaterways.