almostnewtocruise

On 1/27/2024 at 9:18 PM, bobolz said:

I have not used them yet, but I booked toptour.pt Portugal. I think I found them on TripAdvisor. The confirmation looked professional, so hoping all goes well.  We are traveling in May,  I can let you know after our trip. Good luck. 

We are going in April, so ahead of you.

Will look them up, thanks! 

3 hours ago, edinburgher said:

Although there will be taxis available at the aqirport, (or your hotel could arrange one or two  for you), adding a tour element is probably the tricky bit.  And 6 passengers all with luggage will need either two regular taxis or a van which can hold that number of peopler and a sizeable amount of luggage.

 

I think you would be better to prearrange this, firsly researching taxi and/or tour companies online and reaching out to them with your request.  Or perhaps your hotel could offer up a suggestion or two?

Yes indeed, the "tricky" part is the combination of the short tour with the transfer - and  the need for a larger vehicle.

That's why I try  it here.. These boards are very useful for finding all kinds of information.

We've already done it in other ports, but never in Lisbon.

If I won't get any further  recommendations, I'll research it  "the hard way", as suggested

Thanks!  

.. for a transfer of 6 people (with luggage) from an airport hotel to the cruise port   with a short (up to 2 hours) tour of the city. 

TIA!

Happy to announce that the refund has arrived (yesterday) !

I don't know if the "threat" of involving the CC company helped or is it just that "the time has come".

Anyway - thanks everybody for your advice and sympathy !

Happy sailings and good news to all  ! 

19 hours ago, Huntingdon1701 said:

Very frustrating for you - I suggest keep calling, and possibly email the post-cruise desk.

 

I cancelled and rebooked a cruise last week and the refunds were back with me two days later, so they can do it in a reasonable time. 

 

Good luck!

Wow! 

That's impressing.

Still nothing, but my TA says they promise it will been "very soon" 

Thanks to you all for taking the time to reply!

(And special thanks to those who expressed their concern for our situation here 😍)

I do appreciate the advice about involving the credit card company. 

I must admit that I didn't think about this route at all. And, to tell the truth, the perspective that I won't be able to use this card for future NCI cruises doesn't "scare" me at all. As it is, I don't feel that I even want to try them again. Of course, this can change.. (as so many things in life do 😉) 

So I think that for now I'll take the advice to wait a little longer.. Involve (yet again) our TA.. (maybe she can "scare" them with the CC thing? I just can't  imagine waiting 16 months for the refund! 😉 )

Will keep you posted if/when  anything good happens

hoping for better times

Miriam

5 hours ago, hamrag said:

The cruise director announced on our Onward cruise 6th May that it was the first full sailing and how proud they were about that!

 

Our booking was a late one, 4-6 weeks out from memory, at that time there were only 5 cabins available and they were gone within a week of our booking. From that point, the cruise did not show as it was fully booked.

Our   Med. Onward cruise on the  22nd of April was also almost full. There were lots  of solo travelers, so probably not many empty cabins (if at all).

What impressed me was the fact that we - with only 209 days of cruising - were in the 2nd place of the  "frequent cruisers". This has never happened before.

There were many "first timers" and (relatively)  "new Azamarians" aboard.  

Yesterday our account on the new website was still empty. But this  morning it shows both our cruises  (16 and 23 days to go) with the correct tier and points.

It  also shows correctly  the  excursions we bought on the old website. The OBC displayed doesn't seem to be right, but hopefully it can be straightened up onboard. 

Check in is still unavailable here, but we did it on the old website and have our Express Passes ready. 

2 hours ago, Ine said:

You can check the fare and even prebook on one of these websites.

https://www.schipholtaxi.pro/en/taxi-from-schiphol-airport/

https://www.taxicentrale-schiphol.nl/en/

 

Or simply go the to official cab stand outside at the terminal, follow the sings.

Sometimes illegal drivers offer their service but of course donot accept that. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks!

I would like to hear recommendations for a transfer from Schiphol to the cruise terminal (in Piet Heinkade) - from those who have actually used them. 

What I find online varies from 45Euro to 71 Euro  - and no idea how reliable they really are.

Thanks in advance! 

Latest news - we too got all of our refund back!! (June 2 - 9 cruise) 

Very happy.. Thanks Celebrity!

Glad to hear you got your refund so quickly -  and without any fuss.

We are still waiting for ours (we got off the ship on July, 9)

And we too "gave away" all of our non- refundable  OBC. Mainly to the wonderful guys in Room Service 😀

I saw this topic and  - being a quarantine "survivor" on the Edge  - start reading it, thinking maybe I can add some insights from our personal experience.  

Too many posts, so I jumped to the last page and discovered that this has developed into pro and con vaccine and booster discussion.

Everybody to his own, but just  let me say first that we have been vaccinated and boostered twice. And  if (when) a new (and updated!) booster will be offered, we'll happy do it again, as our last one was  in the beginning of January 2022, so its effectiveness has diminished a lot until July. Still we believe that our immune system has profited nicely from our vaccines (we are over 75) , as we  experienced VERY mild symptoms. Actually I am sure that - had we not been tested (as a routine, because we were staying on a b2b cruise in Rome) - neither we - nor anyone else would have found that we are "positive". We even insisted on a second test just to be sure it wasn't a mistake. 

Anyway.. we stayed in isolation - in the "red zone" on deck 6. Actually it wasn't so bad at all, but of course it wasn't the cruise we've planned. 😀 

Now waiting for our refund from Celebrity..

I am happy to say that (at last!) we got the FCC for our second cruise.

So - as promised - we got $300  (we were in  a veranda) per cruise and not per person. We can use them until June 2023. 

These were April cruises, so it took more than the 45 days promised. Our TA called several times, I wrote emails and mentioned it here.

Supposedly all that helped.

I'm glad to put that behind us.

Good Luck to all of you who are still waiting! 

Since I first wrote, I've been told by my TA that the $300 (veranda) is indeed for cabin and not pp.

And that we'll get it for BOTH cruses (I'll update if/when we will. I'm talking about cruises in April).

Also that - presumably - we'll be able to use both FCCs for a single  future cruise (valid until June 2023).

We shall see...

I wish the Azamara Shoreside was half as good (and efficient) as the ships are. 

We've been on Pursuit in April 2022 for two  b2b cruises - when  they  first changed the port of Venice to Ravenna.

Because this switch has been done quite late, we've been promised FCC of $300 pp as a compensation. 

So far only one of us got the FCC (it happened late June, so more than 2 months after the cruise). 

Now - a month later - I am still waiting for mine, although our TA called them several times and I wrote to them.  I didn't  even get an acknowledgment that they got my mails.

I know there were other people on b2b cruises with us at that time. I wonder if anyone else had  (has?) this problem. 

Also - if we were b2b and the port was changed for both of  the cruises - are we eligible for the compensation for both of them? Just curious.. At this point I'll be happy to get it just for  the one!  

21 hours ago, Cruise till you drop said:

I’m guessing based on Covid rates rising that there may be more infections and quarantines on the ships and hence, a higher volume for these reimbursements and a delay in processing them

 It's possible. I'd like to think that  this is the reason for the delay. So many ships.. so many cruises.. 

Although, I must say that, at least on the  European cruises, I got the impression  that the number of "positives" (and therefore isolated) is getting down. Maybe only because there are less mandatory tests done -  and most of the positives are either asymptomatic or have very  light symptoms (like common cold). So, no test - no isolation. 

By the was, during our 8 days of isolation we've never seen more than 6 occupied cabins in our (quite long)  "red zone" (room service trays outside = occupied cabin 😀).  

20 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

Celebrity should atleast knowledge that they received your email 

And still haven't heard from them. Will write again in a day or two. 🥵

On 7/12/2022 at 11:16 PM, koolforkatz said:

 

We were in quarantine on the Beyond in June. I asked a couple of times how things would work because we weren't really provided with anything on paper (apart from our medical records and letter of recovery). They assured me they would look after everything at their end. About 5 days after we disembarked I received an email from Celebrity asking me to call with my credit card details for refund. I phoned once we were back home, and the refund showed up on my credit card in less than a week. It was actually more than I expected and higher than a strictly per diem rate. So no idea how they worked it out.

Sounds like indeed you experienced a great service by Celebrity!

So far not only we didn't hear from them (as promised) ,  but they also did not answer (or even acknowledged)  my mail - nor returned our TA's calls .

So thanks for giving us some hope! We can still hope that we'll hear from them soon..😃

1 hour ago, LMaxwell said:

Yes, they divide the fare portion of the cruise by number of days, then compensate you per diem for the days you missed.  In your case sounds like it would be 1 days worth of your first cruise, and the entirety of the second cruise. 

Thanks very much  for this piece of information. That's more or less is  what I thought they meant by "compensation". I just don't know if it will be done automatically or do we need to call them (repeatedly?) for it? 

We too stayed"(very recently) in isolation. In our case - Edge, infinitive veranda on deck 6 ( Edge's "red zone") instead of SV on 10. Not pleasant but not terrible. Have been diagnosed on last day of the 1st cruise in a b2b (Italy) and stayed there until the disembarking in Barcelona.

My question is about the refund/compensation we are supposed to receive for our "lost days" of the cruises. Does anyone know how it works? Have anyone here received any? 

On 8/26/2021 at 4:35 PM, uktog said:

Azamara are also doing this. They confirmed a few weeks ago on their website and to booked guests. 

We got off  Celebrity Apex (Athens - Athens) about 3 weeks ago. On the day before disembarking we had  a complimentary PCR test done on the ship,  as required by our country. For most of the other guests the Ag test was enough. 

5 minutes ago, aswoff said:

Celebrity is providing that test for you onboard, it is included.  They give each passenger a test before boarding at port and this second one a day or two before getting off the ship for reentry into Greece and into the U.S.  Greece and the U.S. require an antigen test not a PCR test, sounds like they will be able to provide the test your home country requires: Travel Requirements for Cruise from Athens | Celebrity Cruises

Thanks!

That was really helpful (and fast!  😀).

Thanks for all the information and the lovely photos!

We hope to be on Apex in August and I have a very practical question. In order to fly home (and we leave on the day of disembarking) we need to have a certificate of a negative PCR test which had been done 72 hours (or less) before the flight.

I assume that we are not the only ones who will need that..

So my question is - is there a possibility to do the test on the ship? Or in the last port (which would be Mykonos), as the last day of cruising is a "sea day"?

TIA

Thanks for all the informative posts.

One last question.. What time could you get off the ship back in Athens?

TIA!