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jocap

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Everything posted by jocap

  1. Darren- lots of cruises out of North Shields... we don't sail from anywhere else now, because it takes too long getting down south. Even the new Ambassador line is sailing from there next year. 🙂
  2. Marella is getting a new ship next year, which is going to do itineraries in the USA. I'm finding it difficult to work out how long and how many ports, but it does seem that one cruise is FL to New Orleans, and one from FL to New York. As Marella do cruise/stay options, that might be somewhere to start? Plus, your flight out would be with their charter aeroplane, which might help in your planning?
  3. I use the tablet of soap provided in the shower room. I remember my mum and grandma rubbing away with great blocks of soap when I was little, and everything came out spotless... it's the rubbing rather than the soap input.. 😃
  4. After visiting Santorini on a cruise, four of us found an end of season package trip out of the UK for a week- I think they were needing to fill the plane- and stayed at the other side of the island, next to the beach. We hired quad bikes, a car, used the local bus, used local boats, climbed the volcano, visited just about every inch of the beautiful island. Waiting to fly home, we met people who'd never left the beaches, which were volcanic ash and fairly unpleasant to walk on. Volcano? There's a volcano on here? 🙄
  5. Fred Olsen and Marella usually have a ship home ported in Newcastle during the summer; next year the newly formed company Ambassador looks as though it will also be using the port.
  6. It was a fly/cruise package, Sea Princess from Fort Lauderdale, 14 nights round the Caribbean, 2006. But we'd spent numerous nights aboard ferries from the UK to various ports in Europe, and had begun to realise that the ferry was the best part of our holiday... there was an amazing difference between the bunk beds and shared showers/loos down the corridor of the ferries and the en suite cabin of a cruise ship! 😁
  7. P&O's Aurora (2001) was purpose built for the world cruise market, but also sails some longer cruises of several weeks at a time. We were on her in 2007, when the town of Bari, Italy, turned out for the first visit by a cruise ship- although I cannot believe that Costa hadn't been there first- but the excursions were badly planned, because it was the first time the companies had done them. I've heard chefs mentioning Aurora's storage with envy, because she was planned to take massive supplies for her world cruises.
  8. It's been announced that the funeral will be on Monday September 19th, and that day will be a Bank Holiday in the UK.
  9. We cruised round the British Isles some years ago, enjoying the novelty of sailing to cities we have visited many times such as Glasgow and Edinburgh. Pulling out of Belfast, the ship did the usual figure of 8 between NI and the Isle of Man (most likely releasing grey water, as much of the cruise is very close to land), and we reckoned that we were about 40 miles from our front door in Cumbria.
  10. Cartagena in Spain is quite easy, as you dock close to cafes and a modern museum; it's flat walking across from the port side straight into town. The shuttle bus in Barcelona takes you to the square at the entrance to the famous Ramblas street. Same in Malaga- shuttle bus to the port entrance, and across the road into the city.
  11. If you have kept foreign currency for another visit abroad, do check that you haven't any paper UK notes. The only paper ones still in use are the £20 and £50, and the final date for their use is September 30th this year.
  12. Fred Olsen's Balmoral has 1325 pax; their 2 ex-HAL ships have around 1360 pax and were Amsterdam and Rotterdam under HAL. All ages allowed, but often older passengers. P&O's Aurora takes 1878, and Arcadia 1968 pax. Both are adult only. Saga ships have around 987 pax; people must be 50+ years old. All sail mainly from the UK, with mostly British /Irish passengers.
  13. Yes, on my first cruise, out of Fort Lauderdale, we sat and watched a harbour porpoise in the port all afternoon. Also amazed to see bald headed eagles circling over the cruise ships.
  14. Carnival certainly knew about fly cruising, because when they bought the P&O Princess line in 2002, a Princess ship was doing chartered flights from the UK- Caribbean, and I know that Carnival continued for some years because my relative sailed on Sea Princess via a very small, local airport (Doncaster) in 2010. Eventually Princess was replaced with their sister line, P&O, and remains very popular with UK cruisers
  15. Lines such as P&O and Marella place ships in the Caribbean over winter, then sell a package of flights and cruise on chartered aeroplanes, so that once you've checked in at the airport, you're in their hands until you leave the airport on your return. Any other line, you still have to go via Miami. 🙂
  16. We've had no problems flying to the USA for "normal" holidays to Florida or Hawaii via SF, but the only time we flew to Fort Lauderdale for a Caribbean cruise, the waiting at immigration going in, and the queuing on the dockside for an hour leaving the ship on the way out, in the heat,again for immigration, left a nasty taste, so we've not gone that way since. It's easier to take the direct flight to the Caribbean.
  17. We sailed with Fred Olsen to Norway in the middle of October one year, and a guide told us we were one of the last four ships sailing right then, because winter weather might appear. It was calm in the fjords, and also crossing the North Sea back to Newcastle in the UK.
  18. An NCL bum bag, which came in handy for holding dog treats at the puppy training classes, then ended up in the bin. 😄
  19. We've stopped at McD's for a bacon butty before the cruise several times- partly to be out in the open air after being in a hotel for the night, and partly because they serve good back bacon. 😄
  20. Sometimes these stories are exaggerated and become "What I heard in the laundry" stories. There was a problem once with a Christmas cruise when some lads were drunk, but I've heard that story bandied about by passengers on several cruises as happening NOW- it happened in 2009! Plus, the newspapers delight in finding out there has been on a fight in the buffet, and when you read the story it will be one drunk brother hit another brother. No, I've been on plenty of Med cruises out of the UK on various lines, and have never experienced any problem whatsoever. 😊
  21. Perhaps passenger make-up and destination may have some effect? On a fairly long winter cruise from the UK to the Caribbean and back again, with mainly older passengers and only five children on board, even the buffet food seemed of a very high standard. We became friendly with the buffet's head chef, and he was telling us about his next cruise- a four day February one in the cold North Sea, during half term, with 900 children on board. He said every meal would have to include a mountain of chips (fries), fish fingers, chicken nuggets, burgers etc, followed by the stickiest puddings available. 😄
  22. In our early cruising days the ship was our main concern, and we did make comparisons (NCL x 2 were very pleasant), and we found that most ships and lines were more similar than different- if it's great food you're after, then all the ships we've used have at least one speciality restaurant if the MDR isn't to your liking. Eventually we became itinerary minded, and the importance of which ship or line lessened. If you really want to try a break from NCL, look for an itinerary you want to try which NCL doesn't cover, and the line/ship will become less significant. 🙂
  23. We're from Seascale/Gosforth area. We've used Eavesway before, but had to go either to Carlisle or Lancaster, so it didn't solve the problem! We enjoy the coach travel, though. 🙂
  24. I'm not sure I could handle the worry of trying to make my way off with luggage after the time allocated- we always go with the 7 or 7.30 self disembarkation. We make do with a drink and slice of toast, and catch the 8.15-ish train North, and hope that we can find food at the 20 minute changeover at Wolverhampton- there's a buffet on the platform, and the Glasgow train has always (so far!) left from the same platform. If all's well, there will be a buffet on board this next train, because there's not always time at Lancaster before we catch the slow, every station stopping train up the coast... 😄 It's a problem, I agree.
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