badtwin

We used them for two days before a cruise last May. Very much worth the price for us. To make it worth it though, my hint would be to plan very carefully with your traveling companions what you want to see and when - as in hour by hour. There is a per day price cap so you need to balance the expensive with less expensive items per day as well as pay attention to logistics so you are not spending your time in the tube. We did not add the travel option - used the HOHO and the boat ride one day to get us from one end of town to the other, and bought some sort of travel pass for the other day. (There are some London travel sites discussing the various travel pass options in London which are sort of overwhelming but provide great explanation if you can hang in there.)

That said, if you are museum people and not church people, many of the incredible museums are free and we felt rushed to leave them to be able to use our passes. So be sure you actually want to see enough of the places included in the pass to make it worth it to you.

We weren't on Princess but visited Kirkwall on a cruise in May 2016. I found a local bus, the T11 that had a tour of some of the main historic sites for under 9 pounds per person. No commentary (although some reviews said other drivers were more chatty) but it was a lovely and inexpensive way to see the various rocks of interest as well as lots of farms and countryside. We still had time for a visit to local pub and walk through the town. Missed St. Magnus because it was being used for a wedding. I believe this route is seasonal so hard to find, but you can email most of the companies and they will let you know what is running on the day your cruise is expected.

Considering our first HAL cruise on Konsingdam with European itinerary. Previously cruised with Celebrity, Costa, NCL, MSC and CMV. Spent most of afternoon reading HAL for Dummies above. Have a couple of Konsingdam questions.

1. Beverages - Does K have happy hour and wine by the carafe? We drink several box wines at home so are not picky but won't drink just anything. Anyone try it? Would our table mates look down on us if we ordered carafe wine? I saw the packages and wine lists for other ships

2. Entertainment - Is there a early show for late diners and late show for early and can everyone fit in the theater? I have seen that some of the mega cruises are now making you reserve for the shows and seem to have more people than seats. Anyone know what we might expect for entertainment on a European sailing?

3. Bathroom storage - Looking at a verandah. Is there adequate storage for a couple. Neither of us use lots of products.

4. Hot tubs and steam room - Are both available for free?

Thanks

One possible solution to the shower crunch is to send the boys to the showers in the gym area. My sister, daughter and I shared a small OV on an MSC cruise and found the bathroom got cramped and so steamy. We tended to shower before dinner, so we all packed up our stuff and showered in the women's locker room - an added benefit was the free steam room on that particular MSC cruise we enjoyed before our shower.

Thank you for the clarification. Very helpful

Thanks for the help. Too bad Costa won't put the brochures for each on the website.

The webpage has something called Pranzo & Cena that says it is for people who want beer, wine and pop at meals so I assumed it was a package but maybe it is more of a coupon type thing with a fixed number of drinks. That is why I was wondering if it was just meals or available during other times.

Boy am I confused.

We tend to buy a wine package (or two) on a cruise but Costa has so many options, we were considering the possibilities. Too bad the website is so little help. And I realize pricing for each package is set for each cruise so just looking for a little guidance. Nevertheless..

Beer and Wine package - The website says there is a beer and wine only package which would work well for us. Is this only available at meals or can we get beer and wine other times of the day. Anyone know how the price pp/pd compares relative to to other packages?

Brindiamo? - How does this package differ from the other AI packages, especially the one that begins with the letter "p"?

Wine packages and wine generally - Anyone have a current wine list for a Costa cruise (preferably Magica)? Do they still do a house wine by the carafe? Someone posted that there are nightly red and white specials. Are these still available on European cruises?

We have never done an AI package on a cruise because we tend to do port intensive cruises and do our lunch drinking on shore. But we always want to check our options.

This is a bit off topic but somewhat related.

We are looking at some Costa cruises for April and May 2017 and find the Costa website terribly slow and limited. Working through the booking process, only one or two cabins would be offered in a category. Given the discounts they claim they are offering for the cruises we are considering, one would think there would be several available cabins.

Is there any way to work around this limitation? Do I need to look at the website for another country to see what is available and then call Costa? Is there anyway to see all available cabins at once?

A little off topic, but if you want a budget alternative, the local bus service offers an alternative if you just want transportation and not a lot of chit chat. We took a bus that left Kirkwall and drove to Skara Brae via Stromness, stopped to allow self guided tours and then went on and stopped at the The Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Steness.

The price was 8.30 pounds per person (cash no credit cards). Admission to Skara Brae was extra. Our driver did not provide any commentary but the reviews I read suggested some are more talkative.

I think there were some other options bus options if you are there in high season (we were a bit earlier) and if your port stop was long enough to allow you to take advantage. This tour left us time to wander the town a bit and enjoy a pint.

Two suggestions

First, spend a little extra and be sure you get a good adapter/converter. In Barcelona, I was charging my phone and at around 5:30 a.m. there was a loud pop and a flash. My inexpensive converter/adapter blew up and in the process we knocked out power to a large portion of the hotel. The phone was okay - the charger was fried. Lesson learned. We were also very happy we always travel with small flashlights so we could make our way to the front desk to report it.

Second. if you need outlets to charge electronics, consider one of those strips or boxes that has multiple USB ports. With one outlet, we could charge 4 items at once which was great on our last cruise.

Can't answer your accessibility questions, but I thought I would point out that Magellan only has 12 or so cabins with balconies - these are all suites on an upper deck. From the deck plans on the CMV website, it did not appear that any of these was listed as handicapped accessible. If a balcony is important to you, this might not be the ship for you.

We stopped at Honfleur in May 2016. We were on CMV Magellan and we docked rather than tendered. The cruise company provided complimentary shuttle buses to get us into town as it was a fairly long walk through a semi-industrial/port area.

As I recall, the D-Day tour offer was for the British and Canadian beaches. At some point our departure time was changed and that tour was no longer offered because of time constraints. We had planned to rent a car and drive to the American beaches but with the shortened time did not feel that was possible.

Because it was a short stop and our last port, we took a low key approach. We walked to the view point at Cote de Grace (I don't know how to do the french accent marks). It is not a long walk but it is a vertical walk. The views were wonderful.

We were there Saturday so it was market day which we found great fun but did mean lots of crowds. Even without market day, it seemed there were lots of shops and restaurants to spend a few hours. If we had been there a longer time, I may have looked into visiting a nearby museum or some other attraction, but for the time we had there seemed to be plenty to do.

We took a British Isles cruise this spring and must say we were extremely relieved we had no plans to rent a car in the British ports because they drive on the other side of the road. This doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but after finding ourselves having trouble as pedestrians in London (even with numerous painted signs reminding you which way to look for oncoming cars) we could not imagine trying to drive. Everything intuitive to american drivers is the other way - like the lane you take while turning onto another street to the direction of roundabouts. In Scotland the roads could be very narrow if you are not used to country driving. I think trying to do a lot of driving there on vacation would be extremely stressful.

We started cruising when DH was young enough to qualify for kids sail free. Most of our cruises were spring break cruises packed with children. We have been there and understand why some might want a childless cruise.

In June we sailed with DH (now 26) on Cruise and Maritime Voyages Magellan. This was an adults only cruise. I believe several of the other ships in this line are also adult only. Maybe "too" adult. This line appeals to British pensioners because of some of the deals offered in their local newspapers so has an extremely narrow and old demographic. (We are in our late 50s and seemed to be younger than most passengers) It is not a luxury line but we enjoyed it because of the ports offered on the cruise we took.

We also took a 12 day Mediterranean cruise with Celebrity a few years ago in November. I can't say there were no children, but there certainly were not enough to annoy us.

I think the shuttle availability and price depends on your cruise line and what they agree to do with the local provider. I wrote to the Belfast Tourist agency about an upcoming cruise on the Magellan and received this response:

The precise timings of these shuttle buses will be available on the day you arrive and staff from the Visit Belfast Welcome Centre will be on board and at the quayside to provide you with directions and answer any questions you might have. There may be a charge for the shuttle service, but this will be decided by the cruise ship company on the day. The shuttle bus from the cruise terminal drops off and picks up from outside Visit Belfast.

A taxi from the cruise terminal to the city centre costs approximately £10-£12.

At one point I found a list the shuttles for various cruise ships on a website but I have been unable to locate it again. Our ship was not listed which prompted the email to Visit Belfast.

According to the cruise critic review, inside cabins vary from 135 to 163. The review can be found here

http://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/review.cfm?ShipID=1029

and look under the tab marked "cabins."

We got the two day pass without oyster and plan to buy a one day travel card for the day we want to go any distance, in our case to Hampton court. There are several websites that help you decide what is best for your needs but I am afraid it comes down to making a day to day plan of the places you hope to visit, in order, and decide from that if you need transportation or not.

Not being familiar with London, I found a London tourist map (I used Streetwise London which is a pocket sized laminated map) an invaluable tool to group various attractions that were near each other. Until I got the map, I was at a loss how to even start to plan our daily activities.

For us, the oyster part was not worth it because we had the HOHO one day and just one or two places to get to the next, everything else was near the hotel. And we all enjoy walking - hopefully I have not misinterpreted the map scale. :D

My favorite multi-purpose item is a Pashmina. I use boring black. It is an extra blanket on the plane, an evening wrap, a scarf, and head and shoulder covering if I need it to visit a house of worship. I suppose with the right fabric you could use it as a swim suit cover up.

I am not a shoe person, so I can save a lot there. For a cooler weather cruise, I got some really simple (some would say ugly) black walking shoes for everyday that looked fine with jeans and pants but I could wear with my dressy black slacks in the evening for "smart" dinners. Not a fashion plate but my feet were comfy. And since I wear the same black cocktail dress for both formal nights, I can get away with one pair of dressy shoes.

I plan on wearing most things at least twice - nice tops for dinner don't get that dirty unless I spill. I try to find things I can hand wash or am not worried about if I need to send to a ships laundry.

An electronic reader - kindle or nook or whatever - is great if you are a big reader. You can download many travel books and guides on them too. I found our local library had several travel books available for free use during our last trip. Much easier than lugging a small library along.

We used to take a multi station power strip to help with charging all the electronics. Now that most of our electronics charge with USB type chargers, we plan on taking a multi-port charging station.

Weirdest tip. On a Caribbean cruise my sister and I found all the water and sun really dried our hair. In desperation we used mayonnaise packets from the buffet for a deep conditioning treatment.

Thank you for all the help.

My postings were not entirely clear. Our cruise will take us to St. Malo and to Honfleur the next day. We are looking at renting cars in both places, going to MSM from St. Malo (which is about 50km according to my research) and doing the D-Day beaches from Honfleur. It sounds like our D-Day plans are reasonable as long as we are somewhat selective in our stops and watch the clock a bit. My husband wants to see at least one of the American beaches and you have calmed my nerves about getting that far.

We have cruised in Europe on two other occasions and usually relied on public transport but that did not seem easy or even possible (within cruise stop time constraints) at these ports. Thus the nerves about renting cars.

Thanks again.

We have done two European cruises in recent years and never done a ship's excursion because we are too cheap. There are advantagesto ship's excursions in addition to not having to worry about getting back to the ship on time. They make your planning and research a lot easier. And you frequently get preferred times to get off the ship at the various ports. You basically do not have to worry about any aspect of the port visit other than the slim possibility something will be cancelled.

The main disadvantages are cost, doing everything with a crowd, and lack of flexibility to customize your tour. I also wonder how much time is spent getting everyone on and off the bus or from place to place.

Planning your own tours is very time consuming although I love it as part of the cruise experience. We have booked tours on line which is good if you want a lot of information about someplace - such as when we stopped in Ephesus and had very little personal knowledge of potential sites but realized it was very spread out and very diverse. We more often research the various sites in a port and then figure out how to use public transport to get to them and strike out on our own. We are lucky we can still walk a lot to offset all that wonderful cruise food. The other downside of booking your own is worrying if it will be good and making it back to port on time. But you can find a lot of advice here if you want to book/plan your own.

Enjoy. I am already working on our various ports for a British Isles cruise in June.

LondonTowner

I have been trying and that is sort of the issue. The American sites say "total cost" but do not include some of the charges in the itemization on the French sites- like some sort of service fee. Thus my confusion.

sort of off topic but somewhat related

We are looking at renting a car in St. Malo to drive to Mont St. Michael and maybe Honfleur for the D-Day beaches. When I try to book through a French website the price is more than twice what is being quoted on discount American based travel sites or even the rental companies directly. I am a little nervous we will be hit with the extra fees quoted on the French websites. By way of example, the American sites are around 35 euro for an econo-box with vat while the French sites are over 70.

I was hoping someone would give me a ballpark idea of what they paid for their car,

And thankfully, we can all drive a stick, even the 25 year old DD, although mother and daughter almost killed each other during the lessons.

I was hoping to find out how the local buses worked and any other hints you might suggest. We will be traveling to Stornoway in early June 2016 on a smaller (1500 passenger) ship. While our usual preference is a self-guided walking tour, I was looking at the buses as an option if the weather is awful or simply to take advantage of a 12 hour stop.

It may be a vintage thread, but I am one of those booking a transfer for June 2016 so I will see if there is an fresh information.

I have bids from Blackberry Cars and Adelphi Executive Cars for a transfer from Tilbury to Gatwick. I am most concerned about reliability because our flight is a bit earlier than I would normally book. I would welcome reviews as well as any additional names.

Thanks

A judgment and award is only legal as much as a court deems it to be. This court appaently found the verdict was not supported by competent, substantial evidence and set it aside.

If you read the article, it suggests the verdict was set aside because the plaintiff had deleted emails that should have been produced in discovery, that is, turned over to the other side's attorneys as part of the pre-trial process.