durante

Yes, the Southampton cruiseport posted the revised earlier arrival time for 22 May on 20 May. STill showing 9.30 arrival time for 29th May...

Look up Amalfi and see if anything there would interest you? It's a relatively small town, so from a great place to chill out at (overpriced) cafes there is a famous, beautiful historic church, you should def go there, and great places to buy the best limoncello for a start... The tenders drop you off right at the Amalfi ferry dock where you can get v cheap tickets to Positano if you want to go there....you can easily see both places, lots of similarities to each other.

Cruise ships tender to Amalfi not Positano. Oceania have put Amalfi/Positano for the last 6 years on their schedules, I don't know why, but would be interested if anyone actually entered into Positano?

Ravello is a beautiful village high up on the mountain.just watch out for August, all these places are packed with other tourists.

We were on one Oceania cruise which had to dock at Naples instead of tendering into Amalfi, so bear this in mind as a possibility, tons of amazing things to see in Naples. So as you were asking if there in anything worth seeing in Amalfi, you might want to look up Naples too, just in case..

We embarked at Civitavecchia on QV last October and the Princess Grills restaurant was open for lunch. I think we may have arrived at FCO pretty much the same time as your flight. We were on a Cunard charter flight with BA. Despite a very long wait at the baggage carousel, like 1 hour! we made it onto the Cunard transfer coach ok, which took approx 45 mins from FCO to the ship, and being food orientated, raced straight up to check out the grills lunch situation, so thrilled to see it was still open for lunch....as I recall only about 3 othertables occupied when we were there. Sorry I can't remember the restaurant exact times.

The Southampton cruise port website is today showing QV with an 8.30am arrival on May 22, and 9.30am arrival on May 29. Am wondering if these later than usual times are likely to be accurate (possibly staggered arrival due to Harmony of the Seas being in Southampton on both dates?).

Just trying to plan optimal transport times in/out of Southampton with so many ships in port on those dates.

This might seem odd - I don't know why, but I just love your comments! :)

also check out Celebrity and Azamara, they both have cruises which take this route, however after Milford Sound they cross the Tasman Sea to Australia.

You can take the National Express coach from Southampton Coach Station to Heathrow Airport terminal 5 (the first airport stop) then take the tube at Heathrow Terminal 5 (it's the Piccadilly line) straight to either Russell Square or Kings Cross, whichever is the closer to your hotel. It's all lifts and level platforms at Heathrow. No stress. No stairs.Iit's a lot physically easier going via Heathrow on the coach and changing to the tube with bags than going via Victoria Coach Station then having to do a walk to Victoria tube station, then down stairs etc with yr bags, such a hassle. Way less crowded at Heathrow compared to Victoria.

The coach to Heathrow is often quicker than to Victoria as it avoids central London traffic. Hope this helps.

You could also check out Cunard as they do a few Norwegian cruises each year. Also Celebrity. We have been to Norway on both lines and recommend both.

The other thing I would mention is the noise from the bathroom in 8001 (don't know if 8000 has this problem. I have just seen another thread regarding the noise in 8001 posted recently, you can search for it? They had terrible problems. While we were in this room a few years ago, we didn't suffer quite as much although it did disturb our sleep continously. I mentioned this noise previously to you.

Re the interconnecting door in 8001 , in hindsight I cannot prove there was no door on our cruise a few years ago, even though we never noticed it, however never heard any noise whatsoever from the vista suite which it would have connected to.

Anyway I would not book this room again, only because of the noise from the bathroom....unless this has been fixed now. Everything else was fantastic.

Oh finally, we never chose 8001 despite loving the movement of the waves etc, we were told by our travel agent that it was the last room available....

There was no interconnecting door at that time. The balcony was excellent. We experienced a continuous droning noise from the bathroom, but don't know whether this was ever fixed up.

as you were asking why your reply wasn't relevent, the OP was asking about plus or minus of doing a TA and opinions about stateroom categories given they don't suffer from seasickness. Your reply did not cover some of their questions, although it was interesting information regarding the bargain prices on offer.

On our cruise last year on Riviera, the ship tendered into Antibes despite the Oceania website indicating it would dock there. I could not see where there would have been a dock large enough for Riviera in Antibes unless they would be using a dock at some other town.

The larger ships dock at Picton too, at Shakespeare Bay

I also agree.

Celebrity Luminae vs Oceania- we have done both this year and thoughtLuminae was superior for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We were on Eclipse and comparing to Oceania Riviera. I used to prefer the food on Oceania compared to Celebrity however Luminae was excellent much to my surprise.

To add to the comment by Kevnzworld, on our cruise a full lunch was offered in Luminae.

Am on Queen Victoria in Princess Grills, no change to menu that I can see, the classic Grills menu is still the same with Dover sole, rack of lamb etc, or you can choose from the daily menu. Had an excellent turbot from the latter menu a couple of nights ago.

If you are not there on a Sunday, the local bus (there are 2 lines which operate this route) is the cheapest way to get from Giardini Naxos up to Taormina. It goes there directly and terminates at the bus stop in Taormina, then just 5 mins walk up hill to the main street. The cable car is not anywhere near where the ship tenders as its right against the cliff, and would be a long walk to get to.

Most of the extended balconies on our recent Riviera cruise had sun loungers. Ours had the loungers already there when we boarded.

On our recent Riviera cruise 12th August, the crew door near your stateroom was open the entire length of the cruise on both sides. We were further back on Deck 7 so had to walk past it all the time. Sometimes noisy in there.

We had 8005 on Journey and used to hear a muffled banging noise from above which went on for about 15 mins early each morning. One morning I went up to investigate in the gym only to find it completely empty apart from a very old man skipping with his skipping rope right next to the mirrored wall. The noise wasn't actually too bad and once we knew the cause, used to laugh when it started up. We never heard any other noise coming from the gym.

Salerno is a port. You will dock there. According to the Porto Salerno website, QV is there 8am to 6:30pm.

The one week cruises on Equinox have some great itineraries.

True re T1 having been closed down, I am just so used to mentioning 1,2 and 3 together. Good to get it right.

Central Bus Station serves Terminals 1, 2 and 3 so no need to advise National Express. Toilets are free at the Bus Station.

We recently did a cruise on Equinox in Aqua Class, and really enjoyed the location of our stateroom forward deck 11 and its amenities especially the fantastic shower, also the bottled water provided for us. Blu restaurant was overall very good, the waiters were fantastic, however the quality of the food was erratic. Some nights really good others not so. We did breakfast a couple of times in Blu but both times service was really slow.

Unless you really think the location of the Aqua rooms and using the Persian Gardens essential (high up) then I would agree with others who have said stay where you are and do the Speciality Restaurants for dinner sometimes. :)