Mark O

I have a Samsung phone and there are two messaging apps on the phone - a yellow Samsung app and the red and white Verizon Messages + app. You get free wifi messaging while on the ship only with the Messages + app.

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Texting with verizon and the ship's wifi is only free if you use the messages + app for texting.

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In my humble opinion, the cruise line is obligated to contract with reputable tour companies that have procedures in place to ensure that quality equipment that is properly serviced is used and that they employ quality drivers that drive safely and maintain an excellent driving record - and to regularly verify that this is the case. I don't think any of us have enough info to know whether the cruise line, and the tour company, had been doing their continued due diligence.

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My heartfelt condolences to you on this terrible tragedy, Sam. May your memories comfort you in your grief.

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Passengers from Celebrity and Royal. Was a ship sponsored tour.... Not that I'd have been on same bus but I was going do this tour today. But finishing B2B2B and getting off this Friday decided to lay of balcony and chat online with Grand kids. So sad for my fellow passengers...

I was also on the Serenade for the last sailing. So sad for all concerned. Heartbreaking situation.

Thanks for the suggestions and alternate points of view. We opted for a balcony on the starboard side for a northbound cruise in June 2019.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Went with a balcony on the starboard side!

I'm planning to book a 7 nights Northbound Alaska and Hubbard Glacier itinerary on Radiance and would appreciate some opinions on whether a balcony on the correct (starboard) side is an absloute necessity or is an oceanview cabin sufficient?

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Is a balcony on a 7 nights Northbound Alaska and Hubbard Glacier itinerary a must vs an oceanview cabin? We will be on the correct (starboard) side of the ship regardless. Thanks.

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You can discard the pictures you don't like and ask the staff to hold the pictures (by cabin number) you are still considering. Add and subtract from them throughout the cruise and pay for what you want at the end. It's easy.

They'll probably ask you to pay the deposit, then they will apply the credit and if there's a balance due to you it will be refunded on the credit card.

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We did two tours with italytours.eu on our recent cruise and would definitely use them again.

Best of Florence & Pisa - Although every aspect of the tour went well, the instructions for the meeting point could have been a little clearer. The driver met us in the terminal - not next to the gangway as noted in the instructions. The driver (Gabriele) was a very nice gentleman and very accommodating. He offered us coffee twice during the tour and had wifi available in the car, and had water bottles for us in the car and gave each couple a small gift at the end of the tour. He even offered us a 1 Euro coin if we needed to use the rest room that required payment at one of the stops. The group that toured David was late meeting up with us but we felt this gave us sufficient time to see Florence. The driver was not expected to provide much information, and he didn't. When he did, he was a little hard to understand. However, he was very clear about the meeting points. The tour guide in Florence (Virginia) was excellent. Easy to understand, good information and kept the group interested. If I was going to do a tour of this area in the future, I think I'd rather spend more time in Florence and skip Pisa, as the only important thing we had time to see was the Tower.

Best of Rome & Vatican - All around this was an excellent tour. Again, the driver (Alessandro) met us in the terminal not next to the gangway. Alesandro was outstanding - he provided lots of info, navigated the city very well, and took us to a great pizza place for lunch. He was very clear about meeting points and times. The guide at the Vatican (Roberta) was thorough and informative and properly resisted one family's pleas to shorten the tour so they could get back to the ship. The family had several young children with them - I don't think young children should be taken on this tour as their extra needs detract from the overall experience of the rest of the group. I think that italytours would be well advised to specify in their documentation that children might not do well on this tour. Overall, we saw an amazing amount on this tour and were back at the ship with plenty of time to spare.

Can someone advise on giving them your credit card?

We want to book with them and they requested a minimum deposit of $1 to secure the tour.

The deposit is not a problem but Chrome saying their site is not secured.

I talked to them and they suggested that I will give them my credit card details via email just for secure our place (they won't charge us and we will pay all in cash) but this is still not a secure way...

 

Can you please advised how you payed them and if you had any problems?

 

Thanks for your help.

When the time came to pay italytours, we paid by credit card. I checked my bank's website the next day and saw the charge accurately posted (after conversion to dollars).

We are sailing on the Brilliance out of Barcelona on June 18th and plan to use italytours for excursions in Rome and Florence/Pisa (Livorno). Can anyone tell me whether there was any problem meeting italytours at the meeting point by 7:40am-7:45am in these two ports considering that the ship arrives at 7am and that guests on ship excursions get to leave the ship first? How can we position ourselves to get off the ship quickly when they announce that we are permitted to leave the ship?

Every MasterCard and Visa offers different travel benefits. The best I've found is the Citi Visa that I have by being a member of Costco but others may offer similar benefits. It covers up to $3,000 per person for trip cancellation, delay/cancellation due to severe weather, trip interruption/delayed arrival, political/security evac and best of all, costs nothing.

If you're in relatively good health (they have a 30-day lookback period from the day you pay for the policy) and are under 65, consider supplementing the Visa coverage with the Travelex Business Traveler policy - you won't find it on the comparison sites - you have to buy it from Travelex. For $59 per year per person they provide $1 million evacuation coverage, $2,000 personal effects coverage, up to $600 for lost jewelry/camera/electronic items, coverage for business property - including laptop, PDA, phones, and for an extra $30 you get $50,000 of medical insurance. If you read the policy, you'll see that although they cater to the business traveler, there is no requirement that you be a business traveler. So for me and my wife - $178 per year for multiple trips. Also, you can buy this policy for a single trip - I think it starts at about $19.

Finally, just in case you get injured or hurt and are hospitalized and wish to come home to a hospital in the US, and your main travel insurance company refuses to evacuate you back to the USA (I know someone this happened to - even though he had evacuation coverage), I also bought the Med Jet plan - $345 for the two of us (using the AARP discount). Basically, if you are hospitalized and capable of traveling home or to a home hospital, they will dispatch a medical air transport to get you home upon your request.

So for me and my wife - $345 plus $89 plus $89 = $523 for an annual plan that covers all our trips throughout the year. Helps me sleep at night.

It bothers me that they are offering a nominal on board credit - per cabin, incidentally - but changes result in a $100 change fee - per person. No thanks, RCCL, I'll keep my options open.

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Any help out there?

Thank you for posting a comprehensive and picturesque review! My wife and I just booked Navigator for March 31st (great deal) and we're really looking forward to it. Nice to see a few others on here sailing with us.

Does anyone have any experience with this Royal Caribbean excursion? I'm wondering if it includes a tour guide at Pompeii and whether it is worth it for the price.

The reason I'm even considering this pricey excursion is because I want to be sure to make it back to the ship in time.

I'm on this cruise too - going to look into Papillon tours for Florence/Pisa. So far we're booked with Italytours.eu for Rome, Florence and Amalfi Coast, but everything is tentative. So difficult to make decisions on the first trip to these great places.

You will get great service and products at that pharmacy-I go there every time I'm in Coz. Tell Bobbie that Cindy from Missouri says hello.

Thanks Cindy. I've used them before and I agree - great service and products!

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Just curious-are you going to Discount Drugs and Souvenirs?

Yes - that's the place!

We are going to be on the NCL Getway, docking (I think) in Punta Langosta. We plan to go to Paradise Beach, but on the way back, we would like to stop at a pharmacy which is located on Rafael Melgar between 6th and 8th Avenue, next to Guido's restaurant. Since the pharmacy appears to be a little further than the cruise terminal, how much extra will it cost to have the taxi take us to the pharmacy, wait 5 minutes for us, and then take us back to the cruise terminal?

Glad the op was ok - that is the most important thing!

Travelinsured or squaremouth or insuremytrip quote prices for various insurance companies' policies, and usually will show you the policy before you buy. It is essential to review the precise language of the coverages and compare the language from policy to policy - recently one policy I was looking at had language that it would pay for a trip to the nearest hospital; another had language that it would pay to transport you to a hospital of your choice (depending on what you needed). Some policies will pay to transport your spouse also; others don't. Be careful to buy what you need and want.

The insurance offered by the cruise line often does not include the pre-existing condition waiver - read the fine print.

If you make a future cruise deposit for while on a cruise in order to get a shipboard credit or whatever, when you go to book the travel insurance for the cruise you are going to use it on, you have to note that the first deposit, or booking, was made on the date of that first cruise when you made the deposit. That might limit your ability to get the "pre-existing condition waiver" on the policy for the next cruise. If you have a condition or have a family member at home with a condition, you probably want to get the pre-existing condition waiver to ensure coverage regardless of what happens to whom.

I recently booked a cruise a week in advance, but since the future cruise deposit was made 3 years ago, I had to use that date as the booking date. The $100 shipboard credit was negated by the $80 extra I had to pay for a policy that would provide the pre-existing condition waiver. Lesson learned - for us, who need the pre-exisiting condition waiver and likes to book last minute cruises - it's better to not book the future cruise while onboard - unless you're sure of the dates you are going to travel and are willing to buy the policy within 2 weeks or so (depending on insurance company) of making that deposit.

As with most things, the devil is in the details and it pays to put in a little time to get the coverages you really need.

I'm also considering staying at the Hilton Garden Inn and parking and shuttling to and from the cruise port and would like to know what transportation arrangements the hotel provides?