John Bull

Happened to me first time I applied for a US ESTA. Probably because my name was similar to an undesirable or some other matter. Came thro 7 to 10 days later. JB 🙂

Premier Inn beds can be standard doubles or king-size or super-king, depending on location. I spoke to Premier Inn West Quay thismorning. The guy who answered didn't know, he thought the beds were standard doubles. I got him to check further & he came back to tell me they were 135cm (4ft 6") which is a UK standard double bed.(King sizes are 150 cm, super-kings 180 cm.) But some customer reviews of P.I. West Quay mention "king-size" 🙄 so I don't know who is right. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186299-d2163952-Reviews-Premier_Inn_Southampton_West_Quay_hotel-Southampton_Hampshire_England.html#REVIEWS JB 🙂

One further disadvantage of using the regular service buses is that they don't wind-up Globaliser and other Londoners who choose to drive in the heart of the city and consequently get held up by the ho-ho's. Eagle and Globaliser. Nobody - even Londoners - meets Londoners on the tube. Londoners famously ignore everyone else on the tube, and bury their heads in a newspaper or phone, or stare blankly throughout their journey. 🤐 I don't use London buses - does the same apply? 😑 JB 🙂

The interesting mainly-pedestrianised old part of town is right by the port gate. Lots of eateries there, I suggest you don't tie yourself down to one in particular. Wander the streets for a lazy day. Nearest beach is Playa de la Caleta, on the other side of old-town a minimum 20 minute walk from the port gate depending on your ship's berth. IMHO not up to much, but backed by old town. For something a little more adventurous, a 45 minute train ride to Jerez de la Frontera, the home of sherry. Sherry is now made in modern factories on the outskirts, but many sherry-makers have converted their original town centre bodegas to museums & tours. Also in town, tho it need a bus or taxi ride from the station, the Royal School of Equestrian Arts gives dressage performances of their Andalusian horses https://www.realescuela.org/en/main/ It'd be difficult to tie in a performance, but the place is well worth a visit, especially the carriage museum. The Sandeman bodega is just a five minute walk from there. Or rent a car (Cadiz rail station is the only convenient depot, the others are a he far end of Cadiz in the modern city centre) and explore the hill-top "white villages". laces like Vejer de la Frontera or Arcos de la Frontera JB 🙂

Pre-booking a private transfer is cheaper than hailing a taxi, and with the certainty of a fixed price. We've done that twice, no problem. Certainly don't just jump into a taxi without negotiating - that particularly applies from the cruise terminal, where taxi drivers feel that they can hold you to ransom. Your time will evaporate between ship arrival & flight departure. Whilst the tram from cruise terminal to Sultanahmet is convenient, cheapest & usually quickest you have luggage to consider and a diversion to the left-luggage facility at Sirkeci train station (or a return to the cruise port if it has a left-luggage facility) will eat further into your limited time. Added to that, Sultanahmet is best visited on foot (your arrival day?). I think a pre-booked tour-transfer to the airport is your best bet. Direct it's about 40 minutes, but perhaps a mazy route alongside the Bosphorus taking around 90 minutes? Others can probably suggest better alternatives. JB 🙂

Last I heard it was around £25 - £30. Tips at your discretion but generally way less than in the US. £5 for a couple would be very generous, and you're not going to be chased down the street if you don't tip. But like pretty-well everywhere else in Gib. you can pay in euros - no need to buy GBP unless you're also visiting the UK. Most things (incl those tours) are priced in both GBP and euros - do a quick bit of mental arithmetic to be sure you're not being ripped off. If you don't have any GBP most places accept cards, but I don't know about taxi/van tours. JB 🙂

There are three ho-ho operators.... Tootbus. Previous visitors will know it as "The Original" London hop-on bus. First started operating in 1951, now like so many small well-established & successful companies it's part of a conglomerate. The buses are red - like a London bus should be. https://www.tootbus.com/en/london/home Big Bus Worldwide hop-on operation, operating in dozens (hundreds?) of cities. Their buses are a muddy maroon. https://www.bigbustours.com/en/london/london-bus-tours Golden Tours Well-established & reputable coach tour operator, but the new kid on the block for hop-ons, started 2 or 3 years before the pandemic. Got off to a rocky start because of poor frequency, I don't know whether that's improved. They also offer day and evening tours which start & finish near the London Eye, not a hop-on service but might suit some folks. https://www.goldentours.com/london-hop-on-hop-off-bus-tours For hop-on I'd recommend Tootbus or Big Bus because of the frequency. The main route is broadly the same for all three, they all include a short river trip, some include walking tours & perhaps other attractions, the prices are broadly the same tho they do tend to complicate their offers. Tootbus and Big Bus have some buses with live guides, most are multi-language audio by earpiece. Golden only have live guides on their tour buses, not their ho-hos. Live commentary is fun - full of strange facts (some might even be true 😉), but audio-guide is better if you're seriously interested in facts. Perhaps the biggest difference is in the feeder routes, so check their feeder routes against your hotel location. None of the ho-hos (or other buses) pass the front of Buckingham Palace. You have to get off the bus, walk round the corner to the front of Buck House, then back to the bus-stop & catch the next one. Since you're booked to visit Buck House, stay on the bus - lots of folk get off there, so keep your eyes open for folk vacating better seats. Hop-on buses are a great way to orientate yourself and get an outside view of almost all the important sights. But because of their route, their stops, and slow traffic they are only rarely useful for getting from A to B. So despite the big discounts for multi-day tickets, probably a 24-hour ticket is your best value. For getting around from place to place you need the "tube", London's extensive, quick & frequent underground system. https://tfl.gov.uk/tfl/syndication/widgets/tubemap/default-search.html (tube maps are everywhere, including with regular tourist maps. Looks complicated, but places of interest mention nearest tube stations & you use the map only to figure your route underground) Here's a very useful visitor's website https://www.londontoolkit.com/ But their private tours & transfers tend to be very pricey. Well, someone's got to pay for the website 😉 JB 🙂

The 50 essential things to take are - 44 of the items listed - 6 large suitcases JB 🙂

Premier Inns don't list with consolidators like booking.com., Bob. They can only be booked direct. In the main their rooms are either twin or double. They pride themselves on their super-comfortable "hypnos" single and double beds - doubles are usually a king-size bed, not two beds pushed together. Some have family rooms, basically a double plus two convertible sofas for kids aged 15 or under, plus a cot if required. If you're still trying to contact them, their phone numbers aren't premium rate and are free in most UK phone plans - including mine. Respond with the particular hotel name (eg Premier Inn County Hall, Premier Inn West Quay, or wherever) and your query and I'll do my best. JB 🙂

We had a week's break in Lanzarote in Feb/March. Weather was pleasant - not guaranteed, but other than the Red Sea it's about the closest decent winter weather that you can expect at that time of year. We've cruised the Canaries a couple of times in Nov & Jan., weather there pretty good. Seas were fine, even across to Madeira. But they were both fly-cruises. Heed Martha's words about the Bay of Biscay - and add the English Channel. Large ships simply roll slowly from side to side whereas little-'uns like Marco Polo tend to plough into waves, and even that time of year it's more often pretty smooth than rough - but its a significant risk and even with smooth seas the going & coming back will be cold - you'll probably have the ship's pools all to yourselves. We don't cruise out of the UK between late September and April - and I'd recommend that to play it safe you book a fly-cruise. JB 🙂

A few cruises leave from London, most leave from Southampton which is directly across the English Channel from Le Havre (note spelling). But cruises to the Mediterranean from the UK are round-trip (ie they return to the UK), and I'm pretty sure that those which include Le Havre (or Cherbourg or Honfleur) all go there as their last port, before returning to Southampton next day. There are rarely repositioning cruises UK to Mediterranean, and certainly none in August. So a re-think is needed. For instance cross-channel ferry from Southampton to Le Havre or Caen or Cherbourg, or the Eurostar train from London to Paris. How high on your to-do list are London (or elsewhere in the UK) or Le Havre or Paris ? And what sort of time-scale do you have? JB 🙂

Hi, Becky, Princess used to offer transfers to Southampton from central London's Victoria Coach Station, as well as from LHR and LGW. Can I presume from that notice that they no longer offer from Victoria? Or mebbe Victoria is only for those who've booked a Princess pre-cruise hotel package? Well worth asking. But I'm as bemused as Globaliser why you'd choose to go from central London to Southampton via LHR. Frequent trains from London Waterloo to Southampton central for as little as £9.20 (pre-booked from about 12 weeks out, valid only for the train time booked) or walk-up fare about £40. Journey time 1 hour 20 to 1 hour 40 https://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/ Or National Express bus from Victoria coach station for just £5 !!! Journey time 2hrs 30. https://book.nationalexpress.com/ JB 🙂

Cruise terminal to bottom cablecar station takes about 35 minutes on foot - no fun even for the tolerably-fit. There'll be taxis & vans at the cruise terminal and I imagine one would take you but as per Hank's post most will be offering Upper Rock tours. The top cablecar station gives you glorious views (and there's a cafe there). The apes' (beg pardon, the Barbary Macaques') feeding station is a 250 yard walk, the skywalk a further 100 yards. Alternatively an Upper Rock taxi / van tour involves very little walking but - they stop for a five-minute photo-stop at the Pillars of Hercules monument for southerly views over the Straits to Morocco - they stop for about 20 minutes at St Michael's cave, where there are steps down & back up - but if you don't want to enter there are great elevated westerly views over the Bay of Algeciras. - they stop for 15 - 20 minutes at the apes' den. By going up about 15 steps you get great elevated easterly views over the Mediterranean. - they stop for 15 - 20 minutes at the Great Siege Tunnels. No steps but a smooth sloping floor - you go as far in as you like. Vertical northern views down over the airport, the border and the Spanish mainland. - at the end of the tour the driver can take you back to the ship, or most folk choose to bale out in town at Casemates Square / the northern end of Main Street - from there it's a 20 minute walk back to the ship or there's a taxi rank behind Casemates Square. Difficult to advise which to choose, because I don't know the extent of hubby's mobility. JB 🙂

My understanding is that in 2019 Celebrity experimented with returning their excursions via Athinios, thus avoiding the melee on the pier under Fira. Of course the whole world stopped for the next two summers, and I've yet to learn whether this year they're continuing with that, or whether that's prompted any other line to follow suit. Azamara are no longer in the same stable as Celebrity, having been sold off last year, but mebbe (hopefully) the idea has rubbed off on them - advertising their excursion/s for mobility-impaired folk seems to suggest it has.🤞 BTW suec, ships do try to co-ordinate their arrival & departure times to avoid clogging the cablecar bottleneck, so try to find out the other ships' times in port. For instance if yours is 10am to 5pm, a ship arriving at 2pm & leaving at 10pm won't impact that bottleneck. And bear in mind that Santorini is very popular as a vacation destination in its own right, so differences in cruiser numbers perhaps don't make a huge difference elsewhere on the island. JB 🙂

I suspect you've already got the general drift 🤣🤣🤣 We broke our own cardinal rule in June this year - couldn't resist a bucket-price one week cruise in the Adriatic. All the adjectives in previous posts applied.😮 Fortunately 1. we'd previously visited the larger ports - no way were we going to walk the wall of Dubrovnik this time, but we couldn't avoid the short but shade-less walk back to the ship in Split. 2. ports we'd not visited before, including Koper and Kotor, were delightful but small. 3. the cruise deal included an all-you-can-drink package. So mornings ashore & afternoons going thro the cocktail list from a shady outdoor bar on the ship. Mid-summer is fine for relaxing & people-watching from behind a tall cool beer in a Greek harbourside taverna or roasting on a beach. But for traipsing the sights of Rome? No thanks 😮 JB 🙂

Did their comments refer to Aqaba specifically? Most ports we wing-it without any sort of tour or pre-arrangement, but that'd be difficult & risky at Aqaba because it's a secure port, because there's no public transport to Petra, because a lot of taxi drivers don't speak English, because of the distance to Petra thro open & isolated desert, etc. If they were indeed referring to Aqaba, its a pound to a penny that their tours were pre-booked. Nothing wrong with a pre-boked private tour as long as you very carefully check the operator's reviews and they have a contingency plan in case of a breakdown. And if the price doesn't include the entrance fee for Petra (ships' excursions do), check the walk-up entrance fee - last I heard it was the equivalent of around 70 USD. JB 🙂

A cheap little tub of Cocoa Butter. Bought from a selection of locally-made products at a smallholding up in the rainforest of some Caribbean island - the vendor assured me that it was excellent for grazes and for rough skin generally, but I bought it as just a rather pointless little souvenir trinket, It stayed in the bathroom cabinet for a couple of years. Then because of excessive time spent on a desktop PC the skin of my left elbow became cracked & dry. I bought a couple of different remedies that didn't work, then remembered the cocoa butter. Superb stuff, worked a treat. I've just dug it out again to see which Caribbean island it came from .................................. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 😀 JB 🙂

Air-con is almost-always the culprit - it dries the air. Is there much air-con in northern California? People aren't used to air-con in the UK - there's little need for it, so it causes a dry cough for some folk when they're subjected to it on long-distance coaches, commercial aircraft, some trains, a few hotels - and cruise ship cabins. If that's the cause, draping a few damp towels around the cabin (with the cabin steward's OK) helps alleviate it. For most folk it's nothing to worry about JB 🙂

Princess mainly use either Ocean Cruise Terminal or Mayflower Cruise Terminal. Check the port itinerary for the ship & date https://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Live_Information/Shipping_Movements_and_Cruise_Ship_Schedule/Cruise_Ship_Schedule/ Ocean is a 5-minute walk to Dock Gates 4 or 5 Turn left outside the gate & it's another 2 mins to a Starbuck's on Town Quay, or old-town Southampton just beyond. Mayflower is a little more difficult. A 15-minute walk to Dock Gate 10, then another 5 to a McDonalds but little else there and a further 10 mins thro a retail park to West Quay Shopping Mall. So perhaps worth a short taxi hop (taxi rank at the cruise terminal) If your friend is travelling by car they can access the concourse for either terminal by sweetly telling the gate security that they're picking you up at the end of your cruise. Be sure to swap phone numbers with your friend. JB 🙂

Hi, and welcome to Cruise Critic, A great itinerary on an excellent ship - you just might struggle to match it on your next cruise !! If you don't already have a credit card with no foreign transaction fees, get one. Halifax Clarity, Capital One, & the Post Office's credit card are examples. And don't rely on a single card - if you want to play super-safe carry one each and keep a third one in your cabin safe. Cards always give a better exchange rate than any exchange bureau. But be sure to check that your card is charged in local currency because a lot of outlets will offer to charge in the currency of your card "for your convenience" but their exchange rates can be gross. Some even simply set their POS machine to sterling - in which case insist that they change it to their own currency before swiping or entering your PIN. Being charged in local currency also means you can see that the price you agreed or on the bill is the price you pay. BTW, same applies to settling your on-board account. Ship's currency will be USD - here too you'll be asked if you'd like your on-board account to be settled in the currency of your card. DECLINE that kind offer, have your card charged in USD & let your card issuer convert at a much better exchange rate. Since this is 3 x B2B, I suspect that you'll receive three end-of-cruise accounts. I hope that you're aware that in common with all (I think it's all) American ships, daily "tips" for your cabin steward and dining waiters will be added to your on-board account, and a percentage (15%?) service charge added to your drinks bills. You'll need cash for Thailand (Bangkok ?,) but I don't know about the UAE or India or Sri Lanka, and in all ports it's always worth having a little local shrapnel in your pockets. Jordan. You'll be porting at Aqaba. It's a secure port, you can only leave on a tour or ship's free shuttlebus to town. The town is seriously uninteresting, and because of the circumstances it's a port where I'd recommend a ship-sponsored excursion. Either - the 2 hour haul to Petra. Well worth the effort but don't expect to save money by negotiating a taxi in Aqaba town. That's what we did, but hadn't realised that the entrance fee to Petra (included in ship's excursion fee) was so high. Nett result we paid about a pound less than those on the excursion, but they had a magnificent buffet lunch whereas we had just a muddy cup of roadside coffee. 🤔. - or much closer, to Wadi Rum for a 4x4 drive across the high desert. Great fun. Again, because of the switch from coach to 4x4 jeeps it's simpler by ship's excursion. If you take ship's excursion you won't need Jordanian dinar - the prices of the stalls & street-sellers are "cheap as chips", "Asda-price" etc (they're a bit behind the times 😉 ). They accept $, € and £ (including pound coins) Look up Lawrence of Arabia's connections with the assault on Aqaba and his time at Wadi Rum in the shadow of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Thailand. If this is Bangkok, check where you port. It'll probably be Laem Chabang, which is 2 hours from the city (allow 3 hrs for the return to the port). Check your cruise's RollCall (see below) for any fellow-cruisers seeking sharers for a transfer or tour. If Celeb Edge is in port overnight give serious consideration to an overnight hotel in the city - it avoids double-travel & gives you an evening in the city. The Grand Palace is the big draw, but be sure to take a ride thro the klongs (canals) on a long-tail boat. Browse thro Cruise Critic threads on the ports-of-call boards. From the home page click on a region or country - let's say Australia. In the upper right of the Australia/New Zealand board, type your port (Sydney?) into the little search box. In the drop-down box click on "this forum" (to avoid stacks of irrelevant posts) and click on the little spyglass beside the search box. Give the magic a few seconds to work, and hey-presto https://boards.cruisecritic.com/search/?q=Sydney&quick=1&type=forums_topic&nodes=48 Join your cruise RollCall (there'll probably be three). It's early days yet, but one at least has been started at https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2811444-oct-30-2023-suez-canal-cruise/ Post on there to say "Hi" to your fellow-cruisers. Have a great cruise JB 🙂

According to googlemaps, the walk down is about 20 minutes (if you reverse the route to go up, it says 26 minutes - so googlemaps does know something about the terrain 😉) We've only done it twice - down both times, late in the day, & neither time in the dark or in wet weather. Very, very few donkeys after mid-afternoon - like most four-legged creatures, they find it far more challenging to walk down than up, and there's nothing like the same demand for them as there is for going up. Ergo, very very little fresh donkey-poo, and by then the earlier stuff has dried to dust. Slipperiness here and there is due to some stones being super-smooth rather than poo - those super-smooth stones are pretty easy to see - they glint in the sunlight. Nonetheless, best to steady yourself with one hand on the wall altho I rate "people slip and injure themselves all the time" as something of an exaggeration. Yes, footwear with some grip is essential, same as it is in wet weather on super-smooth sidewalk. And closed footwear if you're concerned about poo, whether fresh or dry We're now of a certain age and we'd prefer to go down by cablecar, but if the line is long we'd have no hesitation in walking down the zig-zag path.

Agreed .But it's not just the premium lines that offer long-haul. Try Holland-America for long (28+days) itineraries and one-way cruises. Or for as many segments of a world cruise as you want, P&O or Cunard and perhaps others. Two back-to-back cruises on different ships have their problems & risks, such as the first cruise being delayed or cancelled. Back-to-back-to-back-to back multiple times multiplies those risks. Finding multiple cruises with dates that slot together would be very difficult - and probably still involve repeat ports, a day or three between segments, and mebbe transfers between ports that are tolerably close together (or mebbe even not so close together, so relying on ferry or air travel between ships). And doing back-to-backs on different ships screw-up cruising's big advantage of going to lots of places without unpacking & re-packing, getting used to the "resort"'s layout, routine, staff, folk that you meet, etc. Fun for the first switch and mebbe the second, but ending up as a chore. And cruising for months - whether on one ship or on multiple ships - has drawbacks. A medical issue or the need to go home for some emergency or a dozen other reasons why folk have to cancel or foreshorten a cruise. Or to cancel a list of back-to-backs. In your brain (well, in mine at least 😉) multiple ports tend to roll into each-other, confusion about what you saw where, not really getting the thrill of every port-after-port-after port. Multiple ports in multiple countries involves multiple currencies (even if you pay by card you have to figure out value-for-money), multiple visas or other entry requirements - perhaps still Covid passes or tests., multiple clothing requirements for multiple climates, etc. But mainly a big hole in your bank account but with the joys of anticipation just the once. And mebbe stuck with figuring what to do next year - and whether you can afford next year. We've only done back-to-back once (three days in Rome between cruises, which was ideal), but we'd never cruise even a single ship for more than 6 weeks. Tattydog - I don't know your cruising experience, and it's different horses for different courses, but that's MHO. JB 🙂

Elsewhere in the world, including from Cicar, convertibles are very very poor value, Hank - but all of our US road-trips have been by rented convertible mustangs.🙂 Red pimps' mustangs, black drug-dealers' mustangs, even a gays' yellow mustang. But we got a shock when considering another invasion of the USA - mustang rental fees have more than doubled 😟. So next time it'll be cheaper to take a tin-opener with us, rent a sedan, and sacrifice the insurance excess 🤔 JB 🙂

That's a bummer 😟 I see that direct LGW - SOU buses have still not returned to the Nat Express timetable, the route is via one change of bus - at Heathrow 🙄 A pre-booked car LGW - LHR will cost around £55 to £65 - that's not much more than 2 pax by Nat Express bus. But Gatwick to Heathrow to Southampton is time-consuming & stressful by any means. Even if you didn't buy cancellable bus tickets, your probably cheapest - and by far simplest - option is to take the direct hourly train from Gatwick Airport South Terminal to Southampton Central, which as per an earlier post of mine has been re-instated post-Covid. Advance fares £9 to £12 available from about eight weeks out, but those advance tickets are only good for the train time that you book. Walk-up fares about £40. A couple of caveats 1. No direct trains or cheap advance fares on Sundays. 2. The country is going thro a spate of days of industrial action on the trains. There are no wildcat strikes - employers must be given notice, normally a minimum of14 days notice. Trains are run by regional operators, and according to https://www.itv.com/news/2022-07-22/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-summer-train-strikes and other reputable websites that I've checked, the operator for this route, Southern Railways, is not among the train operators listed as being affected by the already-announced strikes on 13th August and 18th to 20th August, 🙂. The websites of National Rail and Southern Railways show latest information. https://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/ https://www.southernrailway.com/ (whilst normally advance fares are normally only good for the train time that you book, if the service on your travel day is disrupted or cancelled, I think your tickets will be good for a different time on that day, or for the same time next-day. It never rains but it pours. 🙄 JB 🙂

We were on Lanzarote for a week last month. Two fairly obvious main choices for a port-of-call day - both have to be done by road............... From Arrecife, 17 miles north to Jameos del Agua. Worth 30 - 40 mins . A couple of miles from there, Cueva de los Verdes. Accompanied groups, anticipate about 45 to 60 minutes. Or IMHO if you're gonna miss one place, miss this one. Then 7 miles from there to Mirador del Rio. Worth 30 - 40 mins Then 20 miles to Fundacion Cesar Manrique, Tahiche. Worth 30 - 40 mins. Then back to the ship, 4 miles. Total 48 miles, about 4 hrs. A mix of scenic bye-ways and main & urban roads https://goo.gl/maps/F9WuYkQ5TUWyXvjk6 From Arrecife 20 miles to Timanfaya Nat Park visitor centre (Islote de Hilario on googlemap). Here you transfer to a park bus (included in entrance fee) which takes you on a narrow, mazy, and sometimes steep road across the volcanic lava. Then attractions at the visitor centre. Allow 60 to 90 minutes. Then 11 miles on public roads across the lava fields to El Golfo (green lagoon, worth 20 minutes) and Los Hervideros - the most spectacular accessible place where the lava entered the sea (worth 45 mins). Currently the road is blocked south of Los Hervideros due to (? landslip?), if not re-opened when you go just ignore the road closed sign. There's some back-tracking to do, but still well worth the visit. Then 13 miles maximum to the resort of Playa Blanca, with a great seafront promenade lined with bars, cafes, restaurants, shops etc. (worth 30 to 60 minutes) and 25 miles back to the ship. Or if time is against you, skip Playa Blanca & head back to the ship from Los Hervideros, 25 miles. Total 75 miles, about 5hrs 40 mins to 4hrs 40 (or 60 miles, 3hrs 25 or 2hrs 25 excluding Playa Blanca). A mix of scenic bye-ways & main roads. https://goo.gl/maps/qdV7LfS194VUD8318 Google those places, see what you think. Can't help with tour operators or car+driver. We've visited all the main Canary Islands, most - including Lanzarote - more than once, and always rented from Cicar https://www.cicar.com/EN/action/officeview/lanzarote-cruising-port who are the main rental operation in the Canaries and have an excellent reputation for good clean cars, sensible rates, and for not ripping-off customers. JB 🙂