negc

I don't remember any reserved seats except for the suite sun deck on Allure.  Freedom class has reserved seats for suite guests but I don't remember any on  Oasis class, but I could be wrong (it's happened before, LOL)

My DH and I will be sailing with you also.  

We were also fans of Trainman an enjoyed all his reviews.  We were sorry to hear of his passing and hope he is at peace.  

Our roll call wasn't very active, but I'm hoping the Meet and Mingle will be fun.  Can anyone tell me when it will be held.  I can't find the e mail I got with the date and time.  I think it was Sunday, but need time and place.

We just got off a trip to Cuba on Majesty and loved it but looking forward to going back on Symphony.  We were on for pre inaugural in November.......ship is beautiful and crew were great.  Looking forward to Hooked and Coastal Kitchen!

See you onboard.

Rita

OOPS, just saw my DH was signed on. I am Bill's gal

Received one today for Majesty 1-28-19, 5  days.  $1100 pp to go to Owners Suite, $650 pp to go to GS, and $400 pp to go to JS.  We are in outside room near Centrum.  I don't think I will pay  $400 pp to go to a JS for 5 days.  Is the amount shown the minimum bid they will accept?  I would pay $200 total to go to the JS.

As long as one of the original names remains on the reservation (and in this case looks like your wife will still be going) you can have your sister in law take your place without having the reservation repriced.

Ask your section head waiter and he/she will oblige.  Just got off Serenade, asked head waiter about cold soups and we had them every night.

3 hours ago, pjlee3333 said:

Mario was supposed to go to diamond lounge 10.21.  He told us that has changed.  He will remain in cl until the end of his contract. 

Good to know.  We will be boarding on 10/28 and are meeting friends who are currently onboard for a Bermuda cruise.  Mario is our very favorite concierge and we had the pleasure of his company on the Brilliance's British Isles cruise the past summer.

He is also an accomplished musician and singer as we discovered at a Top Tier party on a previous cruise.

Not trying to hijack, but hi Lora. Are you on the repo?

Just would like any feedback on the following entertainers that are going to be on our upcoming cruise on the brilliance. A juggler name aaron bonk, a musical group named rookie, and a comic named steve smith....thanks so much for your thoughts, we appreciate it a lot...…:cool:

You might want to google them and see if any have a website or any videos which might give you some idea of what they have to offer. I have often found that the "unknown" performers provide the best entertainment.

Any idea who will take over on Serenade and will be the CD on her repositioning cruise from Boston, October 28th? Is Carly B still with the company and, if so, any chance she will be the one?

Either you were lucky--or we were not lucky, because that has not been our experience.

 

DH tried to find an NFL game on the Radiance--no dice. DH was very disappointed during finals of March Madness.

The Pub on Radiance class ships we have sailed on have always shown World Series games, NBA finals and some regular season games, and the national network feeds of NFL games during the entire regular season and into the playoffs and the Super Bowl.

Many of the games are also shown on the large screen by the pool.

th

Jewel has both a Concierge lounge and a Diamond lounge on Deck 13. Each has its own concierge and as a Diamond Plus you can access either.

I think I'd rather sail through the hurricane.

Says someone who probably hasn't sailed through one. :D

For me, the greatest virtue of my Kindle or iPad is the ability it provides me to bring along a large quantity of reading material when I am traveling. With all the weight restrictions imposed by airlines it would not be possible to take anywhere near as many magazines, newspapers or books.

Taggert was just filling in on the Serenade, believe he leaves on 7/29. Unfortunately, understand that Patrick Olin will be back on the ship - darn!!

 

Carla

That is disappointing. Have sailed with both but Robert is definitely our favorite and we would have enjoyed being with him on our 12 night repositioning cruise.

We recently had a group of 9 in MTD on Brilliance of the Seas and had the same table and waitstaff each evening with no problems. On a subsequent sailing on Harmony of the Seas, the MTD dining room was able to accommodate 1 4 of us in adjacent tables with ease. MTD gave us the flexibility of selecting dining times outside of the set times for traditional dining, something which was important to our groups. The Maitre'd in each instance was exceptionally accommodating.

We have done three Alaska cruise tours over the past nine or so years. Our first was on Princess and we had a great time. Our next two were on RCI and we had an even better time on both of those. RCI provided a dedicated tour guide for the entire land portion of the trip while that was not part of the basic Princess offering. Our excursion in Denali on Princess was the very basic Natural History tour which did not take us far into the park while RCI included the tour which took us far further into Denali where we saw a much larger variety of wildlife, including a Momma Bear and her three cubs who climbed over the guard rail and walked beside our bus and continued on their way down the road. While Princess certainly delivered an excellent trip, overall we felt that RCI much better met our expectations. Princess did take us into Glacier Bay but frankly I did not feel I missed much of anything on the cruise portion of our RCI ventures. I think you should have a good time on either line.

That's exactly my point. Many of those that bring fluffy onboard are top cruisers. The reason they can sail so often is because their pets are allowed. They admit that they don't want pay kennel fees.

 

Will RCI have the guts to tell them that their pooch is no longer allowed? We'll have to wait and see. Hopefully they'll stand their ground no matter who it is. I'm totally for it.

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

Well, I am Pinnacle and don't know of any other Pinnacles that bring their dogs onboard.

Not that there are none, but the only people I have seen with dogs onboard are also not in the Concierge or suite lounge, so who knows how high a status they have, However, I have seen a number of folks walking around with their dogs dressed up with bows in their hair and being pushed in strollers. Last week on Harmony there was a woman sitting near us at Chops who had her dog in a carrier and it was on the floor beside her table. Later on that night she was at a slot machine in the casino, while the dog was beside her in the carrier on the floor. Should I have asked if she was a top cruiser? I think you are painting with a broad brush.

Does anyone know how long Robert Taggert is due to be Hotel Director on Serenade? We will be sailing on her in late October (repo cruise from Boston), and would enjoy sailing with him once again (especially during football season if his Saints are playing our Patriots).

Ok..found out from a staff member( from SY), they do not offer this. Due in fact,very few high level cruisers on the European cruises.

Not sure about the Symphony, but on our recent Brilliance British Isles cruise, there were only 9 or so Pinnacle members and all were invited to a special lunch with senior staff (Hotel Director, Food and Beverage Manager, Chief Housekeeper, Loyalty Ambassador etc) in the Chef's Table

Amsterdam's Schiphol International Airport

 

I wish to point out some things you should all know about Amsterdam's International Airport known as Schiphol Airport

 

 

This airport is MASSIVE!!!... Not necessarily the terminal, but the physical area (acreage) of the entire airport. As we were landing, I noted I couldn't see the airport terminal. I did notice other planes and a large® building way off in the distance, as well as another plane landing beside us on another runway (probably a mile away I'm guessing?). Turns out our plane landed on the farthest runway possible from the airport terminal.... to make matters more complicated, our terminal we had to get to turned out being at the opposite side of the terminal and the very farthest gate of that entire wing of the terminal.

 

I remember glancing at my watch when we landed as we were about 10 minutes late. I noted this as I had a hotel shuttle booked for a certain time after landing. Not exaggerating one bit, it took almost 25 minutes for the plane to roll along at what, maybe 25-30mph, along runway after runway, crossing over a freeway, then down more long runways, and all the way around the entire terminal to get to the gate.

 

It was then another 10 minutes of a very brisk walk to get through the huge terminal to the customs/immigration desks. Thankfully, travelling in Air Transat's "Club Class" (business class) in the first row, I was able to get off first and high-tail it through the airport, arriving to immigration at a relatively small line.... US/CAD/"other country" passports on the left, EU passports on the right... extremely easy and quick.

 

Bottom line --- do not book your transportation to your hotel or the ship too early... give lots of time leeway. Imagine if that immigration line had several planes coming in at once for example! That could've added another 1/2 hour or more.

 

 

The airport is extremely easy to get around, plenty of large signs everywhere and more information desks than I can remember than in any other airport. The options are endless upon exiting... service desks offering shuttle services are right there, along with taxi's and hotel shuttles. Outside everything is clearly labelled with various pick-up points for transit and private vehicles

 

 

 

Unlike many large port cities in North America, Amsterdam (like many European large cities) has an amazing network of transit and transportation that makes it extremely easy to pick and choose for your needs ($$ vs. convenience). Post cruise, I took the the tram and direct train from Brilliance back to the Airport, which I will explain at the end of the review... so easy I couldn't believe it... all the talk about being scared of being late for a plane, not knowing what to do, booking a RCL shuttle for 5 times the cost is hogwash... just the smallest bit of planning would show many options to fit anyone's needs. I hope to dispel any myths or apprehension with this part of anyone's journey.

 

Because I arrived 2 days earlier than the cruise, I booked a hotel shuttle service called "Connexxion".

https://www.schipholhotelshuttle.nl/

 

I could not have been any more satisfied with the service and delivery. Waiting for my luggage, I found my confirmation email and quickly sent a reply stating the plane had arrived late and I missed my shuttle time. I was replied back to in 5 minutes "No problem sir. Just head on out to A7 as per the directions to find us and we'll be there for you". On their website, this map is available to find them... and it's to scale.

 

 

Aha! A7, labelled with the company's name.... just down the sidewalk from where I exited the Airport terminal

 

 

I found the representative just off to the side with the blue jacket and he checked me in. Within 10 minutes, 7 of us were loaded into the shuttle bus and off we went. I was the last to be dropped off. With dropping off the first 3 couples it was 30 minutes total from airport to my hotel in central Amsterdam close to all the site-seeing venues.

 

Cost?.... 17.50 euro per person. This includes one luggage and one carry on. Great service.... excellent communication, quick, comfortable, easy to find, not one bit stressful whatsoever. Having landed at 11:30am, I was at my hotel checking in at approx 1:15pm. Note this company will not pick up or deliver to the cruise terminal, however fully recommend them for arrival pre-cruise or after a post-cruise stay at a hotel.

 

Your experience was much better than ours. Our plane, after taxiing for what seemed like forever, dropped us off on the tarmac forcing us to go downstairs from the plane in order to board a bus which eventually took us inside the terminal. From there we passed through customs and immigration and then walked for seemingly miles to get our checked baggage, with my wife falling on an escalator and only escaping injury when one of our party stopped the escalator. When we finally secured our checked bags we had still a long walk to the pickup point of our transport van. Once we managed to locate our transportation things went much more smoothly and we reached our hotel and managed to check in early. Loved our time in Amsterdam and even more our time on the Brilliance where we were reunited with our favorite concierge, Mario Reyes. When we were in Guernsey we had a very nice lunch at the restaurant on the tender pier and managed to avoid the downpour which started just after we entered the restaurant and had stopped by the time we finished our meal. Remarkable weather throughout our trip but jet lag took its toll at the end of our trip home.

Thanks is Bertie still in BR's CL? Or DL?

When we were just on Brilliance for the British Isles cruise, Amit was the concierge in the CL. Mario was in the DL but was about to transfer to the Serenade in Helsinki. Not sure who was replacing him in the Brilliance DL.

We were just on Brilliance in My Time Dining and there were tables for two at the windows near our location on the Starboard side of the Fifth floor MDR.

We stayed at the Ramada Inn in Elizabeth NJ (airport area) and they had free parking and free shuttle service. There were about 19 of us, room prices were not bad, shuttle service was excellent and parking was fine. Would do it again at same hotel. Cannot book it thru the hotel, have to use another website, will try to find it and post it here.

There is a money exchange right at the pier and it's easy to change $ into CUC's and change back into $ However, there is a 13% charge, so $100 will get you 87 CUC's and changing them back to $ will again involve a 13% fee. They win both ways.

Some shops at the pier take American $ but most stores outside of the pier want CUC's.

Just got off Empress to Cuba about one month ago. We did take a ship's excursion for 4 hours, but we were left off at a market area and could have asked for a tour from any of the drivers we saw. No one checked to see what you were doing, it was much more open than we had been led to believe. The ship gave us instructions on how to fill out the required paperwork, but no one was checking on anything.

There were lots of old cars outside the ships terminal so I guess you could pick up a tour there.....the old cars were fabulous!