Esperanza7

11 hours ago, heatherb1958 said:

The Grandiosa is a fab ship, we enjoyed it much more than Meraviglia or Bellisima.

With regards Barcelona night and the Gatsby theme there is a party in the Carousel lounge quite late . People wore sparkly stuff for that night . We embarked in Barcelona and had no idea why people were dressed up but found out at the party .

 

We did the Meraviglia last year and really enjoyed that too. Just looking at the Daily Planner for Barcelona (we embarked there too) the Gatsby Party didn't start until 12.15am! We actually didn't go to it as the travelling etc. caught up with us by then!!

On 2/11/2020 at 2:27 PM, lovetoholiday said:

Sailing on the Grandiosa for 7 nights out of Barcelona next month.  Booked under the Get More deal so have 2 speciality restaurants as well as a Cirque de Soleil dinner.  We are trying to plan out where we want to go when so we can book as soon as we board.  Does anyone know when the Gala Night (s) would be?  The only sea day is the last day before returning to Barcelona.

For example we really enjoy getting dressed up for Gala Night and also want to go to the Tapas Bar, but not in our finery, so would want to avoid it for that night.

Many thanks if you can help.

Hi we disembarked in Barcelona on 13th February. This is how the themed evenings worked. Please feel free to ask any questions. We had a great time on the cruise and we were in a balcony fantastica cabin on deck 12.

Themed evenings
Sunday, Civitavecchia: White party night
Monday, Palermo Elegant
Tuesday, Valletta Tropical
Wednesday, at sea gala (at 20.15 there is the dance with the captain and the officers) that after dinner becomes flower glory party 60/70s (great fun vibrant party!)
Thursday, Barcelona no theme  Entertainers wear Gatsby theme
Friday, Marseille there is a Mediterranean menu (very nice if you like mediterranean food, which we do!)  and the waiters wear all a green aprons. Good fun Space Party
Saturday, Genoa  no specific theme Romeo & Juliette night
None are compulsory 🙂

Hope this helps

Esperanza 🙂 

On 2/19/2020 at 8:23 PM, dexddd said:

By going wrong, you mean Zoe not working?  I hadn't paid much attention to the first roll outs, did they have some issues, and if so, what out of curiosity?

Hi. Just got off the Grandiosa last week. Had a great time and of course like all new ships there are a few minor points that will improve with time and crew togetherness! Certainly nothing major! Personally we found Zoe a bit of a waste of space! Maybe we just didn't understand how to work her properly and to be fair had much more interesting things to do rather than spending time working it out! However, I must say she was very good at turning on the television!! lol 🙂The MSC for me app, is excellent and definitely worth downloading and using. Esperanza

Last week we took a taxi from our hotel (next to the train station) to the port and the same post cruise. It cost about 25€. We were only two people but when we disembarked there were groups of 6 people getting into large taxis. There was an official lady there sorting everyone out! Presume that the larger taxis would be available at the station to take you to the port as well. Hope that helps. 😊

2 hours ago, Jimbo59 said:

It is round trip, to the old port. But I think it is only for passengers staying on the ship.

Thank you. The free shuttle to the port is right by our hotel for embarkation day. Was thinking more for when we disembark and our overnight hotel is in the old port. Am getting a bit nervous reading all the negative reports about this cruise! 

1 hour ago, Jimbo59 said:

In Marseille MSC is charging 15.99 euros per person. Taxi is 15-20 euros each way.

Jimbo 59, is the 15.99 euros per person return or just one way? Can you book one way? We are embarking/disembarking the cruise in Marseille, so looking at the options. Do you by chance know where in the centre of Marseille the shuttle goes to? Many Thanks 🙂

This will be our first MSC Cruise. We are platinum with NCL and when I applied for the status match I expected (as I had read) to get 'black'. When it came back 'gold' I did query it with MSC in Madrid and they explained that only Ambassador people would now receive the 'black' status. Platinum and Platinum Plus will receive 'gold'. I actually have no issue with this (although black would have been nice!). Other cruise lines don't match at all, so really this is fine by us. We actually wanted to give MSC a try, especially that we live in Europe and can pick up their ships at different ports quite easily. 🙂 

20 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

Hopefully as they work their way through the setup the picture will come back again.

Here's a couple of the dailies -

Thank you very much for posting these for me. Answered my questions. Look forward to following your next adventure! 🙂 

Karen

6 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

Thanks -   I always look at a vacation as an adventure.   While we always like things to go as planned their are always new opportunities when revisions need to be made  

I'm still working on getting refunded for all my private tours that were cancelled.  

I just discovered there is a new feature -  bottom right corner of message where you can "Like" or "Thanks" for a post.  I know a lot of people have been requesting this for a long time.

 

Hi Jim. 

Thank you so much for your time and effort during your amazing vacation. I too was so sorry when it got cut short and now all that lovely information has disappeared!! That was part of my reference guide for when we board in Shanghai on the 27th!! lol 😊

If you still have one, and it's possible, could you please post just one of the Dalies. There were a few things I wanted to check over regarding times, etc.

Happy to hear you had a great time despite all the changes.

Karen

I'm sure you will enjoy your vacation on Millennium. The staff is incredible and contrary to many of the reviews I've read she is in very good condition. As a matter of fact a couple from Australia we met last night at dinner was saying they were concerned prior to the cruise with all the negative reviews and were very impressed with both the service and the condition of the ship.

We are on the 27th October sailing too and really looking forward to an amazing vacation.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post all this great information! So many of my questions have already been answered now!

Do you know if Captain Alex will still be on board or, if not, who the new Captain will be?

Very happy that everyone was safe in Yokohama and hope you have a great time for the rest of the cruise.

Looking forward to reading all about it! :)

Esperanza

Hi, do you know if it's possible to book trough the UK website if I'm not living there? I've seen a wonderful offer that it's not available in the Spanish website. Thanks.

 

Enviado desde mi SM-G930F mediante Tapatalk

I've been living in Spain for 29 years and I book almost all my cruises through my UK Travel Agent who uses the UK websites. Never had any problems but remember that the UK rules/conditions apply to the booking.

Have a great time.

Please keep in mind that in many countries (like Germany) you can not get a 10 year visa.

So the consideration wether to get a visa (for one single trip) or not is a completely different one.

We are UK passport holders, resident in Spain.

Just back from Madrid which is where we had to apply to for the visas.

Our options were, single entry (not sure of validity), double entry (3 months), multiple entry (6 months) or multiple entry (12 months) all carry different prices. No other options listed.

Prices overall have gone up a lot since, let's say, 5 years ago. Prices will also stay up as long as there are people willing to pay the asked amount for it. Edge is a complete no-no it seems for the incoming few years, ridiculous prices imo. I also have a couple of cruise certificates that need to be used before 2019 with NCL, but I can't seem to find any suitable cruise with a price I'm willing to pay. :)

I'm in exactly the same position, Have a cruise reward voucher to use before March 2020. At the moment I can't find anything that's within our budget for a decent itinerary and ship! Even foregoing the voucher the prices for cruises seem to be ridiculous now. Maybe our cruising years will have to come to an end to be replaced by land vacations! :(

We are UK passport holders living in Spain.

I've spent a lot of time (actually too much!!) trying to get good visa information.

Conclusion being that we are applying for a double entry visa which will cover Shanghai (we're not going out the area) and Tianjin/Beijing.

We are going to try to use the 144 hour transit visa in Shanghai which, providing we have the correct paper work, should work ok. If so, we will still have a spare 'entry' in case of any problems!

We have to apply for the visas in Madrid,Spain and they are either single, double or multiple entry. Quite a big difference between the prices, especially as we have to do it by post. They are in Madrid and we live on the Costa del Sol.

I believe it can take between 10 to 15 working days providing the paper work is correct. As the visa is only valid for 90 days, we can't apply until August but will probably take till then to sort it out!! lol :')

Esperanza

For tokyo definitely a guide as you are allowing such a small amount of time. I recommend a goodwill guide who are volunteers with English skills ranging from good to excellent. I have been to japan 10-12 times and find tokyo very difficult to get around. Bonus is you get help navigating the city and get to spend the day with a true local. Only cost for you is transport entry and a meal for the guide if you are with him/her at meal time.

Kamakura is easily done on your own but again spending the day with a local is very rewarding.

That sounds a really nice option. How do you go about getting a Goodwill Guide? We're in Tokyo in November post cruise. Thanks

We are cruising from Shanghai in October. First visit to China. I'm not sure of the best area to be in so we will be central for sightseeing, restaurants, etc. At the moment I have a nice hotel booked in Putuo (very near a subway) for 3 nights but I do have it on a free cancellation basis. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you.

I've entered this for both my husband and myself at least twice. Just keeps disappearing! I'll try again when it's nearer to departure.

Thank you very much from me too!:)

Looking forward to October!

Esperanza

Has anyone used TianjinPortTours for excursions to Beijing? We are looking at a sensibly priced one night trip in October but I can't seem to find out too much about the company. Any feedback appreciated. :)

I usually have one by the time I get home! :)

So, Luis, the group coordinator; not impressed. I did get a letter confirming our time and date along with a call from him on the same. I do not remember his call asking me to call him back nor did the letter say to do that otherwise I woild have.

 

I get to Le Bistro at about 10:30 so that I can put out my pre-made name badges and also to help out with anything. The doors are open, there's no "private function" sign, and no one is around although the drinks and pastries are set up. I'm waiting there holding people from coming in since I know they'll have a sign in sheet and blank name badges but by 10 to there's still no one there except for the set up people so I just let everyone in.

 

A few minutes later he finally shows up and gets all pissy with me because people are in there and he has his sign in sheets. Some of the cruisers say the doors were wide open and he blames me for nothing be set up in front because I didn't call him back. Said that a couple of times too, and attitude was definitely noticed by the people there. He goes up front and closes the doors so he can have people sign in and the people inside go about signing in and making name tags.

 

The rest went well, the officers made their introductions and I had just enough goody bags since 10 of them were there.

 

Sent from outerspace

Luis was the Group Coordinator on our 19th Feb Jewelcruise (I was assisting our Cruise Critic Roll Call coordinator) and have totell you we had almost the exact same experience when he showed up at theBistro. (Can’t comment on the letter or phone calls.)

It’s a shame there’s not a ‘Non Hero’ card to fill out. He’ddefinitely have got one from me!!

I’ve set up two Meet & Greets on Norwegian ships and found those Group Coordinators to be very helpful and amicable.

Love your review and it’s bringing back some great memories :D

I was on the 19th Feb cruise too :) We didn't have yellow fever vaccinations. However, if I remember well, we did have to fill out a form for the Nicaragua authorities, which we had to return to the Guest Services Desk before arrival.

In Nicaragua we did a private full day excursion to Leon which was very interesting and enjoyable.

I gave the bag to the cabin steward in the morning and we had it back the next day in the evening. It was washed and folded but not ironed.

I had exactly the same experience on the Norwegian Sun. At the time it seemed very strange but on reflection I could understand the reasoning. The poolside BBQ also refused to cook a burger rare.

It's definitely something to do with ground beef as like other posters I always have my steak very rare and have never been asked with that.

On the Jewel next week, so I'll be prepared!! :)

As I received some conflicting information both here and on line regarding cell phone connectivity whilst using Uber, I decided to drop them an email and ask for clarification. Below is what they replied - hope it helps other users :)

Esperanza

Welcome to Spain Uber support. Happy to help.

Creating an Uber account requires a valid email address and phone number. You’ll also need to create a password and agree to terms and conditions and our privacy statement.

Go to https://get.uber.com/go/ fill in your first and last name, phone number, and preferred language. Once you complete this part of the signup process, we send a text SMS to verify your phone number. Also, you can check this page for more information: https://ride.uber.com/en_US/

Once you have done this, you may request a ride. First you have to be connected to a Wi-Fi, Internet or data connection in your device, then request a ride, once the driver arrives to pick up the place where you are, you do not need to have connections during the trip. When the trip ends, it is not necessary to have a connection. It is only necessary to connect if you want to change the drop off location while trip is done.