mikewrit

Wife likes. (I wore long neck ties almost every day for 45 years. Now I hook on the pre-tied bow at least three times a year and have not tied a knot more than three times in 12 years, all for funerals.)

St. Petersburg in the summer is endlessly fascinating. If you can hook up with a group of expats you can fill many days and nights with interesting activities. The two-day visit included as part of most Baltic cruises barely suffices for a taste of the city. Any of the several private excursion companies is preferable to (and a lot cheaper than) most anything arranged by the cruise company. (In my opinion, of course.)

Ephesus Deluxe was happy to rebook the tour from Kusadasi previously booked from Izmir. So we have at least four slots available at $50 each. (Sorry if this is a repeat. My wireless keyboard has been giving me more trouble than it is worth.)

Evidently the Norwegian Spirit has dropped Izmir, Turkey, from the Grand Med itinerary and substituted Kusadasi -- for which no excursion has yet been posted. Anyone on this board know why the change was made and whether it is irreversible?

Another vote for an NCL venture south, although it is easy to understand why the company puts more ships on established itineraries. When sailing the Carnival Splendor around South America we saw how difficult it must be for a cruise company to establish the necessary logistics in a series of new ports.

Have not missed a chance to go ashore since I was on a helicopter landing ship half a century ago. Since we took up cruising a decade back, DW sometimes prefers to hang out on board while I ankle around the nearby sights.

After reading considerable advice here about the benefits of using local travel agents rather that booking online, I started calling those listed in the Yellow Pages. Five calls produced no useful result. One said she only dealt with groups. A second said she was all about casino at sea. Two said they would get back to me but none did. Finally I called one with whom I had been acquainted years before in another capacity. She quoted a price on a cruise we were already in the process of booking; it was about 10 percent higher. So we now book either through the cruise line website or with that online TA whose handle rhymes with Deep Bruises.

After having to repack three cases on the floor in front of the airline counter at JFK, we bought a luggage scale. Soon saved more than the cost in overweight charges, and it includes a clock and LED flashlight.

Many thanks for the interesting, comprehensive review and pictures and follow-up responses. It is all reassuring as we plan our Oct. 21 sailing from Venice around the Med on NCL Spirit. The ship has been taking a lot of hard knocks lately in the CC member review section, particularly for cold food and slow service in the main dining rooms -- also for some aspects of the ship that might well be fixed in dry dock. We hope this thread will continue and that others who have sailed recently on Spirit will add observations.

1. Jade has a better than average library. Many books in European languages. The donation swap books were fairly numerous on our two Jade trips.

2. Don't use the casino and don't remember whether Jade's is particularly smoke-saturated.

3. Spinnaker Lounge on Jade is terrific.

4. We enjoy formal wear but were in the minority on Jade.

5. No self-service laundry, but the bargain bag deal is dandy.

6. We prefer the aft main dining room. Plentiful selection each day, good service, not much waiting unless you have to dine in time to get to the first show in the main theater.

Many fellow cruisers will think you are crazy for packing so light. We think you are brilliant.

y.

Hiking up the trail to the top of Vesuvius less than two months after my 2007 multiple bypass surgery. Dumb but really worthwhile.

Reviews of particular excursions -- whether arranged privately or through a cruise line -- may have small value in selection and planning. Most such reviews seem usually to be about subjective experiences including the mood of fellow travelers, the capability of the guides, the skill of the driver, the weather, the traffic, the reviewer's initial mood et cetera.

Tendering is more fun and less trouble from a ship whose boat crews have lots of experience and skill because the ship hits a lot of tender ports. Not so fun when weather or port load conditions call for an unplanned tender and the boat crews are tentative and appear confused.

From an online dictionary regarding false aconyms:

"Examples include posh, an adjective describing stylish items or members of the upper class. A popular story derives the word as an acronym from "port out, starboard home", referring to first class cabins shaded from the sun on outbound voyages east and homeward heading voyages west.[16] The word's actual etymology is unknown, but it may relate to Romani påš xåra ("half-penny") or to Urdu safed-pōśh (one who wears "white robes"), a derogatory term for wealthy people.[17]"

Cruise Critic roll calls make private tours far more easy to arrange and join. Our very best excursions have been since we found CC. Thanks, all.

What a terrific introduction to the ship we will be meeting in Valparaiso in three weeks. Thank you very much.

Much useful information in this long thread. We are joining SASA (Splendor Around South America, as the roll call has it) for the middle leg, 13 days from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires. We'll be dropping by here now and then during the time before we fly to Santiago.

How long is the felucca ride they are including?

Depends on a whole lot of factors including traffic. We had two terrific hours including lunch. Heard from others that they barely got out of the marina.

Different strokes ... we had dinner at Mena House before the Ramses van picked us up for the drive to the Sphinx. Enjoyed both, but in retrospect the kitschy sound and light show stands out as unique and memorable. Mena House Oberoi is a truly grand hotel, but it is finally just another hotel.

Your Ramses guide probably will tell you to take as long in the museum as you want. Be sure to confer with others in your party to agree on a reasonale amount of time. It is not possible to see everything in the museum in a year of daily eight-hour visits. By the time you get to the museum you probably will be foot-sore and desperate for a soft bed and cool beverage. Two hours will suffice to get a good glance at the huge collection.

I doubt you will have time for both although your Ramses guide will do what he or she can to make it happen. (There are several runs of the light show, and there's always another dinner boat waiting at the dock.) The toughest part about it would be Cairo traffic. It took us nearly an hour to get from Mena House to the Sphinx.

We opted for the felluca ride and did not regret the decision for a minute. Of course time at the pyramids is great, but those couple of hours sailing around the big river after hours in jammed traffic were sweet.

The muster drill sets up the psychology: "You are on a ship. Bad things can happen. If there is an emergency, pay attention and follow orders." Early passenger anecdotes from the Concordia suggested nobody knew what to do. A lot of people panicked, jumped into the cold water and tried to swim to the island. I expect many of the fatalities will turn out to be folks who either drowned trying to swim to shore or remained locked in their cabins waiting for clear instructions what to do.

We were on Norwegian Jade out of Civitavecchia to Holy Land and Egypt last week. The committee of at least four Israeli immigration folks came aboard at Alanya, Turkey, and began with the crew, working through our stop at Cyprus the following day. They called us to the Spinnaker Lounge in deck order the day before landing at Haifa. Took about four hours to get the passports with visa card included back to us. Our passports with the visa cards were picked up as we got back aboard in Ashdod the next evening. Egyptian officials had come aboard by then (probably at Ashdod) and worked much of the night to put in Egyptian visas. The lines to pick up passports before debarking at Port Said the next day were crazy -- but a good preparation for the madness of Cairo traffic. We didn't have to show the passports again when we boarded at Alexandria after spending the night in Cairo. (By the way and off topic, we had to show passports about five times when changing planes at JFK at the end of the venture.

We are in the Greek Islands now and wonder if Ramses accepts credit cards for payment.