cruisegal415

Exactly what I was looking for! I was wondering if it was worth it to tour the Trossachs, perhaps stopping in Callandar instead? Or by saying tour the Trossachs, could we mean Queen Elizabeth Forest Park? One of the excursions includes an hour ride on Loch Lomand, perhaps skip that?

I am doing a 12 day British Isles cruise in August 2022. Many people on our ship are doing the Loch Lomand, Trossachs and Stirling Castle excursion. Unfortunately, most of these are already booked, so we are trying to find a private excursion. One of the people in our party would like to see Glasgow as well. I looked at a map and Glasgow is the opposite direction. We dock at 8, not sure how long it will take to tender off since I know they give priority to Princess excursions for the tenders, and we have to be back on the ship by 6, so need to be back at the tender place by 5 or 5:15 I would think. So I am thinking maybe a 7 hour tour. Since it looks like we will have to arrange a private excursion, I suppose it is possible to include both Glasgow itself as well as Loch Lomand and Stirling Castle, not sure about the Trossachs then. Does anyone have any suggestions re this? Should we try for a stop in Glasgow itself? Should we skip that and just do the other places? Are there other places we should go instead?

I totally agree. I know many people who have done just that. One of the reasons we like to cruise to places we have never been is to get a feel for where we may want to spend more time in the future. The problem is, everywhere we have been so far, we want to come back for a longer stay!

Thanks Edinburgher! Hubby said he isn't interested in the Britiannia so I guess we'll skip that one instead. Another question--I went to book tickets to Edinburgh Castle and there seems to be a wide array of itineraries you can follow if you do an audio or even self-tour of the castle. I am overwhelmed trying to figure that out. Seems like it would be easier (albeit more $$) to do one of those skip-the-line-guided tours that many companies offer. Is that crazy? Edited to add: I just saw that the tour guides are only allowed outside, not inside the castle. That may be a deal breaker. Also, any tips on getting to the castle from the South Queensferry port?

I'm not sure the best forum to ask this, but I thought I'd start here. Let me preface this by saying, we just returned from a 7-day music themed cruise where we were at sea 5 of the 7 days and while we are not big drinkers, we opted for the premium beverage package because we were basically on the ship the whole time, going from venue to venue enjoying the music, drinking frozen drinks, having drinks during the shows, and bottles of water were included, as were fancy coffee drinks which I like. We are doing a British Isles cruise next year, very port intensive. We will be getting off the ship first thing in the am and returning right before sail away. We only have one sea day, and it is not in the warm Caribbean where we would be lying around the pool drinking fruity drinks. That said, our deal with NCL includes a "free" beverage package that adds about $400 in service charges, but when I looked at the beverage packages, the "free" one doesn't include bottled water, which we drink lots of, and doesn't include the coffee drinks. They offer an "upgrade" to the premium plus package, but that would be another $348 per person, including the service charges. So basically we'd be paying about $1100 for a beverage package, which seems quite excessive. Considering all of the above, would it be more cost effective for this cruise to pay-as-you-go for beverages? We would mostly be buying bottles of water every day, maybe fancy coffee once a day for one of us, and wine with dinner most days. They do sell packages of water (12 liters for $36-outrageous when you can get it cheaper on land, but we are flying to London and don't know if we could pick up a case there). Of course, we can just buy a bottle of water at the port/on land, or even bring along our water thermoses and fill them up before we leave the ship. I think I just talked myself out of the beverage package, but what is your experience with beverage packages on a port-intensive cruise?

We are doing a theme cruise next week. We were on a waiting list for two years and last year, when a concierge class room came available we grabbed it up. Of course it didn't sail last year and now it's going next week. Since we booked it so long ago, I hadn't really given much thought to concierge class vs. "regular" class. I understand that the suites get more amenities. But what does concierge class really get us? I see there is a lunch included on embarkation day, unfortunately I did not realize this when I picked our embarkation time, and we won't be getting on in time. I looked on the Celebrity website, and all it says is "Indoor and outdoor space come together to create your private sanctuary at sea. Relax on your spacious veranda and enjoy amenities that all contribute to your luxury experience. As a Concierge Class guest, your team of dedicated professionals will take care of all your vacation needs." But what really is the advantage of concierge class?