joyus

Thank you all very much for your insight and pointing me in the right direction. 

My DH and I are arriving in London on Aug 27th for a cruise aboard Anthem of the Seas on Aug. 30th. We're considering staying at the Travelodge London City Hotel at 20 Middlesex St. We'd like to know if this is a good location and easy to get around to see mainly Buckingham Palace changing of the guards, Westminister Abbey and the HOHO tour?

I am considering booking a Walking Tour of Dubrovnik for 6:00pm. It's a 1.5 hour tour. The NCL Star is scheduled to be in port from 1:00pm - 9:00pm no other cruise ships will be in port on Monday 9/24/18. Do you think we'll have time to do this tour and get back to the ship on time?

That's about six miles from Venice, unfortunately.

 

The last regional train of the night departs Venice (Santa Lucia) at 11:11 PM and arrives to Mestre at 11:23 PM.

 

The last bus is a little over an hour later, departing from Piazzale Roma at 12:40 AM: http://muoversi.venezia.it/sites/default/files/attachments/pdf/UM/U-2.pdf

Thank you. I understand it's about a 10 minute ride to Venice from the hotel in Mestre which is fine with us considering the difference in the cost of hotels on the mainland vs on the islands.

Thank you everyone for your response. IdI also like to ask 2 more questions about Venice. We're staying on the mainland at Hotel Plaza Venice which is directly across the street from the train and bus station. My question is what time of night does either one stop running? Also, are the menu in the non-tourist areas generally in English also?

Thank you. I normally use Doulingo. Good to know it's a language offered by that website. I was concerned that it was the venetio language which is not offered by them. Are many of the signs in both Italian and English?

I am preparing for our trip on NCL out of Venice in Sept. I like to know a few important words in the native country we are visiting whenever we're traveling out of the country. I also read somewhere on this board that the some people of Venice like to hear tourist speak a little in their language. So what is the language of Venice as I understand it is not Italian or French. If you learned a few words before going, please tell me what website you used. What was your experience with the language or should we even bother attempting to learn the language. Thank you

There is nothing wrong with the Vista, they are not changing anything of substance on the Horizon. Relax and go enjoy a cruise.

Again, hopefully Carnival will add more staff at least for a full ship as our cruise is showing.

I work in HR and one of the most frequent concerns I get is that my organization is understaffed. In all reality, we're overstaffed. When clients have to wait to talk or meet with someone they are in my office as soon as they can get there to complain. Unfortunately, their attitude has rubbed off on several employees who now also feel we're understaffed. Staffing based on actual need is a science and not an easy thing. I have faith in CCL that they know what they're doing.

I would hope that CCL know what they're doing, however, this is one complaint I've not read on any other ship. My hope is that someone is monitoring the crew to passenger ratio (which I would think so since they've been in business for so long), and not adding staff based on the expense. We're sailing the Vista on March 19th and to tell you the truth all the posts about not enough staff, small public areas, then add Spring break on top of that...well, I know we'll need to have a lot of patience.

So, do you think these complaints are brought to the attention of anyone who can make a difference at Carnival? I was hoping that by now this problem would be resolved.

Most every review of the Vista mentions that the ship is understaffed and long lines. It seems to be the same complaint since her first sailing! I'm surprised that Carnival management has not fixed this problem by now. Do they read these boards or the reviews?

I would suggest also checking with your bank or credit union. We're members of Navy Federal CU and were able to get 2 $100.00 gift cards by just using our rewards points. We're planning to pay our mandatory gratitude with it and then the rest on whatever.

Thanks to everyone on this site for telling us about Carnival GC. Decided to check my credit union for gift cards. We're members of Navy Federal CU and had more than enough points to get 2 $100 Carnival gc without having to pay for them. We use our cc for most everything, but spend no more than we can pay when the bill comes. Never knew about the Carnival gift card before. We plan to use our to pay our mandatory gratitude for sure. So check your bank or credit union.

Thank you for your review. Can you tell us which food venues are open on the day of embarkation besides the Lido and Pig & Anchor? I know sometimes there are other venues open and are less crowded because most folks don't know that its open.

Thank you very much for sharing your videos.

We were on the Epic out of Barcelona a couple of weeks ago. We really enjoyed the ship! Yes, the cabin design is different, but I like that each ship in each fleet has it's own personality. I say enjoy it for what it is rather than what it is not.

Has anyone gone to the Mall in Florence? I understand the Gucci warehouse is located there along with other designer outlets. I was wondering if the prices are actually greatly discounted compared to the retail stores here in the US. We're planning to do a DIY to Florence from Livorno and was wondering if we should include that in our venture.

Thank you both. I realized I posted on the wrong board...eating lunch and jumping around on the board. Thanks again.

Has anyone gone to the Mall in Florence? I understand the Gucci warehouse is located there along with other designer outlets. I was wondering if the prices are actually greatly discounted compared to the retail stores here in the US.

Just use http://www.worldtaximeter.com/ and add on €1 per bag.

Thank you. I also found what I needed at http://www.taxifarefinder.com. This one is probably a little closer to the actual fare in Barcelona.

Please help me understand this chart. I used Google's translate but I'm still not sure exactly what this chart is listing and how to determine what we should pay for a taxi from BCN to our hotel in city centre. Can you translated to English.

Thanks so much

Excellent information RollingUK! This is what we wanted to know to help us determine how we wanted to get to the hotel. Thanks again.

After reading posts here, it seems public transportation may be a good option to get from the airport to Barcelona centre. Has anyone taken the bus or train on this route? If so, which would you recommend?

I know many would probably recommend taking a taxi but I'd like to consider getting there this way if it's relatively easy. It just my DH and I with probably 1 med. luggage and 1 or 2 carry-ons. Our plane arrives at 9:40am.

Honestly, I'd never heard of it before you posted. It wouldn't be high on my list given all the wonderful things there are to see and do from Naples port. I thought maybe you had a special reason for wanting to go there.

 

The same train mentioned above (Circumvesuviana line) that would take you to Sorrento also goes to Pompeii. If you get on the line headed to Sorrento, Pompeii is slightly more than half way (about 35-40 minutes, from memory).

Wanted to do something different since most tour excursions seem to concentrate on visiting museums, cathedrals, statues which is fine, but I did not want to do that in every port. Seeing this mentioned on Tripadvisor sounded interesting. What did you do in Naples?

Thanks so much to both of you. Have you visited this factory? I'm not finding much discussion of this factory on the boards.Is it woth visiting? Will be able to also visit Pompeii as well?