rljan

At least they did something for you. After our Reykjavik to New York cruise, we had a 4:30pm flight from JFK. We were put on a bus and taken directly to JFK and dropped off.

Yes. I prefer to be called a cork dork. 😂

The Oceania website says you are allowed to bring 6 bottles per cabin aboard. There is no charge if the wine is consumed in the cabin. There is a $25.00 per bottle corkage fee if consumed in restaurants or public areas.

This will be our first Viking cruise and first use of Viking Air. If your flight arrives early on sailing day, do they take you directly to the ship or do they supply a place to wait until boarding time? Our experience with Crystal was that they would take you to a hotel, where they had a conference room with coffee and food. My guess is that Viking won't do that, but I'm interested in your experience.

We have not used TripMate. However, I checked reviews of many companies before deciding on a different company. TripMate"s reviews were some of the worst. I filtered out the reviews from those who had never made a claim and determined that TripMate was not the way to go for us.

I can’t comment on Celebrity since I haven’t sailed on their ships in several years. However, I am currently on the Westerdam in Japan. There is no classical music. What used to be the Lincoln Center Stage is abandoned. There is now a 3 piece “jazz” group who is on par with a high school combo. The dueling piano duet is mediocre. The only other live music is the Rolling Stone rock group, formerly BB King, who is good. There are daily shortages in food and wine. Using the posted wine list is useless as they are out of stock of most. Hopefully these conditions will improve in the future as HAL recovers from the pandemic losses or their 150th year may be their last. On a positive note, the service has been good and the food is good as well.

Our first flight to SYD was on Qantas from LAX to SYD, 14.5 hrs. We vowed not to do that again, although it was coach. On our next trip, we flew to Honolulu on Hawaiian and spent the night there, continuing on the next day. The HA flights were premium economy. The combination of P.E. and braking up the flight made it much better.

This will be our firstSan Diego to Hawaii, but have done the L.A. to Hawaii several times. Each was different, but on average, one day before reaching the islands was when the weather was warm. This year it's anybody's guess.

Interesting info. We are also booked on that cruise. I just checked the HAL website and received the following message when I plugged in our booking number. ”This specific booking and/or voyage does not yet have published protocols for COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements. Please check closer to the embarkation date for updates.”

I stand corrected. It was a Z drive that failed.

We flew from LAX to SYD on Qantas in coach (14.5 hours) in coach and it was miserable. The next time, we flew to Honolulu on Hawaiian and spent the night there before flying on to Sydney the next day on Hawaiian. both flights were premium economy and it was a much better experience.

Viator or Toursbylocals.

Lyft / Uber.

We are booked on a cruise, leaving Yokohama on April 10, 2023. This will be our first trip to Japan. We arrive on April 8 and have a hotel booked in Yokohama. We would like to take a tour of Tokyo on 9 April and would welcome suggestions from those who have experience in Japan. Spoiler alert: April 9 is Easter Sunday and I'm not sure if that will be a problem finding a tour or not.

My wife is very prone to motion sickness. She takes a capsule of ground ginger daily, beginning a week before a cruise and throughout the cruise. She has never been seasick on a cruise since she began using ginger, even in 30ft. swells. Ginger doesn't have the side effects of drugs and works better than bovine or dramamine.

Viking includes wine and beer with lunch and dinner. If you bring wine aboard, you aren"t drinking their wine so it saves them money.

We got our docs today. We’ll see you at the Hyatt. 😊

Of course, you must do your homework and chose the best policy for your needs. If you want full coverage for many trips, the T.I.I. policy is not the cheapest option. However, it covers any trip over 500 miles from home for the year. Whatever works best for you is the one you should chose and if you've had a bad experience with an insurance company, I wouldn't do business with them.

We have an annual policy from Travel Insured International. It’s worth checking out.

We received our cruise docs for our September cruise on Oceania. Still waiting for our cruise docs from AQV for our cruise next week.

The Captain called it a V-drive. He said there is a V-drive on each side (similar to an azipod on an ocean cruise ship) and the paddle wheel does most of the propulsion.

Yes. We were on the last cruise on the Countess. The starboard side V-drive (engine) went out. The V-drive was lifted out by a crane and place on a truck and taken to a company in Texas for repair. This info was from the Captain. Obviously it hasn't been replaced yet.

That’s interesting. We were on that cruise and it wasn’t offered.

Thanks Don. It sounds like the dining options are the same, or similar to the river cruise ships. We are ok with that. We look forward to our August trip.

We need some reviews from those who have completed this cruise. Particularly those who did the northbound voyage.