Piggeldy

Thanks. Did you get the cabin you hoped for?

We got what we paid ;)

Had hoped for at least a tiny upgrade and got an IE. We'll be alright.

(No really, the price was great. Sleeping on a trundle bed in the engine room would have been fine with me.)

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Thank you. The reservation page on the website is saying that edocs are not available as we don't have a cabin number so there is nothing to print. The cruise is at the end of June.

It was the same for us.

Our cabin was allocated two weeks before departure (we are on the 3 June cruise, our cabin was assigned on 18 May) and only after the cruise was assigned were we able to print edocs.

The soft drink package includes Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, a Sprite-like drink and some juices (Orange, pineapple, tomato, and a couple more).

Did that change recently?

According to their website the "soft drinks package includes Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Lemonade, Soda, Tonic Water (from the soda gun only) & fruit juices (Orange, Apple, Grapefruit, Pineapple, Tomato & Cranberry) for $6.50 a day (+15% gratuity charge). You can purchase this package once on board and the package is for the duration of your cruise"

I still can't wrap my head around the limitations (all soft drinks cost the same... why exclud 1/2 from the package? yes, profit... I understand that but...) and if Lemonade is not included in the package there really is no reason for me to get it. With only Pepsi being part of the package I already doubt it's worth it for DH (who enjoys Ginger Ale and Ginger Beer, both listed as soft drinks on the bar menu but obviously not included in the package).

A real short-course (25 m / 82 ft) swimming pool.

How long did it take from departure until you passed unter the Verrazano Bridge?

So they cruised up and down the Norwegian coast in the freezing winter months and it just happened to be overcast for the entire two weeks of their journey. They were heartbroken and returned home without even seeing a star much less the Northern Lights. So sad.

Our honeymoon was a roundtrip on Hurtigruten's Trollfjord in December. It was mostly raining (3° & rain was not what we had expected in Northern Norway in winter...), we had winterstorms that were so bad we could only make one quick stop at Stamsund to let people off and missed Svolvær, Stokmarknes and Sortland on the way north (the spray was hitting the windows of the observation lounge on deck 8). Northern Lights happened once during dinner (by the time we were up on deck they were over) and once right after dinner... when my husband was in the shower and missed them :D I tried to call him on his mobile phone but he didn't hear it so no Northern Lights for him.

Still, the whole trip was amazing! The light was amazing (when it wasn't raining, cloudy or foggy). We were 7 or 8 round trip passengers. The service was great. The food was good. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Not if Northern Lights were my priority though.

[DH got to see beautiful auroras last August (!) when we were in Iceland though. That made up for it.]

Dublin7guy - join the (rather quiet) roll call!

We are also quite new to cruising, this is our second cruise and first cruise on Cunard. Our first was a WB TA on Celebrity Eclipse which we enjoyed a lot.

For $6.50 per day I think we will most likely get DH a soft drink package... with $2.75 the package price sounds reasonable. As we can never agree on one wine (DH prefers red while I tend to go for white or rose) we will buy wine by the glass, I don't think a wine package will be worth it for us.

And to highjack this thread (sorry)... ask.cunard states the following:

"Our soft drinks package includes Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Lemonade, Soda, Tonic Water (from the soda gun only) & fruit juices (Orange, Apple, Grapefruit, Pineapple, Tomato & Cranberry) for $6.50 a day (+15% gratuity charge)."

The sample bar menu on the same said lists:

"Cola, Diet Cola, Lemonade, Diet Lemonade, Ginger Ale, Tonic Water, Club Soda Water, Orange Soda, Ginger Beer"

Are Diet Lemonade, Ginger Ale, Orange Soda and Ginger Beer really excluded from the soft drinks package? Or is the list incomplete?

Book a return flight LAX - ARN (check Norwegian, they have nonstop flights on that route) and book a separate flight BGO - ARN (Norwegian sells them for around 60 €). If you worry (and have the time), plan to arrive in Stockholm on 24 July, stay in Bergen for a day or two (Bergen is lovely! especially in summer), maybe spend an extra night in Stockholm on your way back home. Or check open-jaw flights (LAX - ARN, BGO - LAX), multipe airlines offer options with only one stop for that itinerary.

If you have time, you could also do as CruiserBruce suggests and take a train from Bergen to Stockholm... it's a 14 hour train ride but trains in Scandinavia are fairly comfortable, you'd only have to change trains in Oslo (which is easy to navigate) and Bergen Oslo is wonderfully scenic!

After considering this more, I have to agree that perhaps the proposed location isn't the best place for this sort of thing.

Actually, for Disney it's most likely the perfect location.

Parents take kids to buffet, kids see candy store, kids walk in, kids see candy wonderland, kids want x item, kids throw tantrum, parents feel forced into buying x item because kids are disrupting the peace and quiet and it's a vacation after all and hey, it's only $4,95 (plus gratuity) and please just shut up, people are looking at us and you make it seem as if we are bad parents, you also sound as if someone is slaughtering a pig.

Having a for a fee candy / ice cream store next to a food venue that is included into the cruise fare is a brilliant idea! Just not for the customer.

Just wondering if others fly directly to the city of their cruise port?

Or do you book flights with say 1 or 2 stops to save money?

Or do you fly out of, or to, an airprot nearby?

We are lucky in that we have quite a few international airports in a 150 mile radius, including two major hubs. As long as we can reach an airport within three to four hours by train (preferably direct) we are open to flying to/from there, which leaves us with at least six airports (including FRA and AMS). Our local airport is small and the destinations we can fly to from there don't usually suite our needs, also if flights get cancelled it's likely that there is no plan B (or plan B would be to catch a bus back to town and take a train to another airport if we don't want to wait for next week's flight). If we book from here we usually need to connect through FRA or MUC and often taking a train to get to FRA/MUC takes the same amount of time (and ends up being cheaper).

What we try to avoid is changing airports in Paris or London unless we can buy two seperate tickets and spend at least one night there.

We try to fly in at least a day early. For our TA out of Southampton we spent a night at our departure airport of choice due to an early flight to London, picked a late transfer from London to Southampton and spent a night in Southampton before the cruise - there were at least a dozen flights that could have taken us to our final destination on time for embarkation (no convienent connections to Southampton by plane though).

And we prefer to arrive at our destination of choice instead of driving a long way after arrival, we'd rather get the 'complicated' travel over with while in our home country. Meaning, we'd rather fly FRA/AMS - MCO for a cruise out of Port Canaveral and have a four hour train ride from home to the airport instead of flying from our usual airport of choice to MIA (non-stop) with a 200 mile trip to the port on the other end. However, if AMS - MCO (1 stop) costs half of what it costs to fly FRA - MCO (non-stop) we'd fly from AMS. And if regular airport to MIA is half that price... we'd really consider it if we could spend at least two days in Florida before the departure of our cruise.

For us it's a mix of convenient flight times, departure airport, season (weather) and price when we chose a flight.

Thank you both!

The Britainnia restaurant was open on port days on QM2 in December, as far as I know the only time it's closed is embarkation days.

Which options are available for lunch on embarkation days? Only Kings Court? Or will the Golden Lion pub also be open?

Also, we will have a stop in Southampton on our trip which I assume will be a port where people embark/disembark (I know the TA is sold both as New York - Southampton and New York - Hamburg plus it seems Southampton - Hamburg is also sold as a seperate 4-day cruise in Germany). Will the Britannia restaurant be closed for everyone or just for people who embark?

We did a round-trip (Bergen - Bergen) on Trollfjord for our honeymoon in December a "few" years back. We booked through a local travel agent that specialises in cruises so I can't really comment on booking in the UK from the US (we are from neither country :D) but I know that people from Europe often book their cruises through US travel agents (better prices, easier cancellation policies, refundable deposits etc.) so I assume it would be possible the other way round as well. I would suggest to contact Hurtigruten UK and ask.

For most of the ports while tours are offered you do not necessarily need to join an official tour to see the cities. Hurtigruten usually docks either pretty much in the city center (Ålesund) or in walking distance (Trondheim). With a minimal amount of preparation you can do most of the tours yourself in Ålesund where you should have a 3 hours stop (http://www.visitalesund-geiranger.com/en/) and Trondheim where you should have a six hour stop (http://www.trondheim.no/engelsk). If I remember correctly you can't walk to the aquarium but there is also a bus you could take (614 or 618, Skarbøvik/Hessa)

I can't find anything on the "Olympic tour" on the Hurtigruten website so can't comment on that. The Viking Feast sounds good if that's stuff you are into (we would be), for our trip all Lofoten tours had to be cancelled due to weather though... and I find it a wee bit expensive but it's likely an exprience.

The train ride from Oslo to Bergen is lovely :) especially in winter.

We spent two nights in Bergen as Oslo is our "go to" vacation spot for weekend trips but both cities are really lovely. If you can, make sure to spend at least one full day in each.

A number of women wear cocktail length dresses for formal night on Cunard. The dress has lace and some bling so it looks dressy. Does not look too short to me.

 

Enjoy your formal nights on Cunard!

Thank you.

I guess I will order it and return it if I find it too short when I have it. It's on sale... 25 Euros :o I guess I should buy it either way.

I am a bit challenged when it comes to "formal" dresses... I don't dress up much and I am plus size which can make it difficult for me to find anything that I would consider even slightly formal (not US, not UK) that does not cost a fortune.

Do you think this would be formal enough for formal night on Cunard:

Too short?

I have two floor length formal dresses and a couple of cocktail dresses for informal nighs but would love to pack a third formal dress (we cross pack but I'd love to have something lightweight to put in my carry on).

We chose Select as we wanted to prepay gratuities and the only way to do so through our TA was to book Select. In the end it turned out to have been the best choice as we'd have otherwise picked late seating which would have been far too late for us (even though we eat a late dinner at home).

With Select we still showed up at pretty much the same time every night and ended up sitting in the same area with the same waiter. It also gave us the possibility to ask for a table for 2 each night which was pleasant after the only shared table experience that we had kind of turned us away from sharing. I was raised with the understanding that there are certain topics not suitable for small talk and at the dinner table (ie. religion, politics and financial means) which made the situation quite awkward as on the other hand I was raised to respect people that are older than I and English is not my native language (while I am conversational I am not able to discuss world politics in detail over my starter and I am also not able to tell someone twice my age to shut up politely, thus plenty of smiling and "I am not a very political person, nice weather, isn't it?"s).

No. 30's.

While I do appreciate a more relaxed dress code that does not require suit & tie for men and cocktail dresses for women, I dread seeing what would happen if there was no minimum standard of required dress :eek:

+1

No, 30s.

Simply because it seems some people don't know how to dress appropriately when going to a restaurant for dinner if not being told what to wear.

I just priced the 12-night Iceland and Norway cruise we were interested in and... hahahaha no way! The 7A is $11,198.88 or €10,801.32 (which currently converts to $11.826,40!) respectively for two and we paid half of that for our up-and-down-the-coast-of-Norway Hurtigruten honeymoon. For that we could spend two weeks in Norway and two weeks in Iceland on a landvacation in 5* hotels with rental cars and business class flights.

We'd appreciate any feedback on this especially the ones that also do repositioning (we were thinking of going or coming back from Europe this way).

We were on a lovely and quiet WBTA on Celebrity Eclipse in 10/13.

It being our first cruise and after eight quiet days at sea it was quite a surprise to experience how "loud" other ships were in port. I think it was Norwegian Epic that was in port with us in St Maarten and it was blasting music at sailing (it probably wasn't but it felt like it). We didn't experience any loud music in public areas (pool, lawn, bars, library) on Eclipse, sometimes soft music playing in the background but definitely not 24/7 and never disturbingly loud.

We will be on QM2 EBTA in June and I doubt Cunard will be blasting loud music throughout the ship 24/7. I hope they don't :)

For a quiet cabin, from what I have learned on here, make sure to have cabins above and below you and pick a cabin away from the discos/theatres. On Eclipse we were on deck 10 (with cabins on deck 11 and deck 9) and even though we were close to the forward elevators the cabin was extremely quiet. With Curnard we have booked a guarantee which worries me a bit but we will be fine with anything we get.

If you happen to be on a ship where the Inspections do not flow smoothly [...]

Like immigration in St Thomas on the Celebrity Eclipse WBTA in 2013?

Never again will we be on any cruise that has St Thomas as the first US port. They started long after they scheduled starting time (supposedly the immigration officers arrived late and then couldn't get their computers to work), handed out the old green immigration forms to the people in line (no pens though, no computer = no way to check on ESTA), got everybody who was to go on a cruise line excursion into a second line (which moved slower than the regular line), then got part of the line to sit down in the theatre while people behind them moved up front instead of sitting down, there was pretty much no information on if excursions would wait or not (ours did, we didn't have breakfast or had changed into swimwear though)... I don't know whose "fault" it was and I am certain it was simply bad luck but we sure know that we will try to never ever go through immigration in St Thomas again because it was a zoo.

Lucky you! I need to get my work to assign me a project like that!

I know :D

I complain about my job a lot but I am currently assigned a few really cool projects. Most likely my last really, really cool projects for quite a while as my boss who landed them will retire this fall.

I'd suggest skipping the whale watching tour in Iceland if you can do (or have already done) a whale watching tour elsewhere.

I guess while we could surely do it somewhere else we never have and I don't know when/if we could do it again. We had planned to cram it into one of the days where I need to work and where we can't be gone from the hotel for more than four or five hours.

An Alaska cruise is on our bucket list (oh well, on mine at least) but flight costs are currently a bit prohibitive (we'd need to fly from Central Europe), so is another Hurtigruten trip. And Panama Canal. And Hawaii. Oh well... only 33 more years at work until retirement (and hopefully winning the lottery).

Jökulsárlón is awesome, but it's far away from Reykjavik. You can't really do it along with Golden Circle, unless you're prepared for 18 hours away from your hotel.

We are :D

And no, we didn't plan to do it all in a day ;)

Current idea was - Reykjavik city on Monday, Whale Watching on Tuesday, day-tour on Wednesday (maybe Golden Circle, afternoon tour if we can't do full day), half-day tour on Thursday (maybe Blue Lagoon), day-tour on Friday and Saturday (Snæfellsnes/Jökulsárlón). I should have all day on Friday and Saturday due to a tour scheduled then that we will not be going on.

With a car, you can also explore Dyrhólaey and Reynisfjall and maybe see some Puffins (more likely in earlier August than later August)

I'll put that on my "to research" list. Thanks.

I really don't like to drive... I am a safe driver but just don't enjoy it and think I'd be able to see much more of the landscape from a bus (though I get motion sickness on buses). But then of course I also said that when we were in Florida last fall and drove to Key West and lived. I will check out rental car prices over the weekend.

Although Reykjanes is very cool, I think Snæfellsnes is more interesting. You can also see Reykjanes on the way too the Blue Lagoon or the airport

That's a great reminder! I didn't think of that at all. So yes, Snæfellsnes might be the better idea.

I would recommend Gateway to Iceland tours (gatewaytoiceland.is) We did their Golden Circle tour two years ago, and it was a highlight of our entire cruise.

Thank you, they just went on my spreadsheet :)

Oh and I see they also offer a tour to Jökulsárlón... I had my eye on Time Tours but will check out Gateway to Iceland as well! Thank you.

Can anyone advise on tour operators?

Instead of the planned fall-cruise, I will "have to" go on a business trip to Iceland in August... most likely I will only need to work two half days and can spend the rest of the week exploring the country together with my husband (Iceland is currently on top of our bucket list so we are really excited to be going).

We will arrive Sunday afternoon, I will probably need to work half a day on Monday and Tuesday plus a couple of hours Wednesday night. We thought we'd use Sunday evening and Monday afternoon to explore Reykjavik and Tuesday to go on a whale watching tour or maybe a trip to the Blue Lagoon.

For the rest of the week?

We thought Golden Circle (maybe in combination with Reykjanes peninsula?), Jökulsárlón and Snæfellsnes? However, all tours seem to be very similar (and similarly priced) and except for the problem that tours might be offered only on specific days of the week I really don't know where to start looking. We are not interested in renting a car as DH doesn't drive.

You should be able to take the footrests through security. However, try to get them to gate check the wheelchair instead of checking it in with the luggage... we had to do that with a friend's wheelchair years ago, they "forgot" to pick us up at the gate and made him walk all the way to the connection (which we would have missed if it hadn't been cancelled anyways) and then KLM left it behind im Amsterdam because they had too much luggage for the connecting flight and obviously thought leaving a wheelchair behind was a reasonable idea :o It took three days to catch up with us, fortunately we were on our way home.

If they make you check it with the luggage and it's foldable, cable ties are your friend, so is velcro. Attach everything that could come off as well as you can.

She walks on flat land without a walker. She needs a railing or someone's assistance to step up a step. Though Mom walks without a walker, her balance is a little unsteady. I'm trying to figure whether the ship's motion makes enough of a difference that we should bring her walker. I thought maybe others with some mobility or balance issues could tell me whether they feel those issues are magnified when the ship is at sea.

DH has CP leading to unsteady balance. While he does rather well with the ship's motion, other passengers are a much bigger problem. While he can handle the regular ship's motion he will fall much more easily if people stop right in front of him or push through behind him if he is standing somewhere. If your mom has already broken her hip once, you might want to consider bringing a walker if just to make other passengers aware of mom's limitations. Though of course other passengers might come to your (elderly?) mom's aid if she actually falls instead of thinking she is drunk if she falls because of being shoved and laugh at her...

I agree to Chunky2219, it will depend on your mom. DH needs the hand rails in the corridors in heavy seas and I make him use the elevator instead of taking the stairs but he does not usually need (or consider using) aids (yet). However, he is used to long walks and longish hikes including walking up/down hill and on rough terrain. He also has 30+ years of experience in falling ;) and so far thankfully hasn't broken a bone (except for a stress fracture).