sofietucker

Nowhere, right now. Been trying to book same for our Greece Intensive cruise on Quest in Sept. Nuffin. Then they decided I didn't have an account and booted me off. (This cruise is a rebook of the covid-cancelled one in 2021, fully paid etc.) Then I created a new account and they welcomed me. Went back on and THAT account is also not recognized. We had already selected all our shorex before today but hadn't pulled the trigger. They just got a nasty message from me.

Love it, LHT28. On our random, self-created "sea days." we feel like kids whose parents went on vacay and left them home: we get the whole pool to ourselves! Lol. We thoroughly enjoyed our previous O cruise in winter --which did follow the itinerary and times. We consider ourselves very go-with-the-flow and have been to almost all these listed ports but have a couple of bucket list or deeper port exploration items on this itinerary (he's never been to London, for one). So a couple changes would be okay anyway--just an excuse to go back. And it may be that additional changes will become the way of the world, across the seas (that saragssum belt is likely affecting many cruises just now. Ans someone mentioned the whale roads...). Live and let live, we say.

Point very much taken: we're on this sailing to replace a spectacular itinerary we'd booked, to less traveled, smaller Baltic islands--in JULY, when every person in Scandinavia is on holiday. (Been there in August too: everything's shut because the shop/restaurant owners are out crowding the beaches along with us. I exaggerate, but not by much.) DH: "What, are we nuts?" We try pretty hard not to cruise in the summer months. And thought, well, school will still be in session at the start of our cruise, so it can't be but so bad. Our last trip to Bordeaux coincided with the opening of the harvest in St Emilion, a thrilling medieval ceremony (mid-September). This time, the vines will still be waking up, so strolling the vineyards sampling grapes is out. Weather should be perfect though!

That being said, other ports we've visited that require a long drive to a featured city (Cadiz, Honfleur, Le Havre, Warnemunde, Livorno) at least are themselves towns of interest. We've walked off the ship and wandered locally in each of these. But in Le Verdon? Nothing, as far as I've been able to discover (think Gydynia). Plus apparently no public transportation, so we're at the mercy of the ship's shorex or another tour company.

Oh Hail No! I would be outraged at all of the above changes, having sailed those itineraries many times and very specifically have chosen my ports. To be crude, eff that.

But here's the deal--whether it's AK, Bermuda, or Key West (or my current concern, Bordeaux). as soon as the rules & regs--or apparent but pretty much ongoing currents--change: it seems like it would be incumbent on the cruise lines to CHANGE their itineraries. Like ASAP when the new requirements are announced. To support the guests that they are trying to book in an honorable manner.

Holy guacamole. Bermuda should be at least 3 full days, at minimum, 2.5. That's a lot of sea days for a short-circuited cruise,

"Sail and Sustain": Hey, that emperor ain't got no clothes on! Our 12-day western Europe cruise this May has cut at least 1-2 hours in all but 2 ports (Bordeaux cut on both ends, even though we dock in LeVerdon, two hour-drive ONE WAY from Bordeaux). And yes, a couple of those port changes crept in after their initial letter to us. We hastily readjusted our non-ship's excursions, had to cancel one. (And wow, now THAT's a way to insure pax use the cruise shorex: make arrival/departure times moving targets. But surely they didn't intend that...) But I haven't checked in a couple of weeks; thanks for this reminder to do so immediately.

Correct. Allianz Global. We've had it happen 5-6 times (twice on the same cruise).

So I am compelled to say that if you get the proper travel insurance*, you at least will be compensated for missing ports. Every time we've missed a port, we've been paid $100 each, per port. *That is, NOT the cruise line's. That being said, the recent, heinous pattern of cutting port times, being announced well in advance, is not up for compensation. (And of course, O posted the announced changes the day AFTER final payment was due...)

All that being said, if you DO want to walk among--and touch!--standing stones--go to Brittany. They have literally thousands, in various huge arrangements, in all kinds of small towns, in fields, casually found, in formal parks, next to gas stations, in muddy parking lots, etc. Much older than Stonehenge too! Once you start researching it will blow your mind. Look at Lorient as a starting place for cruise ports. I have a Druid priest friend in Cornwall who gets inside access to Stonehenge and even he says Brittany is the place to go.

She knows the Macarena!

Dining with the officers used to be fairly common pre-covid--at least on HAL and Celebrity--but in our experience has completely disappeared... Just as handshaking at the captains' parties had already stopped due to possible noro contagions.

We're Elite Plus on Celebrity but have run out of joy on the X ships (ditto as 4 star Mariners on Hal, which has completely lost its way). While O is more laid back, there are fun activities--art classes for one, and a spectacular library for two, plus trivia).The shows were great, a very talented group compared to much of what we've seen on the high seas in recent years. We most enjoyed the house band and caught them in Horizons late every night. Also a fun thing was the pickup band there before dinner: it was a subset of the show band! They did jazz standards and even if the singers (also instrumentalists) from time to time really didn't seem to know English, they were all crack musicians.

So we're in our late 60s, music fiends (of many genres), love art, dance and theater, and just getting out there having fun. Love to meet new folks of all stripes, always choose large tables for dinner (pre-covid), etc. On our first O cruise (so far) on Riviera last year, we saw maybe 5 younger folk (ne a teen with 3 gen of her female elders, seemed bored out of her mind). We closed down Horizons every night, being the sole late-night music venue. Each night there was a honeymoon couple in maybe late 20s, who seemed to have a great time but never interacted with anyone (there or around the ship, pool, etc.). There was also a mid-30s couple of guys, always there with what seemed to be their extended older families, felt like maybe a marriage/honeymoon cruise while honoring the elders? That whole group was there every night, all of them rocking out. Now, by "rocking out," I mean to jazz standards and show tunes from pre-90s. Swing, jitterbug, foxtrot... BUT, re: age? our most fun time was the last night, when the club's theme was "Rock It Till We Dock It"! There were literally us, the guys party--and the entire dance/show cast (plus their assorted theater support folks). That is, people in their 20s-30s! We all stayed on the dance floor until 0 dark thirty--and the tunes beame much more contemporary.

And it's Celebrity.

This is a useful site. From their top page: Fares are charged with a meter after the initial base rate of €3.44 is applied. The tariff is €0.74 per Km and will double after midnight through to 5am. There are flat fares to and from the airport: 38 euros to central Athens (including luggage, VAT and road tolls). A flat fee of 55 euros from midnight to 5am. These prices are for standard taxi fares that are not pre-arranged such as private taxi transfers that are offering a superior service. If you are getting into a taxi from the airport, you will be directed into a queue outside the arrivals hall. For Piraeus specifically, scroll down in this page and click on pricing, etc.https://agora.whyathens.com/shop/piraeus-port-transfer-central-athens/

MSC question re: languages: We've cruised on the Greek line Celestyal, which had a very international mix of pax. So all the announcements were in : Greek, Turkish, French, Spanish, Italian, German and finally English. While I'm fluent in French and Spanish--and kinda German--we always waited to hear the English too... We diverted itinerary twice to other islands due to seas, so it was important info, but it seemed to take forever to hear the daily notes. Minor issue but frustrating. It seems that an app would be a good solution; you could choose your preferred language. How does MSC handle that?

Thank you for that. We've not cruised NCL & no plans to do so; done Royal from time to time due to family, who like to get OUT there! (Ok, but not "our people"). Our past preference HAL has completely lost its way over the past 4-5 years (except the Neptune lounge beats O's). We too cruise Celebrity Retreat, and an O penthouse on Riviera compares favorably. Plus Jacques and Red Ginger! Looking forward to another O (Marina) in May.

Me too. I mean, we said the same about Carnival, but I think that's self-explanatory, lol...

Thanks! I too don't know where we heard no music on Viking; it certainly sounds very attractive! Our preferred size is under 1K passengers (the former, lamented Prinsendam). But excepting a 38-pax Swedish steamer, we've cruised ships mainly at 1200, Riviera sized. For us, the smaller the better; the quite large Celebrity Edge was a fluke, but being the first ship out in 2021, it carried only 300 pax, so tolerable, lol... The higher-end (and smaller) ships are where we're headed.

Well be cruising AZ the first time this year specifically to compare to O. We like some live music on board and from our research, it looks like V has...none?

I think we just submitted the daily or the note from concierge (captain) to that effect, which we had retained... One time our TA did it for us when we mentioned it to her after we got back--don't think we had any documentation that time.

Our excellent external insurance reimburses us $100 pp for each missed port... On one cruise not long ago, it was 2 ports in a row (seas)

Somewhere in lower Caribbean a few years ago, from our aft balcony on a HAL ship, we witnessed a burp from our smokestack leave a huge green cloud that hung in the air behind us, throughout sunset and beyond. Have also seen billowing smoke issuing at night many times.