Mimosa09

16 hours ago, gumshoe958 said:

I’m not an expert on transfer options in Le Havre but assuming Princess allow you to disembark a day early (some lines do, some don’t) I can’t imagine it’ll be a problem finding a car service to take you to Paris, although it won’t be cheap.
 

Or there’s a direct train to Paris St Lazare station every couple of hours if you can manage it with your luggage, which would be cheaper. There’s one at 10.03am, arriving at 12.20pm which would be ideal.

 

Otherwise if you have to return to Southampton, you can fly direct to Paris CDG. There’s one direct flight, with Eastern Airways, at 3.10pm on the day you arrive.

 

 

 

Thank you for your info.  We will probably opt for a car service for several reasons.  1) Wrangling the luggage at a train station (much less getting to the train station) will be difficult for Mr. Mimosa.  2) Paris is 3hrs away from Le Havre.  Going back to Southampton means disembarking there, getting a taxi to the airport and waiting to board on an afternoon flight to Paris and when arriving in Paris - another hour or more traveling to the hotel we like in Paris. That means our arrival would be in the evening not the afternoon if we got a ride to Paris on the previous day. We are thinking hiring a car service may be cheaper and faster than booking a flight from Southampton - but of course we will investigate and see.

  And when I talked to Princess yesterday, it sounded like we can disembark in Le Havre like we originally planned for the excursion they had originally offered.  The problem was due to some "mechanical issues" they were not offering the excursion any more for those passengers that wanted to take advantage of bringing their luggage to either stay in Paris or take a train or flight from Paris.  Again, more investigation needs to happen before leaving on this trip.

  Again, thanks for responding!

- Rose

9 hours ago, Blue and Green said:

Rose, before you book anything--double check your dates. I think the Regal is back in Southampton on Sept. 12.

You are correct.

7 hours ago, gumshoe958 said:

LHR to Southampton - National Express run scheduled direct coaches every couple of hours. Quick, easy and relatively cheap.

 

Otherwise you’re looking at a private car for $200 or more.

 

Southampton to Paris - there’s one direct flight a day, normally around 5pm (3pm on Fridays, none on Saturdays).

 

Otherwise you can fly from Heathrow or Gatwick or catch the train up to London Waterloo, jump in a cab to St Pancras and catch the Eurostar train from there direct to Paris Gare du Nord. Best to book the Eurostar asap as it’s dynamic pricing which only goes one way!

Hi there!  Thanks for the info re: flights from Southampton to Paris.  We are on Princess Regal for the 12-night British Isle cruise returning to Southampton Sept 13th.  We originally were scheduled to disembark the day before (Sept 12th) at Le Havre with a bus tour to Paris that included being left off at the airport, train station or the Louvre.  We want to spend a few days in Paris.  However they just changed the Paris excursions that excludes those wanting to disembark in Le Havre (I am imagining they are not bringing guests to Paris in a vehicle that can handle all the luggage for those who plan to disembark in Le Havre.)  Sooooo - is there a way to disembark at Le Havre and find transportation to a Paris hotel (3 hour drive)?  Or is it going to be easier to return to Southampton and book a flight to Paris from there?  Looking for the best option since Mr.Mimosa has mobility issues.

   Thanks for your help! - Rose

We are now in our daughter’s apartment in Amstelveen. Just got off Uniworld’s River Duchess this morning in Amsterdam. We had no water level problems on the Rhine from Frankfurt on (Oct 20th to Oct 24th).  We did do a ship swap at Würzburg (River Princess to River Duchess) on Oct 18th to get Uniworld’s two boats back on their schedules since there was a ship swap earlier in the month. 

  Other than not getting on at Giurgiu in Bucharest (got on at Turnu Magurele due low water or two barges stuck due to low water), we had no other low water problems on our Ultimate European Journey on the Danube, Main-Danube canal, the Main or the Rhine. We did have some days of rain & fog (hail for a short period in Rothenburg 😦) & enjoyed a number of sunny Fall days. We are very happy with this river experience. 

   Thank you again to Notamermaid & GMT for keeping us abreast of the happenings  on the Danube & the Rhine. 

- Rose & Alan

On 10/11/2019 at 11:40 AM, G.M.T. said:

Goldener October is certainly on it's way for at least the next 5 days, with tempurature up around 22 °C and sunny - no rain.

 

Water levels are fine, even above the average levels. If no rain they should be good for a fortnight. 😢😹

 

 

Well, Goldener Oktober has been hit & miss. We were in Vienna Oct 12th & the fog never lifted. But when we did the scenic cruise between Weissenkirchen & Passau on Oct 13th, it was beautiful!  Our visit to Passau on Oct 14th started off foggy but eventually turned beautifully sunny.  On Oct 15th we had a foggy day in Regensberg. And today on our way to Nuremberg on the Main Danube canal, it’s beautiful with golden trees & sunshine. Feeling pretty lucky with the weather. 😄

Although it maybe early for it, I think we are experiencing Goldener Oktober here on the river in Slovakia. Gorgeous sunny morning cruising to Vienna with some of the trees turning yellow. Looks like we will have partly sunny skies in Vienna with Fahrenheit temps of high 60s. 😃

On 10/7/2019 at 10:57 AM, G.M.T. said:

I did say "red" ones.😨

 

Have a great cruise, the low river levels are over for at least the next 10 days.🍹

Whoops!  While walking thru the reception area this morning, I noticed the umbrellas onboard the River Princess are blue 😊 not gray. I think they were gray on the Joie de Vivre. At any rate, yes, you did say red. Just hoping we don’t have to use any umbrellas very much for the rest of the cruise & that water levels will still be good. 

   Thanks for keeping us informed on this thread. 

10 hours ago, G.M.T. said:

 

The last item has gotten out of contol, it seams the cruising companies can do want they want on "our" river, I am more than willing in sharing our river and not being swamped by cruisers. I was in Passau yesterday, raining, so there were these herds with the very large umbrellas charging through people like bulls in a china shop. You had to move into the road to save getting an umbrella in an eye. The large red umbrellas  were not shared by two or three people but each used by a solitary person.

Thanks for pointing out the problem with the umbrellas. Although Uniworld provides us with the large “gray” umbrellas, we bring our smaller packable ones & most times I try to use just my hood on my jacket. 

   Thanks again for all the information on this thread. We have left Serbia & are on our way to Croatia on the River Princess. 

We are now at the Radisson Bleu in Bucharest & went to the general meeting held by our local host. Besides giving us general information & discussing the tours available from Uniworld in/out of Bucharest, she has informed us we will not be embarking on our boat from Giurgiu on Oct 2nd, but the busses will drive another hour to get us to Turnu Magurele to embark. This also tells me that we will be taking busses back to Rousse for excursions there. 

We are doing the Uniworld Ultimate European Journey starting from Bucharest to Amsterdam starting Oct 2nd (the tour starts Sept 30th). We are presently on the Joie de Vivre on the Seine & have been talking to one of the crew members who is from Bucharest. So we were not surprised to get the official e-mail from Uniworld saying we are starting the cruise in a sister boat (River Princess) & will swap boats when we get to Wurzburg to get on the one we were supposed to be on (River Duchess) & finish the cruise on her to Amsterdam. 

  Hope this is helpful to egw1 who leaves soon for Bucharest. 

On 9/20/2019 at 10:54 PM, wanderingoz said:

Thanks to all for their contributions to this thread and particularly Notamermaid for all the wonderful information.

 

I have been tracking the Uniworld River Duchess from Amsterdam to Bucharest as we are scheduled to board her for the cruise back to Amsterdam from October 2.  She has been docked at Regensburg, upstream from Pfelling, for a couple of days and is now headed back upstream towards Nuremberg instead of continuing down the Danube as scheduled.

 

It looks to me like a ship swap has occurred with the River Princess. She was docked at Vilshofen, downstream from Pfelling, and is now back at Passau.  If anyone has any first hand info it would be appreciated.

 

I am guessing that even if the level at Pfelling rises next week so ships can get through, Uniworld will swap us at some stage to get the ships back on schedule.

 

Off to do some research on the River Princess 😃.

I too am grateful to notamermaid for all her updates as well as others who have contributed to this thread. 

Since we are literally on the same boat as wanderingoz, I have to agree we may be swapping boats somewhere along the rivers. I truly hope we get some rain for all of us that are cruising these rivers soon. 

- Rose

Our cruise documents came today. 👏👏👏

Well, now my husband is rethinking the Peles Castle tour as well. I still want to go, but I can see that if not enough people sign up, it may be a no go. We will be arriving in Bucharest on Sept 29th from Paris where we will have disembark from the Paris to Normandy cruise. We will only have a one hour time change to deal with flying to Bucharest so we won’t be as tired as if we were arriving from the States.  Anyway, thanks for the heads up. 

- Rose

To wanderingoz (Steve),

  After reading that you already got your documents, we called our travel agent asking about ours. We should be getting them Saturday or Tuesday (Monday is a holiday in the States).  That should really get us going on our packing. 

   And we too, are interested in the Peles Castle tour. Hope we can sign up for it when we get to Bucharest. We couldn’t see any other way to sign up for it until we got there. 

  So 31 more days!

- Rose

To HappyTrvl,

   Thanks for posting about your cruise experience. I have to say I’m a little surprise to hear that there was limited slots on the regular excursions. We did not experience this on our fall cruise with Uniworld in Bordeaux. The only tours that seemed to have limits were the bike tours. And we did see some people miss out on the first bike tour, but staff made sure that they did get on the list for the next bike tour opportunity.

   On our Bordeaux cruise they offered an excursion to Remy Martin that was not on the original itinerary. This excursion was like the Masterpiece ones - extra cost and they only had 40 slots. By the time I went to sign up, it was full, but they had a waiting list which I signed for. When all was said and done, they got a second bus and anybody who wanted to go (& pay the cost) got to go. 

   Also, thanks for letting us know about the winery excursion in Budapest for those of us continuing on. I hope that is repeated bc that would be something we will be interested in. It will be interesting to see how many of us were will be taking the full trip. 

-Rose

Hi there Steve,

   We are the other couple on the trip with you. Just over a month before we arrive in Bucharest and we are finally getting ready for the trip. 😀 We cruised with Uniworld last fall out of Bordeaux & liked Uniworld very much. Like Travlr21 stated before, sometimes the bike tours are limited & fill up quickly as we saw on our cruise with Uniworld. I too looked around on Cruise Critic about the Masterpiece excursions & I what little I saw basically said we had to wait until after we arrive (or board) before we could sign up for those excursions. So we are crossing are fingers & hoping for the best. 

   We recently had a change in plans for the end of the trip in Amsterdam.  Our daughter & her family just moved there so now we are spending a few days there instead of flying directly home. Since we made the change, we decided to book some tickets for Anne Frank’s house & did just that today. 

   Looking forward to meeting you. 

- Rose & Alan

22 hours ago, laverendrye said:

The Douro River flows through a deep valley and some of the excursions involve curving roads and switchbacks. The trip to Salamanca, however is across a fairly flat plain on straight roads.

Thanks for the heads up. We will be going next fall - hopefully. And now I know I will need to be prepared. 

- Rose

I’ve never had a problem with motion sickness on a river cruise, but you still might want to be prepared bc of the bus tours. Had a problem when we did the Almafi coast in Italy & with the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. But now that I reread what river cruise you are on, you shouldn’t have a problem. We did the Bordeaux cruise last fall with Uniworld and there wasn’t any bus excursions that were curvy roads. Now I’m wondering if the bus excursions on the Duoro River cruises are on curvy roads....

Exciting!  We are booked on the Oct 6th cruise in 2020.

-Rose

Thanks for posting this information.  We are on the Bucharest to Amsterdam cruise Sept 30th.  This gives us an idea of what the Masterpiece collection tours cost.  The Peles Castle tour/wine tasting/lunch sounds tempting......

-Rose

Thanks for posting the article.  We took this cruise of the Great Lakes from Toronto to Chicago with Vantage (Victory I) in 2017.  From reading the article, the best thing I see as an improvement was the arrival into Chicago.  Arriving at the Navy Pier in Chicago is a huge improvement over the arrival we experience.  We arrived way out of downtown Chicago at a freight port with little to no phone service.  🤨  We still enjoyed the cruise.  It will be interesting to see how they are going to cut the cruise down from 9 days to 7 days.

 - Rose

We traveled through Italy this past October & ended in Venice in November (first week of November) & had gorgeous weather. We were told that was a little unusual since the rains start in November in Venice. I agree with the other posters. Option 2 would be preferable.

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I agree with kennicott - Hubbard glacier is the best! Having been to Glacier Bay & Tracy Arm, I like Hubbard by far. We were sailing on a Celebrity ship the two times we’ve seen it.

- Rose

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The passport is good enough. For some of us that reside in states where non-citizens can get a driver’s license; the passport is what we will have to use to get through TSA at the airport in the near future.

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