marne-c

The OP here… At last, there now are two itineraries that will view the 8 April 2024 total eclipse from the water. They’re on HAL. (See attached screenshot.) DW and I booked the 14-day Mexico cruise round-trip San Diego, departing 30 March 2024. The day of the eclipse, the ship (Zaandam) will hang out in the Pacific until the eclipse ends, then dock in Mazatlan mid-afternoon. —Marne

@mdunne48 MANY thanks for this! --Marne

Incorrect. It will be late-morning to early afternoon, Mexican time. See attached snippet from the Great American Eclipse website: --Marne

For our embarkation from Ocean terminal last Tuesday, post checkin all early arrivals were seated in a large room. When boarding commenced at 11am, Elite passengers were called. Shortly after that Full Suite pax were called. Then, few minutes later still, Platinum. —Marne

@Feebarn I’m curious — When was this? —Marne

YIKES!!! That was a scary article. But current research is more upbeat: Turkish Airlines is now rated as a seven-star airline for safety by the global rating agency AirlineRatings.com. Turkish Airlines' incident record over the past five years has been outstanding and has resulted in the airline's safety rating being lifted from five-star to the highest seven-star. https://www.airlineratings.com › ... › News › Industry News But still, it looks like we'll be on Iberia. --Marne

Whose? Turkish Air's or Iberia's?

Thanks, @ChadnKate, for this. My wife and I are plotting air routing for pre- and post-flights for our Med cruise on Marina next May. Both Iberia and Turkish Air are possible choices, but we have flown neither as yet. How did you find the service on Iberia and Turkish Air? If you flew Business Class, as is our plan, I'd be especially interested. --Marne

Thanks for your observation, @amajaa. I too noticed the reference to Mayflower and wondered how things would be at our embarkation from the Ocean terminal next week. And, @wowzz, I full expect Sods Law to be in operation at the terminal, although us (ex-) Yanks might use different terminology. --Marne

Now booked for Istanbul by Night for our cruise next May. Thanks, @RachelG! --Marne

My TA had the answer. He said, "The Seven Seas Voyager is chartered June 3 - 15, 2023."

@RachelG MANY thanks, Rachel! --Marne

I just was looking for a Med B2B for late spring 2023. There's an 8-night itinerary on Voyager I like which ends in Athens. I also like the next-listed Voyager itinerary, 10-nights, which begins in Athens. But the first cruise ends June 3, and the second one begins June 15. I had read there was a refurbishment planned for Voyager in fall of 2023. Is the June 3-15 gap for pre-refurbishment, or a charter, or...? --Marne

June 11, 2022–part two—Istanbul by Night (snip) We then took the bus to an area by the Bosporus where there is a pedestrian street lined on both sides by restaurants with indoor and outdoor seating. This was a bustling place with street musicians, guys selling flowers, and full restaurants. Fortunately we had reservations. (snip) @RachelG MANY thanks for your review! My wife and I will have a couple of overnights in Istanbul on a cruise in May 2023. Do you recall the name of the restaurant you ate at? Or at least the name of the night time ShoreEx you took? --Marne

@asnaleah While I cannot vouch for the veracity of this statement, an article in CruiseShipJobs says this: "The spa staff is on 10% commission to sell spa products and treatments...One spa employee recently posted in a cruising web site that commission was their only income. " That may explain the hard sell. --Marne

Well, May 25 has passed and no 2024 cruises from Princess. My TA says he will “keep checking for the 2024 release, which should be over the next couple of months.” Has anyone heard anything more specific? —Marne

Agreed -- VERY good article, right to the very end. Well worth the read. Thanks for posting it, @BabySarge! --Marne

@TravelCat2 : Thank you so much for your thoughtful and detailed descriptions of your Amazon cruise. My wife and I will be aboard the RSSC Navigator this fall for a similar itinerary. Your comments have been invaluable to us in understanding what we will experience on our cruise. We expect to have an amazing Amazon experience. Once. Again, MANY thanks! —Marne

@DaveFr Wow, MANY thanks for both of these links, AND for the elegant way you searched through @GOARMY's history! I was just blundering through. Now I know how to laser-in on a date range to find the gold. Tomorrow I'll start reading through the roll cal and blog. Huzzah! --Marne

@GOARMY Thank you for your kind reply. In preparing for my cruises over the past 17-ish years, I have created bookmark folders on my browser for each cruise. I save links to the cruise line's login, possible and booked ShoreEx providers, useful articles on our destinations, and of course the Roll-Call thread for the cruise. I use all of these bookmarks incessantly before a cruise. Then, after the cruise, I move the cruise-bookmark folder to an archive. Then for future cruises to similar destinations, I go back to these archived bookmark folders to remember helpful bits of information. Anyway, I was hoping you did something similar, and that you simply could go back to your saved bookmark to the 2017 Amazon cruise Roll-Call thread and post that link here. If you didn't save that link in your bookmarks, then the matter is ended. But I will continue to follow your posts. You have waaaaaay more experience than I on RSSC, and can cogently explain much I don't know, but should. --Marne

@GOARMY First, let me say that as soon-to-be-first-time (in November) Regent cruiser, I have found your comments on this and other topics to be immensely helpful, not to mention exceptionally well written. Second, I cannot find your oft-referenced historical roll-call titled "November 17th, 2017 Miami to Miami Radiant Amazon". It seems that CC does not keep (or more accurately, does not allow searches to reach) roll-calls before 2020. However, in reading through your past posts -- yes, I've become a stalker -- I've found a couple of threads which show links to pre-2020 roll calls, and those links do work. (Example here.) So a request: If you have a working, saved link to your 2017 roll-call thread, please post it. Many thanks! --Marne

Also, per what @Steelers36 said just above, now you can upload an image of your COVID vaccination card and (if you have it) a 48-hour PCR/Antigen Test report. To get there, tap the Green (or yellow or...) Arrival Status rectangle, then Health Status. I had an issue where my COVID vaccination card JPEG was carried over to my wife. It took a couple of tries to get her card loaded separately from mine. --Marne

All really good information. Many thanks! —Marne

I'll be on an Amazon River cruise this fall on Navigator. I've heard that wearing tall rubber boots like Wellingtons is the best way to go. I've also heard that some cruise ships provide them for passengers' use. Has anyone been on an Amazon River cruise with RSSC? Should I bring my own boots? --Marne

A plea... My wife and I missed our last attempt at seeing a total solar eclipse from a cruise ship. (Covid intervened...) But coming up on April 8, 2024 there'll be a great eclipse traversing most of the US. And for cruising purposes, the eclipse totality starts in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Cabo San Lucas, then heads northeast to Mazatlán. There are beaucoup cruises that sail from California ports to Mexico's Pacific coast, including several wonderful Princess ships. Do you know anyone who has the ear of someone at Princess to persuade itinerary planners to schedule a cruise that would hang out in the Pacific south of Baja California at noon on 8 April 24? Pleeeeeze!!!! --Marne