headhunterke

Marigot has a fairly large flea market if that is your kind of thing. Also, they sell some wonderful spice mixes there and there is a grocery store that has fair prices. The food at the cafe near the courtyard at Marigot was delish. From there, it's a minute's walk to the West Indies Mall, a small shopping center. You can also make your way up to Fort St. Louis. The remains of Fort St.Louis overlook Marigot and its bay.

Paradise Peak, or as the locals call it, Pic Paradis, is the highest point of the island and has some stunning views. You can get hiking tours which will lead you through some beautiful nature.

As for beaches and resorts, that's someone else's to answer, since I have no interest in these things, so I know nothing about it.

St. Maarten has a trolley you can ride to get you from the ship to the shops at the dock. It can be very windy there(and dangerous if you're no very stable on your feet) and it covers a fair distance if you have problems walking. The water taxi is a good alternative and will get you right at the boardwalk (10 - 20 min. on foot depending on your pace) with some great bars and food options. Price for a return from the cruise terminal to the board walk was around $6 or $7, I don't recall the correct price.

If you want stunning pictures and a great view, added with some great history, Brimstone Hill Fortress is the place to go. If you're able to walk well that is. Because the steps to the highest point are VERY steep. The great thing about it is, there's plenty of little places you can go, which lay a little lower on the hill, but it gives you some thoughts how on earth this thing was constructed back in those days.

I've only been to St. Kitts once, but of the 3 things I've done, this was by far my favorite.

As for your dolphin swim, I'm 100% against these sort of activities, so no matter how cute and playful these wonderful creatures are, I won't visit it.

Old San Juan is pretty compact and is easily explored on foot. Also Castillo de San Cristóbal (The Fort) is half a mile away. You can perfectly do this on your own while exploring the wonderful cobble stones of San Juan.

Hmm, for some reason I couldn't edit my post.

I forgot to mention there are 2 docks which are pretty far apart. If you dock at the one in Lindau (also part of Passau), it's 4 km away, so a taxi is the best option here. At the map (see link below) I don't see the bus going that far without switching lines.

These 2 maps might come in handy if you need to take the bus to the pier

http://www.stadtwerke-passau.de/fileadmin/Passau_Hauptseite_Media/PDF/City-Bus/Citybus_Linienverlauf_klein.pdf

http://www.stadtwerke-passau.de/fileadmin/Passau_Hauptseite_Media/PDF/Linienuebersicht/Linienplan_2013_A3.pdf

The train station is called Hauptbahnhof

First link is a detailed map of the train station's and dock's area and the second is an overview of the lines in the city.

Just to be clear, I assume you mean Passau (without the 'e' and not Passeau?) First option that jumps to mind is by train. If your ship docks at the Fritz-Schäfer-Promenade, the train station is 15 minutes away by foot, but there are busses outside the trainstation as well. You can rent a car as well, but the drop off is at the exact same spot as the train station is, so you'll need to work your way to the dock any way. And I think the train would be a lot cheaper as well, although you would need to lift your bags on and off the train. Deutsche Bahn (train company) offers tickets on their website and they have tickets starting at €20.00 for a direct ride between Munich and Passau. It takes approx. 2 hours by train and depending on traffic, around the same time by car.

And now it seems as if Brussels had a huge part to play in where the terrorists came from.......if Istanbul and Isreali ports are off limmits because of terrorist problems who know what will be next.

Exactly. And it's no secret Molenbeek (a district of Brussels) is a breeding grounds for extremists. Scary, this place is litteraly 50 km. from my home. Extremists living in Brussels and actively cooperating with extremist groups is not a new thing, unfortunately. Not proud of it, but our country has the highest ratio per capita. I'm not going to dwell on the reason for that, because that might start a too heated discussion, but for some reason our politicians see no harm in welcoming back returning "warriors" from Syria. Those who raised their voices in the past months regarding this issue were portrayed as right wing extremists, while they clearly are not. If you know our country, it's truly (and sadly) no surprise pretty much every attack from IS in the West had major trails leading to Belgium.

As a solo cruiser myself, I think this has 2 sides. It all depends on the personalities of the other people at that table and their further plans for the night. For example, if they would have gone to a show/venue all together and not invited that solo cruiser, yes, I would find it somewhat rude. If they all had seperate plans, it's a different thing. If the other guests at the table were couples, then it truly depends on eacht personality how they feel about this. But you deal with different people on a cruise, so some will invite you anywhere around the ship so to speak while others are perfectly comfortable only meeting during dinner. That's something you'll have to accept as a solo cruiser, and I think most of them (including me) do. When traveling solo, you develop a great sense to feel this kind of thing. Of course, in both cases, I really hope the other guests at the table waited until she had finished dinner, because yes, I would be extremely offended by that.

I think it is a little early to tell if they will cancel the French ports, but it surely is a possibility. This makes me very angry and I wish I could actively contribute to fight the plagued dogs justifying such condemnable acts.

It's all very chaotic over there. I'm not in Paris, but I have a close colleague who is there at the moment. I'm very thankful she is ok. I truly was in shock when I heard it. And because of the chaos, most of the mobile internet and cell coverage got lost, so it took almost 3 hours before we heard something. Needless to say we all were extremely relieved to hear from her That shows these types of cowardly acts are never far away and we should always stay vigilant. Let's hope the hijacking of the theater does not add more victims to the already high number. I'll be praying, that's for sure.

There is a lot of advice here about Canadians, but the OP says she is from Cleveland, which is in Ohio, USA. Unless there is another one in Canada...Apparently the cruise is on MSC Poesia, R/T from Venice, so Istanbul and Izmir are just port stops and no visa would be needed. EM

Living in a country does not mean you also have the nationality of that country, beware!

JohnBull, you are right. The visa on arrival SHOULD have been out of service for months now. But the Turkish government has not yet pulled it back. They simply have/had too many people arriving without prior evisa that they couldn't handle the process.

That depends on what nationality you have and what you define as "trouble getting an evisa".

If it was a technical problem with the site/payment, AND you are eligible to get a visa (US citizens mostly are), you will be able to get that visa on arrival. Just be aware the price on arrival is $30 compared to $20 if you do it in advance.

My hostfiles have not been altered (I just checked it to be sure) and I run both an AV & Malware scan twice a week.

I agree, I got a notification from my active anti-malware it has blocked a malicious connection when I opened the thread. I have run a quick investigation and it redirected to frontiernet.net, which is a safe site itself, but has a few exploits (lots of sites have, tbh) which can be used for malicious things.

I have already sent an email to frontiernet to investigate this.

Yes, you could go for it, but if things go wrong (or even a pretty minor delay) you were warned.

There are many things that can go wrong, specially during the winter time. I jst don't get it why people are taking such risks for such a vacation. You're on holiday, why rush?

The main roads in and out of JFK are often congested, I would not want to risk it, even if they offered me the cruise for free.

And as for immigration, please read that sentence yourself and reflect on how you think that came across...

Keep in mind, MIA security can take a WHILE. It's notorious as one of the longest waits in the country. Even if you have a fast track service.

I heard that as well, but for me personally, there's around $500 difference in fare compared to flying into FLL, so well worth a little wait imho

I posted the exact same question on the Florida board, and only 1 response so far. That's why I love tha HAL boards, fast and many responses :-)

Thanks everyone

Well, I'm coming from across the Atlantic. I'll be flying in 2 days before the cruise leaves, so I will go to my go-to hotel at Dania Beach.

Thanks for the link, I'll have a closer look.

Hi all

I've been to Fort Lauderdale about 5 times so far to catch a cruise and normally always fly into FLL, just for the convenience.

However, I'm planning another cruise and airfare to FLL is crazy. Flying into MIA can save me around $400 a person, so this might be the way to go on this trip. However, I need to get from MIA to Fort Lauderdale, as the cruise(s) I'm aiming for leave(s) from Port Everglades.

Aside from the Uber service, I've read some conflicting things about shuttle services to get from MIA to the Dania beach area.

Can someone please tell me what the exact situation is and if shuttles (like Go Airport Shuttle or SuperShuttle) can take you from MIA to Fort Lauderdale.

I've been searching around the internet, but came across some boards (not sure if reliable however) with conflicting information.

Thanks in advance!

Completely untrue. I've booked many flights across a dozen or so airlines on Expedia and have always earned the correct miles and status points in my airline frequent flyer account.

 

There are a number of other inaccuracies amongst your posts but I'll let others with more time point those out.

I agree, that is completely inaccurate. Tickets bought through Expedia, Orbitz, etc. do give you the same mile earning as the same ticket bought through the airline.

I wonder if the info you have, Hawaiidan, is up to date, since you worked for a major airline.

Specially flights within Nort America tend to change flight times (and even flight number, be carefull here!) quite a lot. So it is normal. That's why the fine print is important indeed.

I agree. I always bring local spice mixes and hot sauces. I got an entire 'exotic' cabinet in my kitchen, full of local stuff. I'm always sad to use the last, because I like most of it.

Specially the things aren't really known here in Europe (Jerk, Hot sauces except Tabasco,...)

It's just a shame a lot of countries have strict rules regarding hard liqour. So technically, I can only bring 1 bottle of rum when I visit the Caribbean. I'd bring suitcases full of local products :-)

Is it? Many of them were already in a safe country such as Turkey, Greece, Italy and Jordan. But obviously, being safe is not the reason. They want to live in Germany or Sweden and we all know why.

Thank you!

Countries like Spain, Portugal, ex-Sovjet states, etc. aren't good enough for a lot of the refugees. The reason? Their social security system is peanuts when you compare it to Germany, Sweden, Belgium, etc.

People that need our help must get it, no questions asked. But too many of these refugees make false statements. To give you a little comparison: Spain has 4 times as many citizens as Belgium, but is not even housing as many refugees as Belgium is. It actualy has around 3 times less refugee applications.

Do not get me wrong, yes, there is a problem and there are a lot people that really had to run for their lives. But a lot of those have directly asked refuge in the first or second country through which they have entered Europe. Greece's problem with the overflow is because too many people asked refure directly after touching Greece's soil. Those were the ones that were happy to have made it to Europe and be safe of the cruelties that have haunted them in their home countries.

If you get all the way to Hungary and eventualy Germany, you're not just fleeing for a war.

That 96 hour rule only applies (as far as I know) when you land in Dubai Airport (DXB). If you land in Abu Dhabi for instance (basically the same country but a different Emirate), that rule does not apply.

As I have said in my previous post, be very careful with this sort of information. As it is given with the best intentions, every person has different requirements and these rules can become quite complex.

DXB has a 96 hour transit visa rule in effect if you have a confirmed transportation out of the U.A.E.

Rules also change often and because you (didn't) need a visa last year that doesn't automaticaly mean the same rules will apply even if you travel with the exact same documents today. In the last year the U.A.E. has made some changes to their passport & visa requirements, so it's very possible things were different last year.