Regdab719
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Posts posted by Regdab719
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just another test of importing text and photos from word
Hi all, here is a review of our recent 19-day cruise from Sydney to Hong Kong on the Majestic Princess. I always find it helpful to read reviews so hopefully this will be helpful for anyone planning on cruising on the Majestic Princess in the future.
This was a repositioning cruise for the ship to go back to Asia so there were plenty of sea days on this cruise – 13 to be exact but as DH and I are still working this turned out to be a blessing as we it gave us time to relax and unwind.
A little bit about us, we are in our early fifties and working so 3 weeks was a long break for us. We have done a few cruises prior to this but never longer than 2 weeks. This review is just our opinions and based on what we like to do.
Day 1 – Tuesday 26th March, 2019.
Embarkation/Travel Day.
We had a 9.30am flight from Melbourne to Sydney this morning so it was a 5.45am wake up and off to the airport. We used our frequent flyer points to upgrade to Business Class so we got to into the Qantas Business lounge for breakfast before our flight. Had a smooth flight up and the weather in both Melbourne and Sydney today was lovely.
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21 hours ago, beldin61 said:
We cruised with Celebrity and they did supply a shuttle service from the ship to the main gate for all independent tours. This was a painless operation and in no way a inconvenience to our private tour. Walk off the ship as a group and shuttle to the main gate where Xuan will happily greet you.
beldin61 thank you 😊
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Just a quick question for the Phu My dock I know Xuan meets you outside the main gate but I have heard that you can’t walk off the ship but that the cruise line (Princess) runs a shuttle service. Is that anyone’s experience?
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Yes we did a 14 day BTB out of Fort Lauderdale in January 2017 and loved it. We where on the Regal Princess and had mostly really good hot/warm weather. Our cruise did east and west Caribbean but not Cuba. We did this as part of a 3 1/2 week trip due to the long flights to get there and back.
The ports on the east Caribbean part where, Princess Cays, Dominican Republic, St Maarten and St Thomas before returning to Fort Lauderdale for the 2nd part of the cruise. Princess Cays was nice it’s Princesses private island. St Maarten was ok and we loved St Thomas. DR was a big disappointment, did a ship tour and didn’t like the atmosphere of the locals.
We still had a great time and wish we had the time (and money 😂) to do it again. But will have to wait until retirement now!
Hope that helps.
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Testing a heading in bold
Normal text. Add a photo.
Shanghai at night.
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Trying a different source - notes
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Testing
Writing offline and copy and pasting.
Insert pictures later.
Majestic in Melbourne
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3 minutes ago, Regdab719 said:
Quoting a post
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Thanks Chez for such a great detailed review. We are on the return repositioning to Hong Kong next March and are really excited now to see it for ourselves. It will our longest cruise yet with lots of sea days but it sounds like it’s really relaxing.
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Thanks for the review cheznandy it’s great to hear positive things already. We are on the return to Hong Kong next March so hoping everything is all good by then. We did the Regal 18 months going and loved it. Only thing we did miss was the walk around promenade. The Regal did have the walking track so wondering if the Majestic has this? Not sure from the deck plans.
Hope you have a great cruise, can’t wait to hear more of your thoughts. [emoji2]
Cheers
Nicole
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I'm really interested in this tour for our forthcoming RC Voyager cruise, stopping at Ho Chi Minh city on 1st September 2017. I've emailed Xuan for a price, but I'm not sure if he would accommodate just 2 adults? Does anyone know if he has a minimum number?
Thanks.
Yes he will. I’ve booked him for next April for just myself and DH. That way we can ask him to tailor the tour to include what we want to do. We had to pay a deposit now though to hold the spot. [emoji2]
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Just a question for those of you that have done the tour with Xian. I have been in touch with him for our upcoming Asia cruise and the tour sounds great. I’m just a bit worried about it not being a ship tour and making sure we make it back to the ship on time. We dock at Phu My which is a fair distance from Ho Chi Minh City. Should I be worried or has your experience been that he is very reliable? Thanks
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We have done a similar thing in January this year. We flew into Orlando for the theme parks and then hired a car and drove to Fort Lauderdale via cocoa beach for our cruise. We dropped the car right near the port and they had a shuttle to the terminal. Very easy.
If your comfortable driving on the wrong side [emoji12], it wasn't as difficult as we thought it might be.
I agree the Florida departures board has lots of good info.
Have a great trip
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We unfortunately had a negative experience with Bernard's Tours on our recent cruise. We where there on 26th Jan for the day and felt that the tour was rushed and crowded. The guy who show the difference from the live to Dead Sea life was ill and not available. To his credit Mailman did show us some of the sea life. The iguanas are no longer available and the beach at Orient was very disappointing - very busy and the cost of a chair and food etc. was just a complete ripoff. Our next stop for lunch was Marigot and we only had 45mins. To order our lunch took 40min so no time to do anything. The stop at Maho did not leave enough time to see what we wanted to see. I understand the need to get back to the ship but in own opinion our tour was rushed and although Mailman was a good guide, we would not recommend this tour.
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Thanks Mike love the videos. We are not going on the Regal until next January, but these certainly give us something to look forward too [emoji2]
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Ho Chi Minh City With Xuan
in Asia
Posted
I agree with Pocket1, we got back from our cruise last week and was going to post my review and in the meantime I'm surprised at how this thread has taken a bit of turn. At no time were we pressured to put in this review but we had a fantastic time and felt that Xuan was a very genuine person. Very upfront, nothing in my correspondence with him before and on the day ever felt "dodgy" or like a scam. This is not the first independent tour we have done and there are always risks which you must consider before booking an independent tour. We felt very comfortable with Xuan. I'm sure there are other tour operators that are just as good and it depends on your experience. We had just the two of us and could customise our tour to suit, if we paid more for that then that is our problem and prerogative.
As for paying a deposit upfront I can't see any reason why this would be a problem. Xuan was upfront about this and also his refund policy - which we had no issues with.
Anyway here is my review.
We have returned home after our 19-day cruise from Sydney to Hong Kong. On our stop in Vietnam I had organised a day trip with Xuan based on his good reviews on this forum. Well I have to say he did not disappoint. We had a fantastic day with Xuan showing us around. It was just myself and DH so he met is outside the port gates (private tour operators as not allowed into the port) and was easy to spot, with a driver and a late model air-conditioned car before we headed off to Saigon. We then had a great day seeing places you don’t also get to see on the big bus ship tours. We then left the city with plenty of time to get back to the port.
Xuan is a lovely young man with a passion to show his country to travellers, he was very easy to deal with – all over email - and discussed what we wanted to do with his recommendations. I booked this tour well in advance as he does book up quickly. If you have one day in Vietnam then I would definitely recommend using Xuan. If you are worried about getting back to the ship on time due to Saigon being 90 minutes away, I would say don’t worry as Xuan was very conscious of the time and we where back by about 4.15 for a 5.30 all aboard. I can’t pick one highlight as the whole day was fantastic. Xuan also took lots of photos and videos during the day which he then sent through to our phones. The trishaw ride was also a highlight just to experience the traffic!!!