Corfe Mixture

Excursion options came out yesterday morning. There are just three options for Vigo. The half-day ones have morning and afternoon departures. The morning ones both sold out. There are seven ones available for Ponta Delgada. Some of them have morning and afternoon departures. Three tours are already sold out. There's a port lecture on Vigo this morning to find out more about the things there.

 

 

 

 

 

One couple we spoke to said that they've been on several trans-Atlantics. They've made it to Ponta Delgada just once out of three planned times. They speculated that the reason we haven't heard about compensation yet could be that the captain thinks we may have to miss it as well.

Tuesday weather forecast for Ponta Delgada. Well I think it is but the link doesn’t seem to have a time stamp so you might have to click on a tab to get to the right day.

Yup, checked and the link is to today and you need to click on the tab for the day of your visit.

Whatever currently showing very light winds from SSW, POSSIBLE patchy rain but very little volume so probably little or no rain. 25degrees.

https://www.worldweatheronline.com/ponta-delgada-weather/azores/pt.aspx

Interesting, according to AIS plot, it would appear that at 15.00 you slowed down and made a turn to port. Particularly given you appear to be returning to your original course, it looks like it could have been done to avoid a developing potential collision situation with a red freighter called Lady Hilde which, although it was the give way vessel under ‘collision regs’ seemed to hold a steady course!!! and passed down your starboard side at a distance of less than one mile.

Wonder if the change of course was noticeable on board?

Yes - simple enough though. I think our total tolls for the day were around 20 euro. Peage is french for 'highway robbery'.

Ahh! Of course it is around €20 for a round trip. My figure was for one way to/from the ferry.

However, unlike the premiums car rental companies charge over and above the true cost of Florida Sun Pass tolls, it certainly not highway robbery.

Remember also that, whilst I would not do so myself, you can always avoid the tolls by not using Le Pont du Normandie and the A20 east of Caen (there are no tolls west of Caen) and instead use the ordinary roads, though, if you also want to avoid paying €2 each way to use the Tancarville Bridge you will probably spend more in fuel than you save!

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We rented a car at the port last week (reserved ahead) and had a lovely day exploring the Normandy Beaches at our own pace. Nice stops for food and picnic, lots of time to spare (and the outlet mall in Honfleur). Not for everyone but it is a very easy drive and impossible to get lost..

True but folks need to know that there is a toll (less than €10 when I last used it - which I don't do regularly) to cross the bridge at Tancarville (no real alternative) and to use the auto route between Le Havre and Caen (there are no tolls to the west of Caen).

If you do a private tour, can I suggest that you ask you tour operator to visit Arromanches and the small but superb museum which covers the logistics of the landing and a wonderful presentation on the artificial 'Mulberry' harbour the remains of which can still be seen on the beach and which was used to supply the landing forces for some weeks.

Not too far from Pointe d'Hoc and the very emotionally moving US Cemetery and easy to fit into an itinerary.

Thanks for that information. Wonderful all done and now no intruding images on the thread titles page

It was really VERY frustrating to have to scroll down a totally irrelevant one and a half screen map of Abu Dhabi (on the '21 October 2018 - London to Singapore' thread) in order to get to the threads for cruises I am actually travelling on.

Many thanks indeed, it was even more annoying than the auto posts relating to people who:

a) don't even know a post has been made in their name without their knowledge (to be honest I'm not sure that impersonation of this nature is legal in some territories - not that it is a really big issue )

and more importantly

b) are never going to participate in the roll call and are just ignored by most members of a Roll Call.

On an upcoming cruise we will achieve 151 sea days so we will have elite status. We are booked in a suite and have the sip and sail benefits already. Will we get some other perks?

 

 

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Expect not to be elevated and you will not be disappointed.

Having said that, like you we were in a suite and just short of 151 nights. I wasn’t really expecting anything,and not too bothered as the benefits were negligible, but when we got to check-in they couldn’t initially find our key cards and had to go to an admin desk. They returned with an envelope containing black cards and a letter explaining what had happened and asking us not to discuss it with fellow passengers.

When I subsequently looked on Cruise Personaliser we had a phantom cruise for a few days and a cruise credit for a cruise on the ship we were booked on but with no destination.

That phantom cruise still shows on our cruise history!

Didn’t seem to be worth thinking about as apart from the 10% in the boutiques and the additional mini bar set up it was a non-event which, to us seemed to be nothing more than a way of them avoiding having to give us suite priority tendering cards.

In fact the only advantage I really noticed was that it was the first suite cruise on which, when I went to the suite/Elite desk, I did not have to endure being told, on at least one occasion, by a person waving a black card, that they were Elite,that I was in the wrong line and that they had priority over me!!

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Can anyone tell me what is a good excursion to take from Southampton to London? We are doing a British Isle Cruise and will only be in Southampton part of the day.

 

 

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You really need to define your statement ‘part of the day’ as those of us who know the area need to know how much time you have.

If it is an 8am arrival and a 4pm departure, I would take the train to Brockenhurst, a pretty little town in the heart of the forest, and worth a 30 minute look around before taking the branch line train to Lymington (get off at Lymington Town and not Lymington Pier).

Enjoy the waterfront and the shops in the high street and take a pub lunch at the Ship Inn on the town Quay.

Then retrace your steps back to Southampton.

Check the train times on trainline.com but the journey takes around 30 minutes (including the change at Brockenhurst) and the cost is roughly £9 per person each way.

Trains run approximately every half an hour. Also, if something goes wrong with your plans, Lymington is sufficiently close to your ship to mean that getting a taxi in an emergency will not be ridiculously expensive - the Ship Inn will have a number for the local taxi firm.

Alternatively, instead of going to Lymington, you could take the ferry to Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

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Another little known perk of Club Class is the expedited tender service. By showing the tender staff your Club Class cruise card you can gain admittance into the tender without having to wait for a specific time.

 

Jonathan

Not so. You may have struck lucky, but only Full suites and Elites get the expedited tender service.

The Club Class flyer makes it very clear that expedited boarding and disembarkation is only at the start and the end of the cruise.

So you may have struck lucky but it is not a normal perk, little known or otherwise, of Club Class

https://www.princess.com/downloads/pdf/ships/club-class/ClubClass-eFlyer.pdf

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It depends on what the "little extra" is. I've seen it priced at $0 above a regular mini to as much as $30pp per night above.

Were it always so small!! We are booked on a 24 night cruise out of Southampton to Canada and New England in Sept 2019 and the difference between the lowest grade ordinary mini-suite and a Club Class mini-suite is a whopping £1700 ($2200) PER PERSON which works out at just short of $100 per person per day!

And guess what? Nearly all the Club Class are sold out some 15 months before the cruise.

We couldn’t get our preferred grade of full suite and are booked in an ordinary mini-suite on the basis that we can do an awful lot with the $4400 we have saved (including if we wished' date=' not that we will, dine every night in Select Dining or take Ultimate Balcony Dining every night when we would still only spend half the money we have saved by not booking a Club Class mini!)

Apparently crazy pricing but as I have already said almost all the Club Class minis have been sold!

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Im a first time cruiser going on a 21 day cruise over the new year, we are at sea on NYE on Diamond Princess, south east asia, im trying to find out if they will celebrate this on board as there is nothing about it on the website can anyone help??

Yes they do, and they do it well apart from one possible big BUT.

The but is that if you sail out of the US, they follow the New Year all around the world on the big screen starting with Sydney, then Hong Kong, etc before finishing with the onboard celebrations at New Year ship time.

The year before last we sailed out of Sydney and they just celebrated the Australian New Year.

This year, like you we are celebrating New Year in Asia (we get off Diamond as you get on and transfer to Sapphire) and I am rather expecting that they will show only Sydney and depending on where the ship is, possibly Hong Kong, before finishing with the onboard celebration in ships time.

Many thanks for that info.

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Later this year we will be taking two cruises, not exactly back to back but with just three days between the cruises.

On the first one we will not be eligible for any loyalty OBC but we will be on the second.

Two questions:

1. Given there are only three days between the cruises will the loyalty OBC still happen automatically or will I need to sort it out after boarding?

2. We both become eligible for loyalty OBC at the same time. Will we both get loyalty OBC or is it limited to one per cabin?

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Just to point out, many things could have altered since that post in Nov 2016 ;).

BA charge to select seats in every class EXCEPT First.

We always fly business class and book through BA.

However when flying to and from the US we always select AA codeshare flights, thereby saving around £300 ($400) in seat selection costs.

Indeed this December we fly to Tokyo and return from Shanghai and WOULD YOU BELIEVE, the way I made the booking, the additional cost to fly First Class, and select our flights free of charge, rather than fly Business class was less than Business Class seat reservation costs - plus:

we get access to the Concorde lounge with waiter service for breakfast,

have a special line at security which avoids having to use the supposed Fast Track line at Heathrow,

get to select our own time for onboard dining

enjoy premium (normally $160 per bottle) champagne during the flight

and

Mrs CM will get her nails done FOC in the Elementis Spa.

Absolute no brainier!!

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The old marine adage is " Right , red returning " , meaning that you keep the red buoy on the right ( Starboard ) when returning from sea . Thus red is Starboard and green is Port .

Only in those countries under strong US influence, which basically means North and South America plus Japan, Korea and the Phillipines, who use IALA (International Association of Lighthouse Authorities) B system.

THE REST OF THE WORLD use the IALA A system which is green for starboard and red for port (as do all ships irrespective of nationality)

The aide mémoire they use is:

PORT wine is RED

-

drink too much PORT and you will get LEFT behind in PORT

The two systems we formally set up around 1970 when it was decided to standardise buoyage through the world.

IALA version A was based on the most commonly found system and was intended to become the common worldwide system.

Unfortunately one country stubbornly refused to change and its neighbours felt that it would be confusing to have different systems between geographically neighbouring countries and so IALA B was introduced as a compromise to be used solely on the American continent and in the Caribbean Sea.

Why Japan, the Philippines and Korea chose to have a different system to their close geographical neighbours is anybody’s guess. Seems very strange particularly given that countries like France who are partly in the Caribbean sensibly chose to accept the compromise and use IALA A in continental France and La Reunion, and IALA B in Martinique and Guadeloupe.

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I think you will find that the market is anticipating the fact that the impending trade war is expected to hit the pockets of consumers throughout North America and Europe as the price of everyday must buy items increase dramatically.

The need to use more of one’s income on necessary purchases means that the market is expecting a bigger hit on discretionary expenditure items with the result that prices of stocks in companies deemed to have their revenues dependent on discretionary expenditure are taking the bigger ‘fear of trade war’ hit.

Similar thing happening to companies like Harley Davidson whose products are also discretionary purchases.

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Thank you for this info, I will look into Smith's for our cruise next summer.

Airport car every time and Smith’s have a good reputation. If there are four of you it will be cheaper than the cost of four Princess transfers and much much more convenient.

I sort of have the OP’s problem I reverse in that I live a little to the West of Southampton but have to get to and from LHR to get to my flight out to the cruise.

Although there are only two of us, we use an airport car firm EVERY TIME.

Cheaper than train for even for two and much less hassle than National Express which requires us to take a taxi to the bus station and sometimes requires us to route via Victoria Coach station in central London. Even if I drive to the airport, by the time I have allowed for parking costs there is not much in it.

I am doing Dorset (which is 45 mins further than Southampton) to LHR both ways for £235 (roughly $300) this winter.

I would expect you to get a one way car to LHR for around $130 one way and a people carrier with sufficient space for four people and their baggage for around $180. Pick ups from the airport are slightly more expensive.

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Clearly he wrongly assumed you were trying to jump the line. Nothing upsets us Brits more than a queue jumper!!;)

Exactly what I thought though I concluded that there was probably no mileage in trying to explain that it was a cultural issue as it was probably just as likely that the dispatcher was equally at fault in assuming that folks from abroad knew that there would be an organised line.

Simply a case of everyone concluding that the other person is being rude.

Similar problem happens here in France where visitors, both from UK and USA find it difficult to comprehend that it is rude to interrupt a person doing an admin task at a hotel reception desk and that politeness is based on the fact that as soon as they can they will give you their undivided attention.

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We were nearly caught by a taxi driver when in Southampton. If you are getting change from the driver make sure they don't give you the round £1 coins which can no longer be spent, make sure you get the new 12 sided ones.

I wouldn’t worry about this. Old pound coins are long gone, and any U.K. person who finds one hidden in a draw may not be able to spend it,but they can still take it to a bank and get it changed.

Whatever, the chances of a taxi driver accidentally coming into possession of an old pound coin are very slim (unless they are slipped one by someone visiting from abroad)

So the bottom line is that taxi drivers are not going to be in possession of old pound coins - don’t worry.

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We disembarked the Sapphire in May at around 8.30am - plenty of taxis available, no lines.

Whilst taxis are very easy, the distance will be a function of which terminals the two ships use.

Check with Southampton VTS a few days before to discover which terminals you need to move between.

http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Live_Information/Shipping_Movements_and_Cruise_Ship_Schedule/Cruise_Ship_Schedule/

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Are you sure Princess charged this fee in the UK, we have paid for a few cruises direct to Princess and have never been charged for using our credit card.

Certain.

They used to charge 1% for using a credit card up to some time in the last 12 months (I think it only changed when the law banning these charges came into force in Jan) but no longer do so.

I used to pick up this charge voluntarily on my BA American Express card, rather than use a debit card in order to get over the threshold for earning my two for one voucher

Certainly, last August, I made a conscious decision to pick up a credit card charge of around £50, simply in order to get me over the threshold, which, this year, has enabled us to book to fly first class to Tokyo and back from Shanghai at a ridiculous price.(Indeed, it was so good a deal that I couldn’t even justify flying business class as the difference in cost - in terms of the value of extra Avios I used for one person flying first - was almost balanced out by the fact that I did not have to pay four loads of £83 to select our seats in business class).

NOTE: It applied to all credit cards, not just Amex, but was only applied on cruise costs and pre-cruise purchases. It did not get applied when using the credit card to settle my on board account

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FWIW. In Europe it is now illegal to charge a fee for using a credit card.

Up until quite recently, Princess used to apply a fee for paying for one’s UK booked cruise by credit card, but since the change in the law (which was introduced because budget airlines were deemed to be guilty of misrepresenting their fares by excluding fees) there is now no charge for paying for one’s cruise using credit cards.

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On a historical note: you'll notice that all the buildings look "modern" with a few exceptions (Notre Dame Cathedral, for one). They were built post-WW II because the Germans heavily bombed the city and destroyed nearly everything. I have no idea why they spared the Cathedrals

Hmmm!

I think you will find that it was not the Germans who bombed Le Havre.

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8€ is a complete rip-off. A bus ride anywhere is about 1€50.

Unfortunately there is no local bus stop at the cruise terminal, ut we are not talking about La Rochelle distances and it really isn't that far to walk to the bus stop at Notre-Dame.

In fact the local bus company show it as walkable on the map that comes with the bus timetable. I would say that is about four or five ship lengths from the port to the bus stop at Notre Dame.

http://www.transports-lia.fr/ftp/documents/Plan_réseau_2017.pdf

SPECIAL NOTE:

Ignore some of the replies from US citizens. They do not have exemptions and not all of them realise realise that different rules apply to UK citizens.

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