Irish110

On 4/3/2024 at 4:15 PM, KINGBOBOFTHENORTH said:

I'm sure you have your reasons to fly from PBI but that airport is "rarely" cheaper than flying from FLL which is adjacent Port Everglades.

Found a cheaper flight.

Thanks so much for all your responses. I will look into Captains airport service. I think we will probably go with a pre-booked car service to make things go a little easier on the day we fly home. Thank you all again for taking the time to respond to my questions.

Thanks so much for responding. I appreciate all the info. Your response was exactly what I was looking for. 

I am thinking of getting a flight out of West Palm Beach Airport after disembarking from our cruise at Port Everglades/Fort Lauderdale. Has anyone done this after a cruise? What was your experience? How did you get from the Port to PBI? Taxi, Uber, private car, etc. Any chance the cruise line would have transportation going there? I would appreciate hearing from those who have flown out of PBI after a cruise and your experience doing that..  Thanks for your help.

Thank you for your reply.

Thank you both for your responses. 

We are considering a cruise that begins on Easter Sunday.  Does anyone know when the Catholic mass is scheduled? Would we be able to celebrate Easter mass on the day we embark or should we try to attend mass before we get on the ship? 

26 minutes ago, liamur14 said:

Thanks Irish, that is the exact cruise I was looking at but in reverse. I was worried about all the sea days, was it rough sailing? 

Smooth sailing. No rough seas. 

We did our first TA in April on the Nieuw Statendam from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona and I love it. We had six days at sea after Fort Lauderdale and I was afraid it would be too many days in a row but I enjoyed it. I would have liked more activities during the day besides trivia. I wish they would bring back America's Test Kitchen or a similar program. A chef demonstration on a MDR meal would be enjoyable. There was a lot of choices for things to do in the evening so I would recommend a Pinnacle class ship. I also enjoyed our ports of call in Spain and the Azores. Let me know if I can answer any questions about the Nieuw Statendam.

On 3/9/2023 at 8:23 AM, cruisemom42 said:

 

Did you have to get your own group together? 

 

For me, the excursions don't offer any additional choice. The combination tour of Ljubljana and Lake Bled still does not include an actual boat ride and visit to the island at the second destination....  I think it's just too much for one day.

 

I believe we booked through Viator as a share tour but there was 4 of us so we ended up with a private tour just for our party. This was back in the Fall of 2021 and they were just coming out of the lockdowns.

On a port stop to Koper in 2021, we booked a private shore excursion with Koper Trips and would highly recommend this company. We ended up going on their Predjama Castle (a cave castle) and Postogna Cave shore excursion. Our driver/guide was excellent and we spent an enjoyable day seeing parts of Slovenia and still had time to explore Koper on our own after the tour.. They offer different shore excursions to others parts of Slovenia as well. For those looking for a private tour option other than the ships excursions, I would recommend checking out their website. 

Back in 2018 we took Bee LeHarve to Honfleur. At the time we were on a trolley which we picked up in the center of LeHarve that took us to Honfleur where we had 3 hours free time to explore and then we were dropped off at the cruise dock. We easily walked into town but was aware shuttles into town were also available. It looks like they still run this but maybe a larger bus than the smaller trolley that we were on. Check out their website. I would recommend this company. We enjoyed our experience with them.

Yes. You can do this on your own. We took a cab from the cruise port to Sagrada Familia. We purchased our tickets in advance. Since SF is most important to you, I would suggest you set up your tickets in advance and include the guided tour for the morning. You can then do the hop on hop off bus which has a stop near Sagrada Familia and get a feel for the rest of the city since some of your party has never been before or you can walk or get a cab to the El Born area and enjoy the area at your own pace. 

Thank you both for your responses. I think I will go ahead and book Larry's Limos so I know I have a car waiting for me when I land. Thanks again.

Would we be able to get a cab from Miami Airport to hotel near Port Everglades around 9 p.m. on a Friday night? Is there a flat rate available from MIA to hotel in FLL? Do cab drivers have a problem driving to FLL from MIA? Would prefer not to use Uber/Lyft. Has anyone have a suggestion for shared or private transportation that they have used in the past? Thank you in advance for information on getting from MIA to FLL.

Lemon Drop Martini my favorite especially at Tamarind bar.

We started out on our first few cruises with HAL doing anytime dining which we found frustrating when you generally need to make a reservation for the times you want to dine which defeats the purpose of anytime. After frustration with standing in line too many times to wait to be seated and not getting the times we wish to dine, we started doing fixed late dining and never gone back. We like a table for 2 unless traveling with friends and enjoy just walking into the dining room and heading straight to our assigned table. We also enjoy having the same wait staff, etc.

On our last visit in 2016, we were able to get an audio device with our ticket to tour on our own. You were able to select the language you wanted the tour in. Do they no longer provide audio devices? 

We were in San Juan and St. Maarten in April and were able to sightsee, shop and have lunch with no restrictions except in certain places masks were required to enter but not many.  Both ports are really easy to do on your own if you don't want to do an excursion. San Juan is a little hilly so if you have mobility issues you need to keep this in mind if you are walking around Old San Juan. St, Maarten has a really nice cruise port with a nice selection of shops so if you don't want to venture into town you can just get off the ship and walk around the port area. It is a short walk into town but you can get a water taxi at the port which will drop you off at the center of town. I would recommend getting off the ship at both of these ports just to walk around close to the cruise port if nothing else.

Thank you all for your responses. I do try to search on CC before posting my questions. I just wanted to confirm that no testing was needed.  Thanks again.

Do US citizens need a Covid test to return to the US from the Caribbean? We are taking a roundtrip cruise out of Fort Lauderdale and was wondering if we need to test to get back into the US? If so, will Celebrity provide the test onboard? 

Another vote for HAL laundry. Taking our first Celebrity cruise next month and already missing not being able to fill a laundry bag with how much you can fit inside for one price. Usually $25 for US sailings and maybe $10 more for Europe. 

Yes I have clicked on the left hand side to see all the excursions listed for each port in my cruise planner. I am just not seeing some of the excursions that I had seen previously. I am just confirming that unless an excursion is listed in my cruise planner then it is not available to book.

Thanks for responding. It sounds like only excursions listed in the Cruise Planner are available for this cruise. Most of the excursions are discounted which is a good thing but there were a couple of excursions that were of interest in the general excursions for those ports that I guess are either sold out or not available. 

Going on my first Celebrity cruise in April. I was looking to book a couple of shore excursions pre-cruise. I saw a couple of excursions that were not listed on the page showing pre-cruise discounts. Does this mean you can only book pre-cruise discounted excursions and more excursions will be available once we board or are these the only excursions being offered for my particular cruise? Will airport transfers be offered to MIA airport from Port Everglades without having to do a combination excursion with airport drop off?  Thanks in advance for any help in answering my questions.