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May 7 Constellation Review Baltic/Russia (Very Long)

MSBYRDY

By MSBYRDY,
in Celebrity Cruises

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MSBYRDY

MSBYRDY

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Ohhh, if you have an aft, indeed keep it, you'll love the sights. Going into and out of Oslo is great, leaving from Dover, well, all the ports were worth that vantage point. Hopefully you'll have sunny warmer weather and can enjoy it all the more.

Marilyn

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janrj7

janrj7

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Sorry to take so long replying .. holiday weekend ..

 

Boo's Mom and Norma, the bus from Canterbury to Dover took less than an hour as I remember.

 

Hiya Ray! Thanks for giving Norma the link to the bus site. And Norma, Ray is right, you do have to transfer to another bus in London to get from Dover or Canterbury to Heathrow, and you have to schlepp the bags over to the other bus. They store the bags in the luggage compartments for you, underneath the bus.

 

Diana, the rooms at East Lee were furnished entirely in antiques (mostly Victorian); ours had a four-poster bed with canopy, a sitting area, fireplace, and chest of drawers. We looked in on the other rooms, and each was different, yet very pleasant. Ours was at the front of the house, second floor, and had a large picture window looking out over the town. The bathroom was clean, average sized to small. Excellent breakfast, cooked to order, including healthy choices. Can't really think of any negatives; you do have to walk a little ways to get to the town center. When we were ready to embark, the B&B owner called a cab for us. East Lee was an excellent value, and I would expect to pay twice that for an equivalent B&B in California, say. I have some pictures I can email you if you'd like.

 

Jan

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Boo's Mom

Boo's Mom

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Oh..Jan ! I would love to see pictures! Can you email me? :) jetter4H@msn.com

 

Here's a question for Jan...or anyone else who has stayed at the East Lee B & B. How did you do the reservation? It sounds like they want a credit card deposit...or payment in full. This is fine. But, how did you give them your credit card number? There doesn't seem to be a way to send the number through a secured area on the website. I hesitate to send it through regular email.

 

I would love to hear comments. Even if you haven't stayed there....would you ever send a Credit Card number through regular email?

 

Thanks, Guys !

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MSBYRDY

MSBYRDY

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Boo's Mom: I've sent a credit card number like you're talking about doing, but never all in one email. I've broken it up into several with cryptic things and the numbers in various sequences. It was told upfront to the recipient and they knew what to expect. Never had any trouble doing it that way. Noooo, I wouldn't just put it all in an email together.

Marilyn

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MSBYRDY

MSBYRDY

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I sent the exp date in a separate email with a note saying it was something entirely different (such as someone's birthday). Then send separate emails with the numbers mixed, but so that the recipient knows what you're doing. 7890 in one, 4567 in another, 4321 in another, just tell the recipient how to expect it. Never been a problem. Just be creative

Marilyn

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CruisingChick

CruisingChick

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MSBYRDY,

 

Thank you so much for you very detailed review. I will be going on this cruise next July 1, 2006.

 

What were the dinner times onboard the ship? When we did Millennium Meditteranean Main Seating was 6:30 PM and Second Seating was 845 PM. Just wondering if it's the same for the Baltic.

 

Unfortunately the name of the tour company and links have been ****** out by the message boards. Could you e-mail them to me at cruisingchick15 at yahoo dot com?

 

Thanks so much.

 

Anne Maria

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janrj7

janrj7

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Diana and Boo's Mom, I've sent you 3 pics of East Lee; let me know if they don't come through!

 

Re: credit card numbers, I agree with Marilyn, send 'em in separate emails and avoid using key terms like expiration, mastercard, etc. That's what I did when I reserved with Patricia Knight at East Lee. By the way, she takes credit cards for the reservation but not to settle the bill itself. I think we used cash or maybe a check.

 

Like an idiot, last fall I actually sent my cc number and exp date in one email to a place in the Caribbean, to reserve a snorkel tour. Guess what: the same day, someone charged over $4000 to my account at an Internet "cash advance" site in Florida!! The tour operators weren't at fault; the email got intercepted somewhere. They said it had happened to someone else too. My guess is that their mail server was running old software that was easily hacked. Anyway, I had to cancel the card right before our trip, not fun.

 

Jan

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alcman

alcman

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For those of you who have MBNA or Citbank cards (don't know about other banks), there is a service they offer to generate unique card numbers for just this situation. They are in amounts limited by you and with an expiration set by you. Moreover, they can only be used by a single recipient. Even a theft would be of limited value to the thief. Moreover, a theft does not require you to cancel the card. Used it for all my European reservations and purchases without incident.

 

Jerry

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Sky Sweet

Sky Sweet

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For those of you who have MBNA or Citbank cards (don't know about other banks), there is a service they offer to generate unique card numbers for just this situation. They are in amounts limited by you and with an expiration set by you. Moreover, they can only be used by a single recipient. Even a theft would be of limited value to the thief. Moreover, a theft does not require you to cancel the card. Used it for all my European reservations and purchases without incident.

 

Jerry

 

Thank you, Jerry, for making me aware of this service. We have an MBNA card and I didn't realize that we had this option.

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suttonwho

suttonwho

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Dear Host Anne,

 

Is there a special reason for **** to the name of the St. Petersburg travel agent used by Marilyn Msbyrdy, when other agents running tours to Berlin are still shown? I saw the name in full two days ago before it was deleted and was very interested as people recommended the company so highly. I tried to access the website but it didn't seem to be fully operating as I couldn't get any prices from it. Red October, the other Russian company is still quoted elsewhere.

 

On another question, can anyone say whether there are shuttle boats/buses run by Celebrity from Rostock port to Rostock town?

 

We are looking forward to joining Constellation on July 30th, in spite of disappointments over the itinerary changes.

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MSBYRDY

MSBYRDY

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We ended up docking in Warnemunde rather than Rostock. No shuttles that I'm aware of. There was a train station right outside the port that you could take into Rostock, took about 20 min. Several people did this and had no problem with it. It was walkable into Warnemunde.

 

I'm also puzzled over ****** not being visible when they are an excellent company and have been mentioned for last yrs. cruises with no problem. I do have an email address for them that you can use if the website isn't fully loading. Ilya will send you whatever information you request. I can't recommend them highly enough. Many others used them on our cruise also and all have the same feeling as we did about them. They were excellent.

 

 

Marilyn

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suttonwho

suttonwho

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Dear Marilyn,

Thanks for your comments about ****** We shall try again to make contact.

 

Dear Anne,

Thanks for your reply. I didn't realise that there is someone else supervising these contacts - I thought it was you. I've read the item about Travel agents at the head of the Board but I can't make sense of what's allowed and what isn't.

 

 

Marion @ Suttonwho

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Host Anne "Live from...." Rare

Host Anne

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Sutton ~ I am the board moderator (along with Host Walt) for the Celebrity boards. It's our job to monitor the boards to ensure guidelines are being followed. But I am not aware of issues with this company at this point in time. We'll have to wait to hear. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

 

It can sometimes be confusing regarding travel agents. The main issue is that travel agents (and tour companies) may not solicit for business on the boards...either directly or indirectly through others. When you need clarification of something, don't hesitate to ask and we'll try to get the answer for you.

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MSBYRDY

MSBYRDY

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I did happen to notice the other day that Red October had a big heading on one of the boards. Is it possible that they are "sponsoring" on the board and therefore ****** has been given the boot? Now that I'm looking for it I can't seem to find it again, but I know it was there.

Marilyn

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