***LIVE*** From the Carnival Freedom

[terri910]

I think going from one EU country to another is not considered international as you don't have to go through customs and immigration

Really?

 

Well, how cool is that?

 

So.....our flight from London to Rome (and return Rome to London) will not be considered international?....

 

I really DO need the memos!!! *LOL*

[chopper65]

Really?

 

Well, how cool is that?

 

So.....our flight from London to Rome (and return Rome to London) will not be considered international?....

 

I really DO need the memos!!! *LOL*

Great Btitain is not a member of the European Union

[queenslander]

Great Btitain is not a member of the European Union

Yes - the UK is a member of the European union.

 

Joyce

[terri910]

Well...at least I'm not the only one not getting memos!

[chopper65]

Yes - the UK is a member of the European union.

 

Joyce

Member States

 

 

There are twenty five Member States of the European Union.

 

This section contains profiles of each of the Member States.

 

For profiles of the countries that have applied to join the EU, see 'Candidate Countries.'

 

 

Austria │ Belgium │ Cyprus │ Czech Republic │ Denmark │ Estonia │ Finland │ France │ Germany │Greece

 

 

 

Hungary │ Ireland │ Italy │ Latvia │ Lithuania │ Luxembourg │ Malta │ Netherlands │ Poland │ Portugal

 

 

 

Slovakia │ Slovenia │ Spain │ Sweden │ United Kingdom

 

 

I stand corrected.Sorry for the wrong info. I was thinking about the euro

[lindasuej]

Bon Voyage all that are sailing soon. I am jealous. I am booked for this cruise but not until 8/26/08. According to the Carnival website I have over 500 days until my cruise. How am I ever going to last that long?????

 

Well, at least I should be well informed by then with all the postings between now and then.

 

Keep up the information.

 

Thanks

Linda & Tom

[dcmom]

Linda and Tom you will be surprised how quickly the time passes. Reading all the reviews, planning all the excursions and meeting your fellow CC members will make the wait even shorter and then all of a sudden you'll be less than 2 weeks to sailaway and trying to tie up all the loose ends. Have fun in your planning! Those of us on the 4/19/07 voyage will do our best to keep this thread going and post our reviews to help!

[flspacegirl]

Read of others who did and sounds like a great tour. We may be looking at booking this and other tours through Port Promotions - if we can get a total of 15 to add to our 5. check out port promotions on line and let me know right away if you are interested in smaller group tours.

[CasaM]

Sharonsorlie - My DH and I were on the 3/14 sailing. We did Ephesus and Terrace Houses with Carnival tour. This tour was one of the top tours for us. We had an excellent guide and enjoyed Ephesus so much. Going into the Terrace Houses is really not to be missed - it added so much to the tour.

 

Just as an aside, if you want to shop for pashminas and such, the Ephesus stop is much better than the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. The GB is just too big and overwhelming. Ephesus had a nice number of stands. Of course, we didn't realize this until after we went to the GB.

[papafred]

I would appreciate feedback from anyone who took the " Private Visit of the Vatican Museums and Rome". At @$300 p/p it's pretty pricey.

[bekah]

I didn't go on the Ephesus and Terrace houses tour, but took the Ephesus and House of Virgin Mary tour with Carnival. It was awful. I wish we had hired a private guide - it would have been worth it, IMHO.

[jkeller527]

What did everyone do in Katakalon.

[Terry&Anne]

I didn't go on the Ephesus and Terrace houses tour, but took the Ephesus and House of Virgin Mary tour with Carnival. It was awful. I wish we had hired a private guide - it would have been worth it, IMHO.

 

Oooh errr... :eek: :( :confused: we have already booked that tour. What was awful about it??

 

Thanks, Anne

[Europebound]

Bekah and Chopper65: thanks for the input regarding morning flights. I do feel better now. We are taking the Carnival shuttle and will be flying Lufthansa to Frankfurt and then just a one hour wait before our flight to Phily. Hopefully, the gates will be close together. DH says that if Carnival doesn't get us to the airport in time, another night in Rome (on Carnival) wouldn't be too hard to take. lol I just will stop worrying and expect we'll get there and through the airport okay. Thanks again.

[sharonsorlie]

pashminas - OK now I don't mean to sound dumb - but what is a pashminas?:confused:

[micro yaya 13]

pashminas - OK now I don't mean to sound dumb - but what is a pashminas?:confused:

it's a shawl..........:D

[sharonsorlie]

it's a shawl..........:D

 

Thank you so much - wow what an education! I am learning something new each day. Second question = where do we get Turkish Lyria??? My bank was stunned when I asked them. That's Canada for you eh!:o

[Snoopsmom]

Oooh errr... :eek: :( :confused: we have already booked that tour. What was awful about it??

 

Thanks, Anne

I think you can cancel a tour with 3 days notice without any penalty.

[K&B-07]

I didn't go on the Ephesus and Terrace houses tour, but took the Ephesus and House of Virgin Mary tour with Carnival. It was awful. I wish we had hired a private guide - it would have been worth it, IMHO.

 

Bekah: could you enlighten us as to the procedure for Carnival tours? How do they handle all the people etc.I thought I read somewhere that you're always "lining up...." but that may have been on the 1st cruise and maybe they have it figured out by now?? We've booked the Ephesus/Terrace Houses because we heard it was not to be missed.

Was it just the tour you picked that you didn't like, or the "guide" you were given with Carnival? With all these questions, you must feel like you're still onboard!! :) thanks so much!

[K&B-07]

I think you can cancel a tour with 3 days notice without any penalty.

 

3 days from when you 1st booked it...or 3 days prior to the tour? That may be good to know!! Thanks!

[Terry&Anne]

3 days from when you 1st booked it...or 3 days prior to the tour? That may be good to know!! Thanks!

 

I was actually really surprised that they charged our credit card for the tours right away.

 

I'd expected that it would just be a booking confirmation, and that it would be changed when we took the tour. The website did not make it clear, and they did not send us a proper receipt either.

 

I wonder if they'd really do a refund if we cancelled 3 days before a tour??

 

 

Cheers, Anne

[sharonsorlie]

I was actually really surprised that they charged our credit card for the tours right away.

 

I'd expected that it would just be a booking confirmation, and that it would be changed when we took the tour. The website did not make it clear, and they did not send us a proper receipt either.

 

I wonder if they'd really do a refund if we cancelled 3 days before a tour??

 

 

 

Cheers, Anne

 

A couple of years ago I booked the wrong tour via Carnival - I went into the shore booking site and modified my tours = cancelled the one and booked the other. I had no problems getting a refund on the same statement

[Terry&Anne]

A couple of years ago I booked the wrong tour via Carnival - I went into the shore booking site and modified my tours = cancelled the one and booked the other. I had no problems getting a refund on the same statement

 

Oh good! That's nice to know.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

cheers, Anne

[Snoopsmom]

For online cancellations that occur outside the cut-off window, 5 days prior to sailing, a full refund will automatically be posted to the credit card that was used to pay for the shore excursion order, regardless of whether or not the person who purchased the shore excursion is sailing. Please allow 7-10 business days for the credit to post to the your account. No changes can be made within the cut-off window. If you need to make changes after the cut-off date, you must wait until sailing and see the Shore Excursion Manager onboard. Once onboard, any refunds will be made to the Sail and Sign account of the Shore Excursion order contact person’s Sail & Sign account, not the original credit card used to secure the online order. This applies even in the event that shore excursions were purchased as a gift by someone who is not sailing.

In the event of a cruise booking cancellation, within the cut-off window, a full refund will automatically be posted to the original credit card used to pay for the shore excursions order. If the designated contact person on a shore excursion order must cancel from their cruise booking and the remaining guests who are sailing would like to retain the shore excursion order, a new contact person needs to be assigned. If a designated contact person cancels and does not reassign the responsibility, the associated shore excursion orders will automatically cancel and be refunded.

Once onboard, cancellations are subject to a 25% cancellation charge. However, within 24 hours of arrival in port, all shore excursion orders are non-refundable. A refund, less any applicable cancellation charges, will be applied to the designated contact person’s sail and sign account. Carnival will only offer shipboard credit for shore excursion order refunds, but note any credit not utilized by the end of your cruise will be refunded via check to the order’s designated contact person on the morning of debarkation.

Guests are encouraged to purchase Carnival’s Cruise Vacation Protection Plan to cover any eligible non-refundable shore excursion cancellation charges.

 

Hope this helps. I believe it is different than when I booked excursions several months ago.

[bekah]

On this ship they tell you to meet in the Victorianna at a specified time. As you walk in you show them your ticket and they hand you a sticker with a number. Then when the tours are scheduled to leave, they call out 'Red 1 go may leave and go to your bus,' and so forth until all numbers and colors are called. You file out on the stairs (unless you're unable) and go to the buses and find the one that has the same number and color of your sticker. Very easy. What I didn't like about the tour was a combination of things: 1. the people on our tour thought that the meeting time to leave the sights didn't apply to them, so there was a bus full of people waiting on four people to leave the house of the Virgin Mary for 30 mins. until they decided they had seen enough. 2. The guide spoke but didn't really say anything. Everything she said she repeated (using different words) four times or so. What she did say could have been learned from a map as she just told us what things were and didn't point out any of the little things you hire a guide for. Think a talking map. When she was finished talking she would turn around and walk very quickly to the next point she wanted to talk about and take no questions. 3. There was a mother in our group that was ready to kill her son. I'm not exaggerating. Made life miserable. 4. After looking at prices for private guides, it wouldn't have cost us much more (if any) and we would have seen a whole lot more. Ephesus really is a place that has a whole lot to see and it's well worth going to regardless of who gets you there, (private guide or Carnival) but knowing what I know now I wish we had maximized our time here. The upside of taking a Carnival tour is that you don't miss the boat! (You might have a look at this thread if you have the time.)

 

As for Turkish Lira, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Many of the vendors (street, convenient store, taxi cab drivers) will accept any form of currency you have. If you buy something small they can give you change in TL even if you pay with EU or USD if you ask. There are quite a few buildings right across the street from where you dock and I'm sure there's an ATM there.

 

Glad you're feeling better about your flights out and your DH is right - an extra night in Rome on Carnival wouldn't be so bad!