First Cruise--Solstice, Sept 18 09, Greek Isles

[drcpa]

A few years back my wife and I planned a Scandinavian cruise with Celebrity that due to a death in the family we needed to cancel.

Fast forward over half a decade later and we've scheduled another cruise (still our first) on the Solstice, out of Rome touring primarily the Greek Isles leaving Sept 18.

We have our flights (although always nervous with Delta particularly now that they've announced a cut back in service beginning--just my luck--in September), our hotel in Rome the night before the cruise, our shore excursions (what can I say, we're really excited) and our house is beginning to look like a library with all our tour and cruise books.

I've always had the best luck learning from others more experienced than I so I'd sincerely appreciate any advice, counsel, suggestions, and comments from the members.

Much thanks.

[eandj]

ooh that will be a fun cruise. Why don't you go to the ports of call board/Europe. You'll find a board for Med cruises with lots of info and questions. Will help you thru the details, if you need it. Also check out your roll call for your ship. You might find someone to share a tour or just want to chat about plans. By the way... doing private tours are less costly than the big bus tours offered by the ships. And so much more fun and efficient. A group of 6 or 8 get personalized van service with no waiting around for slow pokes or stopping at places you'd have no interest in speding an hour at. You might want to think about that after reading about private tours on the boards I mentioned. Just a suggestion.

 

Have a great time. We'll be in Athens and Santorini in Sept. but our next trip will be to Athens and then ferry to maybe 3 different islands over a couple weeks. It's become very popular as of late. My 24 year old daughter is begging to come along on that one!

 

Welcome to Cruise critic.

[drcpa]

EandJ, thank you so much for such a thoughtful and informative post. Now I'm happier than ever that I signed up (for both the cruise and the Forum).

[CaroleLee]

A few years back my wife and I planned a Scandinavian cruise with Celebrity that due to a death in the family we needed to cancel.

Fast forward over half a decade later and we've scheduled another cruise (still our first) on the Solstice, out of Rome touring primarily the Greek Isles leaving Sept 18.

We have our flights (although always nervous with Delta particularly now that they've announced a cut back in service beginning--just my luck--in September), our hotel in Rome the night before the cruise, our shore excursions (what can I say, we're really excited) and our house is beginning to look like a library with all our tour and cruise books.

I've always had the best luck learning from others more experienced than I so I'd sincerely appreciate any advice, counsel, suggestions, and comments from the members.

Much thanks.

 

Hi,

DH,I & DF doing E. Med on Solstice in June-could be the same itinerary. Re Delta etc. hopefully they won't cut international route too much- so buy Travel Insurance (try Insuremytrip.com) for best rates.Did you book Delta via a TA or directly? If TA have them keep you in the loop re possible changes etc. If direct- book mark the Delta site and check it on a regular basis- the site might have an "instant notification" option.

As for info read & take notes. Try Rick Steves & Samatha Brown (Travel Channel) for videos of what you may see. Right now I have Earworms Greek on my I-Pod and learning as I type. Enjoy. Will post when back

Carole

[hcat]

We're on the same 9/18 cruise RT Rome as drcpa -- glad you found the roll call--don't forget to also sign up for the Connections party-- click on Join the Party..scroll up & it's on the upper right...

 

This is a nice itinerary & we have already tried the ship & think it is fabulous!

 

What did you hear about a Delta cut back in Sept? Our flight was booked long ago & never came down in price so we assumed it was full--- but DELTA always makes flight changes along the way--we'll have to keep checking every day! Right now we are going two days ahead but are hoping to return on the same day the cruise ends..If anyone hears anything let us know...(I am also going to post on the cruise Air thread)

[tom_uk]

I di dalmost the same itinerary in 2007 on Celebrity Galaxy. I blogged from that cruise, and the posts are here:-

http://tomtotley.wordpress.com/category/galaxy-2007/

 

Quite a bit of the content is about Galaxy itself, but there is a reasonable amount about the itinerary and the whole 'Celebrity experience'.

 

You might also be interested in looking at this page:

http://tomtotley.wordpress.com/resources/picture-urls-on-cruise-server/

It's a set of links to another site where I've posted lots of pictures taken on that and other cruises; Cruise Critic no longer allow direct links to that other site. Have a look at the various Santorini image collections, plus the ones for Mykonos, Capri and Naples.

[hcat]

A few years back my wife and I planned a Scandinavian cruise with Celebrity that due to a death in the family we needed to cancel.

Fast forward over half a decade later and we've scheduled another cruise (still our first) on the Solstice, out of Rome touring primarily the Greek Isles leaving Sept 18.

We have our flights (although always nervous with Delta particularly now that they've announced a cut back in service beginning--just my luck--in September), our hotel in Rome the night before the cruise, our shore excursions (what can I say, we're really excited) and our house is beginning to look like a library with all our tour and cruise books.

I've always had the best luck learning from others more experienced than I so I'd sincerely appreciate any advice, counsel, suggestions, and comments from the members.

Much thanks.

 

 

Here's a direct link to the roll call the 9/18 sailing

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=740396&page=12

 

I also want to thank you for the "heads up" about DELTA. When we checked today--sure enough our flight home from Rome was changed to an earlier time, around 10:30 am.. (We were not surprised, as this also happened when we did our cruise from Barcelona & flew DELTA..)

 

We did not want the stress of having to get to the airport for a 10:30 a.m. flight.. even though the ship gets into port early & "X" would probably say we could make it. We were able to book air for the next day & also get a hotel room for a post cruise overight stay.. DELTA probabaly would not have let us know for months so this worked out very well...

 

Hope this is it for changes....