English Tim

Started to look at the weather forecast for LA and it’s looking good, especially with the disappointing stuff in south west England. The left-hand image is of my son Luke and myself after a 50 km cycle ride last week and the second image is of my wife, Rosy.

Could you upgrade using Avios?

in order to utilise this upgrade, one must book an Amex 2-4-1 fare in business class and then hope that seats in First become available nearer to travel, indeed using Seat Spy, as Adrian noted. We look forward to meeting you.

All of those useful travel tools. 😉

Did anyone from the UK receive any documents prior to the cruise or is everything online? Did anyone wear sneakers or sandals for dinner?

We board on May 12, so I’m a bit early. Originally we booked from LAX to Miami, one cruise, but we accidentally discovered that our cruise had been split in two and extended by three days. My UK TA was unaware of the changes until I notified them. It was a worrying time, but we had already booked flights. I suggested to our travel agent that Explora give us the extra three days free of charge, rather than compensation for a cancellation. They agreed and fortunately we were able to change our arrangements. We have booked our transatlantic flight using a voucher and paying most of the fair by airline miles, plus taxes, fortunately there were still flights available for UK. We also had to change internal flights, as after the cruise we were flying up to Washington to visit my sister-in-law, who lives in Delaware. We also had to change the car hire, but fortunately no change fees. So now we are all set, but last weekend I was notified by an app that I subscribe to, Seatspy, offering two seats in British Airways first class, for an additional £400 per per person, which I considered excellent value and snapped them up. As the flight is just over 11 hours, I considered the top service and access to the Concord lounge at London Heathrow too good an opportunity to pass up. For comparison, I checked what the cost would be had we paid money and tickets are around £11,000 each way! I imagine we will get an Uber from the airport to our hotel, which is the residence inn downtown Long Beach, where we stay for two nights using our hotel points. Apparently, there is a free bus which runs around the loop, visiting the main locations in Long Beach. On cruise departure day, again we expect to take an Uber to San Pedro Cruise terminal.

Next week my wife and I will be joining Explora 1 and I’d like to do a live report. How do I start this?

We went on Oceana Vista in January and we were quite disappointed. We are looking forward to going on Explora journey 1 next month and we expect to have a much better experience, based on the information I’ve read on social media. The fact that Heike is the general manager clearly shows the intent of this line.

Thanks, I’ve never been on one of those bikes, but may have a go on the Technogym variety.

I wonder if anyone can help me regarding what fitness classes are available on board, preferably included. Hopefully we will enjoy the Technogym equipment and maybe the peloton bikes, but we also like stretch and abs classes. Thanks.

One issue with social media is you never know whether the person making the post has any connection with the subject, so they could be social media influencers, or even board members.

Best chance is to keep your bags and walk off with them.

11.45 is probably too early for an international departure. We have embarked at Piraeus on several occasions and all have been pretty easy. If staying pre-cruise, I would advise getting an Uber and checking at which terminal your ship departs, as drivers, don’t always know.

Thanks, I didn’t realise they were still doing that and thought that if you were just transiting, it wasn’t required. Thanks very much for taking the trouble to provide a daily insight into your activities on the cruise. Often people ask questions beforehand but don’t take the trouble to provide the service which you have done, so much appreciated.

I don’t understand why you needed a Visa to get into Barbados!