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roaming_kiwi58

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  • Location
    Christchurch, New Zealand
  • Interests
    travel, history, reading
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    whatever cruiseline has the right itinerary for us.

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  1. We are also on the 8 September Croatia cruise, and I have been able to see the shore excursions for every port for some time now - at least probably 2 months I think. Just annoying not to be able to download them all in one document.
  2. We have sailed Azamara, Oceania and Silversea. Azamara is undoubtedly our preferred cruise line. Though we have not sailed them since Covid and since their change of ownership. We have two Azamara cruises booked later this year. The small bathrooms do not bother us. How long do you spend in the bathroom?! Oceania has been disappointing on several of our voyages, but we do like their itineraries sometimes, so would use them again. We spent 21 days on the Silver Shadow last August/September. We were extremely disappointed, to say the least. Not worth the price, not by a mile. Yes, the cabins are nice, but that was as far as it went. Service was erratic and sometimes appalling. Food was ordinary, sometimes poor. My husband had to reject his servings on numerous occasions and some of the food I got was very marginal. We are not complainers and usually go with the flow, but this trip was certainly not what we were expecting for a “luxury line”. The F & B manager did admit they had problems with recruiting and training staff. After some not so great included shore excursions we ended up cancelling several of the others we had booked, preferring to do our own thing. The formal dress thing is ridiculous – we witnessed the extent the staff go to, to force some men to wear jackets! Various other niggles. There were a few children onboard, so you cannot say it is a childfree line. We are itinerary driven and would normally sail just about any cruise line if the itinerary is right. However, we would be very reluctant to use Silversea again. We want a better experience than that when we are spending that much money! But that is all just us. I strongly believe people have to find out for themselves what cruise line suits them and other people’s opinions may be totally irrelevant! Given that, I am not sure why I felt driven to put a response on this thread, as I usually avoid expressing too many opinions, which are mine and mine alone! Maybe because Silversea really was a huge disappointment and has therefore stuck in our minds! Back in my box....
  3. Food is subjective. We have done numerous cruises with Azamara and Oceania, and always found the food on Azamara to be "better", or certainly more suited to us. Oceania food is over-rated in our opinion. As well as the nature of the food, one particular gripe we have with the Oceania food (on numerous cruises pre Covid - have not travelled with them since Covid) is that it was invariably cold, often because they use cold plates. When we complained about the cold plates they said they couldn't heat the plates because people might get burnt. How come other cruiselines warm their plates? Up to you whether you like the food of a particular cruise line!
  4. We went to the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica with Hurtigruten, on the Fram, in January 2019. Fantastic trip! South Georgia the absolute highlight, for the amazing wildlife. The cabins on the Fram were small, but it doesn't matter when you don't spend much time in them. We had two landings each day, weather permitting. The only excursions that were extra charge was the camping overnight ashore, and maybe the kayaking - not sure, as we did not do it. Lots of chicks to be seen. We had previously done a "sail by" to Antarctica with Holland America. We felt the lectures on HAL were actually better than those on Hurtigruten. The naturalists on HAL were excellent. But of course the landing experiences and the closeup with the wildlife on the Hurtigruten trip took the whole experience to another level. However, we enjoyed both trips very much and would do either again, given the opportunity. I would particularly love to return to South Georgia. Probably won't happen unfortunately, as we are collecting health issues as we get older and we still have other places on our bucket list!
  5. We had two days at KK from a Windstar cruise in March 2023. The city seemed rather rundown and badly affected by Covid. Many shops were closed - in fact the majority were closed. Not just the food outlets (it was Ramadan), but every sort of shop. The ship was docked, not anchored. There was not much at the port. They ran a shuttle to the other end of town, to a large shopping mall, which could have been a mall anywhere in the world. The mall was busier. We went walking from here, but everything outside the mall was so quiet and mainly closed. The second day we did a ship tour to Mt Kinabalu Park and the Botanical Garden there. To be honest we found the whole experience somewhat underwhelming.
  6. When we visited Koh Samui a few years ago, we just walked from the tender pier to the shops, and as far as a couple of beaches, and to a lookout point.
  7. On Silversea in September we were dropped off at Perrotti Park. Very convenient location.
  8. We just came off the Silver Shadow a week ago - we were on it for 21 days. We had emergency alarms three days out of 4 in a row. The first one was on an at sea day, and was a fire in the incinerator room. The crew were running around in lifejackets, but there was minimal info for the passengers. The fact they closed all the fire doors meant we just had to stay where we were, though we weren't actually told that is what was expected of us. After about an hour we were told the emergency was under control. Next day we had another emergency alarm, again while at sea. Burning smells had been detected on 4 decks. After about 45 minutes the captain announced the smell had been traced to a faulty air conditioning unit. Two days later we had an alarm about 11pm, while overnighting in Boston. No instruction to do anything, and about 15 minutes later we were told the "slight emergency" was under control. We thought alarms at sea - particularly fires - would be rather more serious than a "slight emergency". We also found the distinct lack of information about what was going on, or what we were supposed to do rather disconcerting. This was our first cruise on Silversea and to be honest, for a number of reasons, we were not very impressed.
  9. We have just come off a B2B Silversea cruise in Canada/USA. I noticed on the shore excursion documentation we received onboard that it stated tips on shore excursions are expected, and not included. That may have been included in the paperwork before embarkation as well - I don't remember. We did not tip all our guides, as we thought some of them were very poor, but we did tip the good ones. Mostly other cruisers were tipping - but then they were mainly Americans, so that was no surprise. We are NZers, and not used to tipping. It is always a conundrum to us, when and how much to tip. We would certainly not always tip - only in places where we know it is expected - such as the USA for one example. We got Canadian and US dollars before leaving home.
  10. We tried to book a number of included shore excursions as soon as we booked the cruise we are currently on (eastern Canada/USA), which was about 6 months out. We were alarmed at how many of the shore excursions were not available. We ended up with 5 wait listed tours. Close to sail date they added some more tours and rejuggled timings of tours. All of our wait listed tours were eventually confirmed, though not at the times we had requested. FYI once on board we ended up cancelling several of our booked tours, as we were somewhat disillusioned with the tours we did early in this 21 day B2B cruise, and preferred to do our own self guided walking tours in some ports.
  11. We were in Halifax yesterday. While it was very foggy at sea, we ended up with a lovely warm sunny day ashore. We walked inland from the port as far as the Public Gardens (very colourful & well maintained) and the Citadel. Not keen on museums and the like, but as we had not gone into the citadel in Quebec, we decided to do the one in Halifax. Saw the changing of the guard. They were having trouble with the cannons. The shopping centres we passed were all closed, as it was Sunday. Ended up on the waterfront for the walk back to the ship. It was very busy there. Heaps of eating and drinking places - none of which we tried, as we have been eating more than enough onboard the ship!
  12. We are currently on Silver Shadow. Have not seen any reuseable water bottles supplied by Silversea. Glass bottles of water in the fridge, which we use to fill our own reuseable metal bottle. Plastic bottles of water are at the gangway for you to take when you go ashore.
  13. The bus requires the exact money for the $3.75. There were 3 of us, so we gave $11.25 each time. You can see the route of the 800 bus on the rtcquebec.ca website I hope this link works: https://www.rtcquebec.ca/en/schedules-and-routes/bus-schedule/all-routes/800/terminus-chute-montmorency In town we got on at stop 2664 D’Youville. This stop is in Boulevard Honore-Mercier, near the intersection with Rue D’Aiguillon. We were staying at the Clarendon Hotel, so we walked down Rue Saint Jean, and turned right into Boulevard Honore-Mercier to find the bus stop there in that block. There is a pdf map of Parc de la Chute-Montmorency on the Sepaq website. Here again I will try a link: https://www.sepaq.com/resources/docs/ct/pcm/pcm_carte_du_site.pdf We chose to start at the top, where the bus terminates. You have to walk back a bit from the bus stop to the pedestrian entrance – there is a sign – also when we went there was a person directing you to the pedestrian entrance. From there we chose to do the circuit in a clockwise direction, because it was easier going down the steps on the other side. We got back on the bus to return to town at the bus stop where we got off, but it does actually go a bit further down to turn around, and people got on there too. It is really easy to do the falls on your own, and it is good to be able to enjoy the whole site in your own time. I would highly recommend doing it this way. Hope this helps! Enjoy Quebec, it is such a lovely city!
  14. We were there 10 days ago. We did the #800 bus to the falls. The bus fare is #3.75. We entered the park at the top, near the terminus stop of the bus. The park entrance fee was $8 (including tax)for seniors 60+. We then walked across the suspension bridge, down the stairs on the other side, to the centre at the bottom, which has a shop, and is the base for the cable car. The cable car was $13.15 one way for 60+, including tax. At the top we walked back to the bus terminus to get back into town. We did not think the cable car was worth it, but we wanted to do the circuit, without having to climb back up the steps. There is an extra boardwalk that entends from the bottom of the stairs, which is closed at the moment.
  15. Yes, agree for us too. Always surrendered passports on every cruise. I was wondering why someone was targeting Canada as requiring passports required ashore. It certainly hasn't been the case this last couple of weeks!
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