BaggersCruising

Anyone else on this cruise. Seriously thinking about it but find the itinerary on Thomson website differs from that on Cruise Deals website for the same cruise. Thomson's say Day 10 transit Suez Canal, Day 11 at Sea, Days 12 & 13 in Jordan. Cruise Deals says Day 9 transit Suez Canal, Day 10 Port Sokhna, Day 11 & 12 Hurghada, Day 13 Sharm El Sheikh.

They cant both be right, can they? I rang Cruise Deals and they were clueless. Out of curiosity, I rang Thomas Cook to see what they had to offer for this cruise and not surprisingly got the same office as Cruise Deals so I didnt even bother asking the question. And I was going to book it today too.

Cruise Deals is part of TUI, not Thomas Cook so wouldn't have been the same office.

Thomson's site is always (nearly) up to date. A lot of the other sites load the cruises in when they're announced, and aren't updated if there's been a change, so 99% of the time the Thomson site is the most accurate.

I cannot find any excursion from Aqaba to Petra on the Thomson website is it just me missing something

The Aqaba excursions are online now at the cruise excursion site.

The check in facilities at Malaga are quite good with a proper terminal and check in on the first floor with a lift available. Then a small little ramp takes you to the platforms that take you, on the level, to the ship.

Apparently they're only sent our randomly now, regardless of which ship you were on!

It will be interesting to see if dream and discovery are £10 per day for the drink,s pac or £100 spend for 2016-17 when home based in the Caribbean , by booking early i got the £10 drink,s pac on Celebration for 2016 previous year,s it has been £100 spend on Dream just a thought :)

It will be interesting to see what they do, although my instinct will probably say just the OBC for both ships.

They've offered the £10 a night drinks package on the Celebration for early bookers the past couple of years as it's treading the same waters they've done for years, and an older ship, so it was to tempt people I guess, whereas the Dream has been chartering (mainly) previously unsailed waters for Thomson.

yes exeter very handy for us too but that is where its redeeming features end

 

exeter airport .... home of the most stony faced security ever... no wait? that accolade has now passed to montego bay:rolleyes:

 

exeter airport.... home of the £7 breakfast roll:eek:

 

exeter airport... home of stainless steel bus stop seats at the departure gate (if you are lucky and don’t have to sit on the floor in the corridor)

 

exeter airport ... where you have to queue up outside (virtually on the runway) for immigration (rain or shine or ice/frost/snow/blizzard)

 

exeter airport where they couldn’t even be bothered to lay some tarmac in the carpark … its just dirt/gravel/weeds where they always seem to have stray traffic cones/luggage trolleys carefully parked up in all the best spaces:D

Haha, so true! We found Montego Bay ok, but have heard some of the horror stories from other people! And, when we went through Exeter back in May, ok it was really early in the morning we sailed through in less than a minute and security was friendly. I'm just it must have been a glitch and I'm sure everything is back to normal now :rolleyes::rolleyes:

I actually really like Exeter airport! :D

Nooooo, really? It's handy but I have to agree with geomagot that's about as good as it gets! There's always really bad crosswinds when coming into land at Exeter too. Bristol is so much better! Sadly though, they can't do long haul flights from Bristol as the runway is so short, and that said IIRC Bristol suffers from bad crosswinds too.

thats because exter airport is small (a portacabin baggage hall) and its a little out of the way (unless you live in west country) they have to keep prices low or risk flying the aircraft half empty or completely cancelling your flight to lanzarote 2 weeks before departure to due to lack of demand as they did with us one time :( a case of no demand.... no supply

 

they can keep their prices up at manchester (huge target audience)

We're quite lucky as Exeter is just down the road for us, and for that reason we only went on the IE as we picked up a last minute bargain that was flying from Exeter so very handy.

Couldn't agree more about the portakabin and it's bloody freezin' in there during the winter months in that 'departure lounge'. A couple of years ago, they had the cheek to charge me £1 for a plastic bag to put my two toiletries in, only for them to now be free, like they are at every other airport in the country!

I agree that the All Inclusive is obviously built into the price and not free as such, but like Pensioncruiser says booking early gets you the deck, cabin, airport etc. that you want, and it's hard to compare a cruise departing this month to one a year away. The one later this month would have been on a similar footing if you'd have booked it last year.

Whilst there probably are some bargains to be had this month (and I'd do the same and wait for one as cabin, airport etc. aren't important to us as a good deal), booking early for departures in August probably isn't a bad shout as the prices won't drop much, if at all, so it probably does make the drinks package free, or very nearly!

Found dream booked into Cayman Island,s from 12th december 2016 on monday,s two in jan 2017 two in feb two in march last one 3rd april i hope this help,s :)

Yes, Dream is looking like it's operating from Montego Bay again, but earlier, from end of November 2016 until the April 2017 this time.

Schedules for MB show a code in place of the ships name, but is highly likely to be the Dream, seeing as it's on Tuesdays and in the same dock for embarkations.

it all depends on itinerary and ship

 

ferinstance..... dream in caribbean bags out by 2am the night before, vacate cabin by 10am, courtesy/late checkout cabins ready at 10am until 3pm

We were told we had to be out of the cabins by 8am on the Dream in December. That said, we booked a cabin for the day, which we luckily had the same one until 3pm.

No worries. I still think the current base price (£700pp) for an eight day all inclusive cruise is a cracking price... It is odd though that Thomson haven't stuck to their tradition of hiking the prices up just before offering a discount code :eek:

True. That must mean a price reduction is coming after the offer has finished? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Thanks for all your comments. I am aware that the prices are affected by supply and demand - shares being an obvious example. I have done 4 Thomson cruises since December 2014 and only 2 were booked late (on the Majesty with a girlfriend each for only a week) one of which was from Leeds/Bradford to Corfu and we had a 19 hour flight delay on the return!!!!

The other 2 and my 5th in 2 weeks time were all booked at least 9 months before and my September one 18 months before and all at prices we thought were reasonable. However we did want to book the Transatlantic again next year but couldn't commit early unfortunately and never thought for one minute that booking 8 months before would be such a problem - really disappointed and don't know whether to book to go from Birmingham or Gatwick or wait and see if another Manchester flight is laid on as it was this year and with a lot of cruisers paying much less than we had and getting free AI.

Normally, the capacity of the aircraft is laid on from the start before the cruises are even added to the booking system so it would be highly unusual for them to add an extra flight for a cruise like this. The reason is that they wouldn't be able to fill the plane up with 300+ passengers as they wouldn't have that much extra room on the ship to accommodate them!

We're looking at this cruise (just waiting for the price to drop a little first) but will be booking it from Gatwick as it's cheapest, and also because we live in the South West.

I've been watching the prices of a couple of cruises over the last few weeks. This morning, the price of a 1/2 inside going in 8 days time flying from Manchester is £675 (hurry, only 3 seats left) whereas the same 1/2 inside flying from Exeter is £567 (hurry, only 2 seats left). That's £216 difference, enough of a saving to pay for petrol and a hotel for the night and still have change.

Very true, we were on the Island Escape earlier this year and met a couple from Lytham St Annes who found it was a LOT cheaper to travel down to Exeter and fly from there than it was from Manchester Airport!

its supply and demand (as the aircraft fills up .... prices go up) they know people prefer holiday packages

 

tbf if you were to ditch the flights and go cruise only and book with another airline (virgin/ba) it would probably come out even more expensive on long haul

Not always! We booked cruise only from Barbados a few years back and it was cheaper to book Virgin flights, so much that it actually paid for an extra week in Barbados before the cruise, so a 2 week fly cruise with Thomson became a 3 week cruise and stay (with Virgin flights) for the same money!

However, that doesn't really work on the Transatlantics as booking singles across the Atlantic with legacy airlines is massively expensive!

Thomson advert today 'book before end September for free all inclusive next summer' states free (not £10/day) and does not restrict it to any ship:p

Just one caveat it can be withdrawn without notice and they say summer is 1st May-31st Oct:rolleyes:

They must be aiming to keep the offer on until the end of the month then :)

They've already withdrawn the offer from Discovery's sailings once, but then reinstated it!

Anybody know when the free all-inclusive deals for next summer end?

They never state when any given offer will end. They can be removed at any time, it's frustrating!

They'd already removed the free drinks package from Discovery for next summer, only then to reinstate it!

Coming back from Cozumel on the return leg of our cruise this year as you said can be a bit choppy , force seven the Captain said but Dream took it well ;)

Having read some of the reviews from the Dream about earlier in the year seems not everybody agreed!

Thanks BaggersCruising. Roll on November brochure.

You're welcome....just hope I'm right ;)

So, will the Discovery home port be Bridgetown then for the 2016/2017 season in the Caribbean? We are anxiously awaiting the new brochure coming out in November as we would like to do the caribbean early 2017.

That's what it's looking like. Obviously plans can change before the brochure itineraries are announced, but all the evidence at the moment is pointing to the Discovery being homeported in Bridgetown.

Obviously you can't book it until they go on sale anyway and we'll all know for sure at the point then!

Hi bag,s have found Dream or Celebration in Jamaica arriving 29th november docking every tuesday leaving 11th april 2017 code PAJ 20-312 same berth 5/6 as you said can,t be anything else :D

I didn't think it could be anything else either, but Thomson!

I'd have said it's probably be more the Dream because the waters can be a little choppy that side of the Caribbean Sea and I'd have thought the Dream could probably handle them better (?) Or maybe not after the teething problems they had earlier this year!

I wonder if they'll introduce some Cuba itineraries that season?!? I see this coming winter they're doing a Cuban Revolution itinerary so might be a tester for them?

And me grumpy because we lost to Leicester at home after beating Arsenal at the Emirates!

And me happy because I'm a United fan :D:D:D

Thanks for all the information BaggersCruising we are still undecided but love hearing everyone's views etc. we have to decide by November as we want to book early [emoji4]

You're welcome. Still got a few months to decide and more details of the itineraries will no doubt be leaked beforehand. You'll also have a few weeks to book after the brochure is released, should you wish to take advantage of any early booking offers that may be offered. However, booking early to get any deals isn't always the best value. It does secure you though your choice of cabin etc.

Well spotted BAG,S where did you find Dream, i looked in the Pacific and the Indian ocean,s to no avail grumpy SAINT after yesterday 3 -0 THUMPING by Everton :eek:

It was 3-0? Ouch!

Well, on the Jamacian Port Authority's calendar there is a cruise ship booked in from late November 2016 through to mid April 2017. It's booked under a code, but seeing as it's there on Tuesday's throughout the season at the same berth as the Dream (meaning it's for embarkation and disembarkation) it's a fairly educated guess it'll be the Dream!

Have you done transatlantic crossing, Caribbean to Europe, if so what is your opinion? Just that it seems excellent value.

We've only ever done the transatlantics the other way around, sailing to the Caribbean in November/December, but they are great value as you have a block of 6 days at sea which doesn't suit everyone.

However, they put on a lot of extra entertainment, and on these cruises if you book early you get the drinks package thrown in for free, then after that offer has finished, they usually offer the drinks package for £10 per person per night which is still great value, until around 3 months before sailing. It makes the whole package price fantastic value.

They also normally visit some destinations that Thomson don't usually take in so it's nice to visit some ports off the beaten track so to speak.

S'oton Saint got the Discovery's plans spot on and will leave Europe on it's TA crossing on 29 October IIRC. Also looks like the Dream will be back in Montego Bay, again heading out there a month earlier than normal.

thank you for your comments.

 

so there are very few drinks included free of charge, I had hoped there might be a greater choice in the 24 hour restaurant.

 

looks like we will have to pay for AI, its £199 each a week, which seems steep to me, especially if we drink very little alcohol.

 

thanks

You don't have to. If you're not big drinkers, you'd be better paying for drinks as you go. That way you'll only be paying for what you actually drink.

pay my balance

Under the old system, you couldn't pay the balance of a cruise online anyway. It had to be done in a shop or over the phone. You could for holidays, but not cruises :confused:

Admittedly, selecting your seats on the plane, and API could be done, so I wish they would hurry up and get it sorted ASAP as we're going in November.

You'd think they wouldn't have using the new system until it was fully ready, for passengers and Thomson alike, but maybe that would have been too easy :rolleyes:

Never seen Kev Orkian on a cruise ship, but saw him about 10 years ago as a warm up for Jim Davidson!

He was hilarious, but I suppose the ships don't pay 'enough' these days! The standard of some of the comedians onboard Thomson these days is awful, and they seem to be rotating the same ones!

It would be nice, especially for the repeat cruises, if they had a bigger pool of comics to pick from!