Spanieleyes

We are cruising this summer and will be tendered at Sorrento for 2 days. On the first day we wanted to go by ferry from Sorrento to Positano and have a wander round, then get another ferry on to Amalfi? Then either take the bus back, or go by sea from Amalfi straight back to Sorrento. Has anyone any experience of doing it this way at all? I have been trying to research it online but am getting very confused by the various ferry/hydrofoil websites and there is also some very conflicting information from various travel sites.

Any advice or experiences welcomed. Thanks

Thanks for your replies. I will contact my TA and enquire about either the area under the carpeted Lido or under the Solarium maybe? We are not normally complainers or the "party police", but we just hadn't considered the noise factors from the deck above, as our only other 2 cruises were deck 7 on the Liberty and Independence. We are still learning the tricks of what to look for when booking :o!!

Thanks again :)

We are first time cruisers on Celebrity (previous RCCL) and are looking at the Aqua Class Cabins on the Constellation, cabin 9099 in particular. We don't mind the overhang as it will be at the hottest time in Europe and will be happy with the shade. But we are wondering about the noise or disturbance from any evening parties/events or sun bed dragging? Normally it wouldn't worry us, but we have a few 8am starts this time, so just wondered if there is a better option on deck 9?

Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Juliet

Interesting with regard to using the pre-loaded currency card because previously RCI have advised that they do not accept them Did you set up a cash account and pay the balance as a one-off transaction using your pre-loaded card?

We just registered our card when we went though check-in at Southampton. They lady did double check with someone else, but all was fine. Ours was a well known travel card from a well known comparison website, but it also had Mastercard on it, but it is definitely a Travel Money Card and not a Mastercard. (Really trying hard here not to mention any name through fear of being accused of promoting anything :eek:) An old travel card that we had, which has now expired, only had the name of the holiday company on it. There was no Mastercard/Visa on it, so that may be the difference?

We then just loaded it with $ every time the rate was favourable. When we got free wifi onshore, we did check the balance, and you can see how RC are putting a hold on the funds on a daily basis. A long seasoned RC cruiser told us that RC do this with credit cards as well. They supposedly do it on a nightly basis with all bank/credit/travel/cards, to ensure people have sufficient funds or credit limits, and don't get to the end of the cruise and have nothing to pay their bill with. Not sure how true that is, but it makes sense :).

We have just finished our cruise on The Independence yesterday, and we paid our bill with a pre-loaded travel money card. We have one for Euros for going ashore, and one for Dollars for onboard. The benefit is that you can pre-load them at any point up to your cruise, when the exchange rate is at it's best for you. (I managed to get $1.69 to the pound before we went.)

I don't know what the exchange rate is onboard, but I do know we nearly used the onboard cash machine for Euros but then discovered there was a $6 charge. We used a bank onshore instead :)

Arrrgggg!!!! I'm trying to book shore excursions, and RCI website seems to be having an attack of stupid! I know, surprise, right?!! It wont let me book more than one person on the reservation at a time...when I choose 4 as the number of guests, click on all of us, it says I've not chosen 4 guests. After 20 minutes of fooling with it, I decided to do it one of us at a time, and that workd for DH and I, though it is a pita to plug in all the credit info each time. Went to do the kids, they're in their own connecting cabin, and the reservations are linked. The choose one trick didn't work, the site doesn't recognize them as a guest, even with the link. And when I went to their reservation, I can't book them because they're minors. Ugh! I know I can do this onboard, but I was trying to take care of this before we go, I'd rather have everything paid beforehand.

 

Ok, vent over. Thanks for listening.

I had exactly the same problem when I tried to book 4 people on an excursion, and we have 2 linked cabins etc. When I finally got through to customer services, they said it was because there were only 2 places left on the time slot I wanted and that was why it wouldn't recognise the 4 people. They said there were still slots available as they hold back places for people who don't have the "know how" to book online, and we should try booking when we get onboard. Hope you get sorted :)

Which excursion is it?

 

Some have very limited capacity (some of the Segway tours are 10 people and they do fill up before boarding).

 

But most tours are on buses or large catamarans and I would be very surprised if they were totally full before boarding.

I think you are right :). It's a Segway tour so I'm assuming there will limited places compared to a lot of trips. We did try booking directly with a couple of companies, and one of those did say their entire day's time slots are booked out to RC that day.

We just weren't sure whether this "holding places for booking when onboard" was accurate or not. Clarea has kindly answered that one for us, thank you :D

I am currently planning some port excursions for our 2nd cruise, and wonder if anyone can help please. I had tried to book a RC excursion online, but had what I thought was technical problems. As they had been slow to respond, I tried phoning AND emailing customer services for some assistance. The gentleman I eventually spoke to said that it wasn't a technical problem but as there were only 2 spaces left for booking online, this was why it wasn't letting me book 4 places. He said there were still places available for those people who didn't want to pre-book and wanted to book only when they got onboard. So my only option was to join the queue when we boarded and try booking places then. I have since received an email reply and it basically says the excursion is now FULLY booked and we should try asking when we board to see if anyone cancels.

We aren't sure which answer to believe? Does anyone know if this system of holding back places on excursions, for booking when onboard, is true? Many thanks if anyone can help.

I just wondered if anyone has done the RC's own Segway Tour in Lisbon? I have also looked at some local companies to do it independently, but the available timeslots are not great. Many thanks :).

Supporting tax evasion is an excellent reason to not pay with cash.

Really!! Did u even go there lol!! For goodness sake, I was giving an example of the differing requests in the gratuity world. (I never realised tips could be taxed). We have always paid our bills in cash when eating out in Portugal, before & after their tax laws changed. And for LEGAL reasons like excessive credit card charges, fluctuating exchange rates etc.

This was never an exercise in avoiding paying tips, and to those who jumped to that conclusion, then shame on you, not us. It was how best to pay them, due to our own personal experiences (and cultural differences) with tipping ie. cash tipping is normal. And it was alien to pay tips upfront and directly to the huge employer. Now some helpful people have pointed out that it all goes into one pot anyway and it actually makes up their wages to a liveable standard, the gratuities will be paid up front and hassle free. Once you think of it as just a cost of the cruise and not a tip, it changes things. We will take extra $$ for tips for service above and beyond :)

How do the people who don't auto tip keep track of everyone they tip and when?[/

 

How do you pay your gratuities when in a hotel? We tip the porter when he delivers the bags to the room, the room service waiter when he brings the food to the room, or at the end of a meal in the restaurant, the concierge when he provides a service etc. NEVER have we pre-paid tips at the beginning or the end.

 

Have you ever been to Portugal? We've been going for the last 6 years. The service staff have told us that they are keen for CASH tips because recently, the government have started to tax their gratuities.

 

In England, we always pay tips in CASH when eating out, even though we pay for the meal by card. The reason being, we have been told by people in the service industry, that some restaurants don't pass on the tips when they are paid on a card.

 

We've always been advised (by American friends and colleagues) that in the US the waiting staff are paid very little and the tips make up a large part of their money. But more importantly, the tips go to the specific server, certainly not pooled like the cruise. Have we been misinformed?

 

When visiting a different country, I always try to find out about local customs, including tipping protocol. I posted on this forum, because we've been told such conflicting things from seasoned cruisers!! We thought paying the staff directly, with cash, was better.

 

In the UK, a tip/gratuity is normally something paid for good service, not an obligatory payment to make up the wages. Our daughter has been waitressing for 2 years, so we can see it from both sides, which is why we wanted to do the best thing for the staff.

 

Thanks to everyone who game me constructive and we'll informed information :D.

I meant to say anyone not anything. People who remove auto grats don't want others to know they are cheapskates. The names of people who remove auto grats should be listed in the daily paper.

Very rude and totally uninformed response :mad:

Ourusualbeach, you have the right idea :) We think we have totally "over thought" this whole thing. We felt bad after the first cruise because we thought the system was very unbalanced and unfair, and some waiters got the other waiters share. Now that we understand properly how it works, and it all goes into one pot, however we pay, we will take the hassle free option.

I also think that they should call it a "service charge" because we are a world made up of countries who view tipping or gratuities from very different positions. It makes it a very emotive subject indeed ;)!

We have only cruised once before and our 2nd cruise is in July (both with RC). Based on our first experience, we were going to pay our gratuities differently this time, but now having read most of this thread I'm not sure what to do, as there are so many conflicting views on what actually happens.

On Cruise 1, we did MTD, never sat at the same table twice, never had the same serving staff 2 nights running and never saw the Head Waiter once. Our stateroom assistant was fantastic. We had pre-paid our tips and distributed the gratuity slips at the end. We only had Euros with us (duh!! that is lesson no 1) but we put some extra in the stateroom assistant's envelope anyway. When it came to the restaurant staff, we obviously didn't have enough to give everyone that served us, a slip. We THOUGHT that meant that one pair of waiters got a weeks worth of tips for one nights work, and the other 6 nights staff didn't get anything, and so it seemed unfair. I assume now that we thought wrong?

So this time we are doing the set dining, and had opted to pay our gratuities at the end, in $$ (lesson learnt!). I checked on another link and I was told you still get the envelopes to use? When we booked the cruise, the RC operator asked why we wanted to pay them in cash, and I explained the reasons to her. She said she totally understood and had no problem with it. At no point did she tell me that the gratuities all go into one pool anyway and get distributed equally.

Are we just putting ourselves to a lot of trouble :confused::confused:?