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22 hours ago, Iamthesea said:

One of my favorite excursions was while docked in Civitavecchia, Italy.  DH and I had been to Rome a couple of times before, but had missed a few of the smaller sites, like the The Aventine Keyhole and touring the interior of the Victor Emmanuel II National Monument. 

 

We took an hour long Fast train into Rome after walking to the train station near the port.  The train arrived near St. Peters Square in Rome.   It happened to be a Wednesday, so we dropped in on the Pope giving his Papal Blessing. 🙏  Afterward, we flagged down a taxi and asked the driver if she could take us on a 'speed' tour of a list of sites that I had already written down.  She agreed.   We knocked out 6-7 sites in a couple of hours.  Our driver was having as much fun as we were!   She would drop us off and either wait for us to jump out of the cab to take a photo, or come back with-in a set time limit to pick us up.  After visiting the sites, we asked to be taken to a pizza place for lunch.  She picked us back up after an hour and drove us to the train station.  Back in Civitavecchia, we arrived at the port in plenty of time for all aboard. 🤗  So much fun!!!

 

You could do the same in Paris. 😉

@Iamthesea We read with interest your post.  How late was your ship in Civitavecchia?  We will be there on a turnaround day and the ship sails at 5:00 pm so are curious how much time you had in the City and what was on your list to see.  Presumably your ship stayed later than 5:00.  Sorry for going off topic in this forum, but appreciate your response.

The outside dining area for Solis will be a welcome addition, especially in the Med.  Does anyone have any updates on when Solis will appear on Ovation beyond sometime this spring?  

We were wondering if anyone has sailed this particular itinerary, or similar, between late December and mid January?.  Any comments on what could be expected regarding weather?  We know it is not the ideal time of year but are intrigued by itinerary and the fact that it would be quieter than other times of the year.  Thanks in advance.

On our present Viking cruise, the passengers are overwhelmingly American, perhaps to do with itinerary (LA round trip)..  Our Seabourn cruises have had more of a mix.   One other comment, Seabourn permits children despite the fact there are no children’s programs.  Viking does not permit children as far as we are aware.

We second the views of Vineyard View and will just add a couple of comments.  We were on Seabourn Ovation over Christmas.  It never felt crowded, in fact we thoroughly enjoyed the cruise.  We are presently on Viking Star with a lot of sea days.  The ship is beautiful, the crew outstanding, the food pretty good but to us the ship feels crowded on the sea days, lineups for the restaurant and often the World Cafe (where the food is often cold).  We are in PH JS and agree it does not really match up to veranda  accommodation on SB(bathroom in particular).  We also agree about the pricing comments.  One “basic” tip ur included with Viking along with several expensive options.  We will consider Viking in the future but will likely book Seabourn first, again it is personal preference.

On a laptop, open your browser and type www.source.seabourn.com.  That will take you to the home page where you can connect to the internet when you have set-up your account.  Staff at Seabourn Square will be happy to help if you run into any issues.

@millybess We are also from Toronto and will be embarking on our first Viking cruise (32 days) in January.  Out of curisosity, you mentioned in your post you transfer your booking to your TA, presumably in Toronto?  Do you receive the OBC from your TA that was referred to at the beginning of this post?  We are curious as we have not received anything from our TA despite doing a lot of business with this person over the years so were wondering if the OBC potential is somehow geo-restricted!  Thanks..

On the subject of Uber or taxi, can someone please advise approximate travel time to Terminal 6 LAX from harbour on a weekday morning?  Thanks!

Also, Oceania may have a hotel package which might include transfers.  We usually find these packages more expensive than doing ourselves but might be something you could consider.

We are in n Barbados now and have taken cruises from Bridgetown port.  All cruise ships use the same port which, depending on number of ships in on a particular day (including huge ones) can be chaotic both embarking and disembarking.  No dedicated checkin area in terminal which is really a shopping area (we found a table outside the terminal near where taxi dropped us for checkin for Seabourn and Silversea so probably same for Oceania).  Hundreds of taxis line up outside terminal for day trippers or disembarking passengers.  Airport maybe 20 - 40 minutes depending on traffic.  No hotels provide shuttles and there are no hotels in Bridgetown itself.  You might want to look at the Hilton or Radisson hotels for relative proximity to port.  Hope this helps and happy to try to answer any other questions.

We were lucky as our TA was informed about the Festival when he tried to book Old San Juan.  We were able to get a lovely hotel in the Condado area and arrived late last night (Saturday).  The streets were packed which is not unusual in this part of the City but we had no trouble getting here from the airport.   Our driver said there shouldn't be a problem getting to the port tomorrow.

I think Terry @TLCOhioraises an interesting point.  We board Dawn next week for B2B cruises.  As we are cruising in the Caribbean we would not normally book shore excursions but thought we would "take advantage" as they are included in the price.  Well, a few weeks ago we received an email from Silversea indicating that at least two of the excursions had been cancelled and to book new ones.  Guess what - anything else that was of any interest or that we felt physically capable of booking were completely full so we've gone on waitlists.  No mention of pricing reductions/credits if "included" shore excrusions are not available.

@mitz18 - we may be on the same cruise - do you board in San Juan?  Sounds like we received the same pre-embarkation email including information about crew  wearing masks and other things which appear to be no longer relevant.  I wonder if the 2:00 pm boarding time still stands?

We are sailing next week in the Caribbean.  Although my old passport did not expire until July, the exact date of expiration would have been 2 days short of it being valid for 6 months.  I was advised that I would not be permitted to embark as the passport did not meet the 6 months validity.  I renewed it in November, almost 9 months before expiry - I agree with the previous poster - get it renewed now.  I attended the Passport Office in person, paid extra for in person pick-up and had it within 2 weeks.

Lois, if possible could you please find out price for mani and pedi on the ship (ladies and gents). As we are travelling before the cruise it would be good to know if we should get land based nail appointments or use our OBC.

Bye the way, when do the NFL playoffs finish?  We don’t follow American football but we do follow English soccer (football).

On the subject of Red Hook - we have never boarded QM2 in New York, but will be next December for Christmas and beyond.   Given weather that time of year, we will fly in a day early.  Does anyone know of or where to find hotels in the Red Hook area if we don't want to stay in Manhatten?  Thanks!

Lois, we are embarking Silver Dawn in less than two weeks so are glad to read your posts.  We received a long pre-embarkation email today and were interested in the remarks about masks, the fact that masks are strongly encouraged on the ship, venues where they are required and crew requirement for masks.  We have no issues with any of that but are curious to know if any passengers are wearing masks and if the requirement for certain venues is enforced?

@daisybeland @canoncruiser- please post when you receive your stateroom assignments - we are in a similar position next year so are interested to hear how the gurantees work out.

Thanks @Cape Hernlopen.  We will be on Regatta in March 2024, for 42 days sailing from Sydney to New Zealand, then through the South Pacific to Hawaii and finishing in LA.  These days it's never too early to start planning so all advice is greatly appreciated.  We are longtime Oceania passengers and although we know their shore excursions are expensive we were really surprised on a recent cruise by what seems even more of an increase in prices so thought we would look more at doing our own thing - we'll see how it goes.  Of course being Canadian and purchasing in US dollars does not help the equation given the dismal exchange rate!

@the more ports the better Thanks very much for taking the time to post such a helpful response.  There is lots for us think about as we start planning.  

@Salbags58We are boarding Ovation the weekend of the final so if you have a chance when on the ship, please post if the World Cup is available to watch.  Enjoy your cruise.

@the more ports the better  You mentioned you booked excursions independently.  If permitted on CC, could you indicate which companies you used.  We will be on Regatta next year and would like recommendations from someone who has done independent excursions.  Thanks very much.

Thanks very much Host Jazzbeau!

For "the more ports the better"  You mentioned you booked excursions independently.  If permitted on CC, could you indicate which companies you used.  We will be on Regatta next year and would like recommendations from someone who has done independent excursions.  Thanks very much.

We booked our excursions independently on both lines and all of them were great.  

We were on Insignia in October using up a credit that had to be used.  The staterooms and locations are basically the same on Insignia (and R class ships) as Sirena.  Due to late booking there was only one stateroom left, Deluxe Oceanview 4007.  Usually we would book a balcony but there were none available.  The location of this stateroom was terrible for us, as others have commented the noise from the thrusters is awful, added to that there were several early morning i.e. 5:30 am arrivals - if you were not already awake, you would be with the noise of the thrusters.  There were also several ports whey she had to anchor and we found the noise of the anchor chains when positioning, just as bad.  Fortunately, this was a short 10 day cruise.  We will not book that location again on an R ship, even if it means not cruising.  Good luck.

Friends in Australia emailed me this news yesterday.  My comment ti them was that in Australia when a ship arrives, (this is not the first with COVID onboard recently), it makes the news front pages. In this part of the world, although there is COVID on cruise ships (first hand experience in October), it hasn't made the headlines, in fact there seems to be little coverage of outbreaks on ships.  As Fouremco states, COVID is not finished.