ROCruiser

Our day in Martinique here. This was in October 2019.

We were there in 2015, so quite a while back, but here are some photos of our day there. At that time the shuttle boats were free so not sure how it is now. 

We used the City Blue Bus the last time we were in Barcelona. Here are a couple of photos of the bus and the location in port at the bottom of the page. It was 3E one way and 4E roundtrip. 

We also did CT on our own. We purchased the train/park tickets ahead of time online. The tourism office at the train station may not be opened at the said time and we were told that people who worked there was rude. We took the train to the fifth town and worked our way back. Very easy but need good timing. Quite an experience. Similar to Portofino but at a larger scale. You may look through my blog page for "MSC Back-to-back cruises 2019" to see what we did. I also have videos there.

We just booked our September Alaska cruise and this will be our 6th sailing in Alaska. Prices already look higher for 2022, so if you want to try it out, this may be a good year. I know everything is still changing everyday but we look forward to this cruise. If all else fail, at least we will be visiting family in Seattle that we have not seen for two years. 

19 hours ago, AKStafford said:

In the picture of "local carvers at work", the guy in the yellow shirt was my shop & social studies teacher in high school. Amazing guy, very talented woodworker. 

Wow! Thank you for pointing that out. That's amazing!

1 minute ago, rkacruiser said:

 

What wonderful photos and commentary!  I appreciate your efforts to share these photos.  They brought back many fond memories of my visit to Icy Point Strait.  

 

I remember the walkway from the ship to the shore to be long, but it looks to me that they have added an additional section or two since I was there. 

Thank you so much for the kind words. Keeping the blog helps refreshing my memories of our trips. If you go to the "Home" page, you will find all the places we have been in the last 10 years. Thanks again!

We loved ISP! We were there on our transpacific cruise a couple of years back and it is now my favorite stop in Alaska. Here are some pictures of our day there if interested. Looking forward to go back in September if it's a go!

We love these longer cruises. Our last cruise was on MSC Divina from Rome to Miami with stops in the Mediterranean and Caribbean. Had a great time. Some videos here if you are interested.

Wow! This is exactly for us! Read all the previous posts and wanted to chime in.

Our very first cruise was in 1993 when our parents introduced us to cruising, fell in love but did not have the time and money to do it often. A few years later we purchased a Class C to make short trips.

Then I retired in 2011 and since then we were able to take advantage of the lower cruise rates offered off season and have done mostly international traveling. We figured cruising would probably be THE way we would travel from now on and sold the RV in 2019 which is starting to give us problems anyway, especially with the leaky roof. Went on our last cruise October 2019, MSC Divina Transatlantic, then the pandemic hit with all cruising and international travel halted.

May 2020, after being stuck at home for a couple of months, DH made the smart decision to purchase another RV from a young couple who just wanted to pay off their loan on the Class C. An older model but with excellent mileage.  We beat the other buyers with an offer to pay cash right on the spot and brought the RV home two days later. Since then, we have made some short trips to Death Valley, Central California Coast, and the western part of Route 66 up to Flagstaff, AZ. We still look forward to cruising around the world but for now, this RV is the next best thing that kept us going. We will go on a week-end trip to Cachuma Lake in two weeks after attending my nephew's outdoor wedding in Santa Barbara. Can't wait to be able to take the RV trip up to Seattle to visit family there! We are fully vaccinated but not our 30-year old son yet. Our next cruise is for October 2021 Genoa to Miami on MSC Seashore, but I am not optimistic.

During these last few months staying home, I have taught myself to edit videos that my husband took on our most recent cruises on MSC Seaview and Divina in 2019. If you are interested you are welcome to check out these videos here. 

I also keep a travel blog on our trips since 2012, you may click below my signature for all our other adventures. Thank you for starting this thread, MamaFej! Good to meet you all here!

We had a nice stay at the Intercontinental Yokohama Grand in 2018. A beautiful hotel, maybe not as convenient as the other hotels mentioned  as it is a little away from public transportation. Can't beat the views though. Here is my record of our stay there: http://chiumemories.blogspot.com/2018/06/intercontinental-yokohama-grand.html

Both of these hotels are in good spots with the Sheraton a tad little closer to all the action being right on Nathan Road (main street in Kowloon) and Salisbury Road. The Peninsula is right across the street and walking down Salisbury Road will take you to the Star Ferry. There are shops, malls, MRT stations underneath the hotel. Shangri-la Kowloon is in what they called East Tsim Sha Tsui area a little away from the main drag but there are shops and restaurants nearby also. It's easy to get around in Hong Kong if you don't mind the walking but personally I would pick Sheraton just for the convenience of it. 

6 hours ago, Anyislandwilldo said:

Dear ROCruiser, thanks so much for sharing your blog with me.  I see I have quite a bit of reading to do.  There are a lot of ports on your blog that I will be reading.  Thanks!

You are most welcome! Hope you can find some useful information there. Have a wonderful trip!

When we were there in Oct. 2019, I wanted so much to be able to get inside that site. Unfortunately, we were only able to just look down from above. Here is a few shots in our video of the site.

On 12/27/2020 at 8:43 AM, Markanddonna said:

May I recommend spending your pre or post cruise time at Ostia Antica?  We had a long B2B Western and Eastern Med cruise in Nov-Dec 2019 and I thought we would be "ruined out" by the end.  We decided to stay in Ostia rather than an airport hotel on our last day. Easy!  The shuttle driver took us to the hotel which was right on the coast and we took a short train ride to Ostia Antica, one of the great Roman ruins available.  It is massive and most of it is accessible.  We were there on a 70 degree sunny, Sunday afternoon and were about the only ones there!  It truly was one of the highlights. In many ways, we liked it better than Pompeii!

 

So much better than having nothing to do nearby at an FCO airport.  The shuttle ride to FCO the next morning took about 20 minutes.  The town of Ostia was charming.  Easy peasy!

 

Agree. We went there a couple of times. Here is a video of our visit in Oct. 2019. I like Ostia over Pompeii personally. 

I have a personal blog that recorded our trips. You are welcome to visit and see if you can find anything worthwhile. I am also starting to post videos, which I learned how to edit in the last few months. Still learning, so progress is slow. Here is my blog Homepage. Have a wonderful trip!

Not sure if this would help but our day in Brest while on NCL Getaway in 2017. Here

Our first MSC cruise was in 2012 on the Splendida. Then we stayed away from MSC for a while because of the atmosphere and food. Then we saw the great itineraries on Seaview and Divina for October 2019 and went on both. Western Med on Seaview and then Divina for transatlantic. They have changed a lot since 2012 and is now more similar to the other mainstream cruise lines. I liked Seaview a lot but we were on that for only 8 days. Food on Divina was not as good as Seaview but we still had a wonderful 19-day cruise on that. 

Did our fair share of traveling in Asia the last couple of years both on cruises and land tours. Were in Taiwan when the pandemic hit. Watching what was happening to the Diamond Princess, which we sailed on five times, was quite disheartening. Back home since February before the pandemic exploded here. Doubt that we will be cruising or traveling international soon in the near future. Will probably spend more time traveling in the US when it calms down. Taking the RV out on road trips would be the next best thing. 

I have heard that passengers do not need a visa just getting off the ship and stay near the port inside the city for the day. We did arrange for a private tour for our day there with  plans to go outside the city which did not materialize. Here is my report on that port.

It was five years ago but here is my report on our stop at Kanazawa. 

Thank you so much, cellfree and reedprincess for the answers. Now I can just enjoy the drink package not having to worry about extra charges.

I am sure this has been asked before but I can't locate the answers. Sorry. Will be on MSC Divina transatlantic in November and I noticed that on my document it came with the water/coffee in dining room for free and then the easy drink package. We did not purchase the easy drink package, and I assume that it was a perk when we booked.  My question is, do we need to pay for service charge on this package like NCL does? Thanks!

This was what I could find regarding bus #513 in Tianjian: https://moovitapp.com/index/en/public_transit-line-513路-Tianjin_天津-4896-1035125-634874-1

Soccerref, thank you so much for the bus information, we will need that for May 2020! We have been in Tianjin before but not on a cruise. Plan on spending the day in the city instead of going to Beijing. Thanks again!