CCJack

Also, sometimes I download a marine GPS app. Although the GPS positioning is the same as you have for land GPS, the marine apps sometimes have better coastline / island maps - so you can track where you are relative to Fjords. Download the pertinent maps/charts ahead of time (while on wifi). GPS may not work when inside the ship but on deck or on balcony I have had good luck.

Also, note the 4 am Fjord viewing may actually be 5:00 or 5:30 am depending on your ship's schedule. You may need to figure it out yourself. On our cruise (Cunard) there was no mention or suggestion by the ship about any Fjord viewing / sail in time.

A private tour seems like a good option here. Plus, you don't need to worry about returning in time to the ship, which is one of the selling points of a Ship's excursion.

I agree with all the responses... A couple thoughts... I would think a Norway cruise would be pretty appealing to most people, however, just make sure your group understands that it is vastly different then a Med cruise, mostly because Med cruises go to large cities and a Norway cruise does not. As far as viewing the sail in at 4 am.... on our cruise there was exactly one person on the top deck (me) for over 1.5 hours. The other 3000 people, including my wife, was sleeping. The one time in my life that I was the smartest person on the boat, and probably the one time in my life that I was the smartest person in my marriage. Don't miss it, at least for the long Fjords. For our cruise, the morning sailing was much more serene than the evening sail out due to wind, clouds, etc. in the evening. You will have time to view from your balcony, plus the top deck, plus get a refill of coffee, etc... I would be curious if Celebrity is generous with their freebies for you. If not, consider other cruiselines. I personally really like Celebrity, but I think they owe you something besides a token discount. It sounds like this was a business decision and not a weather related decision, and they should be considerate of their customers in this case.

We enjoyed the Wilderness Tour on the park bus. They stop for wildlife, while I noticed the transit buses did not, or maybe just slow down a bit but did not stop. We really did not have a problem with inconsiderate passengers. The bus was not luxury but certainly adequate enough, I thought. For our day off we hiked on our own on a trail that started near our lodge. It was fun.

Is there less time whale watching on the lighthouse + whale tour as opposed to Jayleen's whale watching? I would not want to short change the time spent whale watching. Whale watching is, of course, a bit of a chance experience, but our whale watching in Alaska (ISP) was fantastic - much better than whale watching excursions we have been on elsewhere in the world. I would emphasize the whale watching and likely go with Jayleen as well.

I seem to recall there was not one. I remember a line of taxi's (we took one) and then the excursion buses. It could be cruiseline specific, however. We were on Celebrity.

For me, a 7 night cruise with only 2 opportunities to get off the ship would be a dealbreaker, so I would go with #1. However, it seems like there may be other cruises to consider....

It is is unclear what two excursions you are referring to. Positano is on the Amalfi coast, so you would have to drive on the coast to get there. Does the excursion that concentrates on the coast stop anywhere? I would think it would. If it stops at Positano, skips Sorrento and spends more time driving on the coast then the other, then I would chose that one.

I have not been on an NCL cruisetour, but we did take an RCCL cruisetour. They told us practically nothing ahead of time but once we were on the land tour I thought it was well organized and we enjoyed it a lot. Both the bus driver and the guide added a lot to our experience. In terms of times, not sure how accurate the brochure is, but I do know that others in our group did what you are planning... booking some things on your own. Our guide on the bus was very helpful.. made a lot of phone calls on behalf of the guests confirming times, answering questions, etc... even for those that booked on their own. I got the sense he knew all the tour operators by name. Keep in mind this is not a ship with 3000 people but a bus with 30. Your guide will get to know you and likely will know roughly your plans and have your phone number. As others have said if you want full control, you could drive yourself and schedule everything that meets your needs - and you don't need to worry about departure times. However, for us, there were benefits to taking the tour and we had a great time.

Book the 14 day and keep checking to see if an ocean view opens up. Even though it is past final payment, I would find it hard to believe there would not be at least a few cancellations..

That is definately doable. Train ride easy and a pleasant ride. We used hilton points for the double tree, we get our points from the hilton CC, which is a far better deal than airline frequent flyer credit cards, etc. In my opinion.

That is a good question, i would inquire at the rental place for a phone number. A couple thoughts... the bike path does cross a couple of roadways, and passes by a couple farms, which would have to have road access to the farms. Also, you will see other bikers/ hikers on the bike trail. It was not crowded but definately there will be others on the path who could help, i would think....

Another option is to hire a private local tour guide to meet you in Rome (you get there on your own from ship) - and escort you for the day. It will be pricey but if this is your only visit to Rome, then time is your enemy and you don't want to waste time. A local could get you efficiently to both locations. It is especially valuable to have a guide inside the Vatican Museum, they would be able to get you to the things in the Museum that interest you, and bypassing the rest (It is massive). I would think you could also swing by the Pantheon which is (roughly) between the two. Perhaps find another couple people on your ship to join you via roll calls and share the expense?

I probably vote for number 1 just because inside the colosseum would be top priority for me. Also, #2 appears to miss St. Peters altogether and it would be a shame to not at least see it from the outside. However #1 has some "excursion speak" relative to St. Peters...."with St. Peters as a backdrop"... does that mean you will see it from 1 mile away? perhaps, but hopefully not, I would think they will get you to St. Peters square. You may not know unless you can find someone who has been on that specific excursion.

I tend to agree.... My kids are older now, but we cruised a lot when they were that age. It took me a couple cruises to figure out that my kids really didn't care if there were lots of other kids and lots of kid's programs. The basic kid's programs on most mainstream lines was fine for them, and some but not a lot of other kids was fine (actually preferable to them). They sometimes ended up fascinated with something else.... billiard table, shuffleboard or the self serve ice cream machine ! You can never predict that stuff. I would not compromise itinerary or the ship that the parents want to get a better kid's program. That said, we usually ended up on RCCL with kids. Now that we are empty nesters, we like Celebrity. However, I would not hesitate to take kids on Celebrity as well.

I tend to agree that a ship's tour may be a good option here. This is a wonderful excursion (Amalfi coast is beautiful) but there are a lot of timing things that could go off the rails here - more so than other excursions - mostly due to traffic. Also, on our last couple of cruises, we have had a couple ports were there were issues with ship docking for various reasons.... everyone was 2+ hours late getting off of the ship. In both of these cases the cruise line allowed only ship's excursion passengers to debark first, and it was enforced. (everyone else was even later than 2 hours late). This probably doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

They both look great.... Ship is personal preference, but we were on the Apex last summer and it is my favorite ship of 20+ that we have been on... really beautiful ship and food was excellent. .... We have not been on the RCCL Anthem but have been on Oasis class a few times, etc. I am sure Anthem is nice too. Considering you have 2 sea days to and from Southampton, I would vote for the 8 day cruise and getting one more port stop in, even though you are giving up Bergen which is a nice stop.

Hotel Abruzzi.. We booked a room with Pantheon view and it is just as advertised.... right in front of the Pantheon. For our young adult children traveling with us, we booked rooms in their annex which is a couple doors down and does not have a nice view, but still a very adequate room. Included breakfast was actually in a cafe across the Pantheon plaza and was very good. No complaints, I loved it and would stay there again.

I would recommend a small boat experience rather than the larger glass covered boats, even though you will pay a bit more for the smaller boats. Both Flagship Amsterdam and Those Damn Boat Guys appear to be smaller boats, as is Floating Amsterdam, which we went on and can recommend. Floating Amsterdam is a bit closer walk than Anne Frank house, although all walks in Amsterdam are enjoyable. Unrelated comment, I hope you consider watching A Small Light - recent mini series, before visiting the Anne Frank house. It was very good.

For the 9/13 NCL cruise, most excursions are still showing up as available on my account. The only one which I think is sold out is Gros Morne National Park out of Corner Brook, they could add another bus at any time, however, as cruise lines sometimes do. I don't know the answer to your question, as I have not been to these ports yet. I am guessing most people leave the port towns for excursions, either by the cruise line or DIY, (with the exception of Halifax.)

Did you ask Airline about refund or rebook....since they cancelled the flight? Rebook for Sunday or Monday ? My thought is you would likely be OK making a 1 pm flight on Saturday. With a sea day on Friday, the ship has lots of time to make up any delays and likely will be on time. (Note for our departure from Amsterdam, our ship was delayed 3+ hours by the traffic control through the lock. My understanding is they re-order smaller ships, bigger ships, etc. for traffic control. However for an am arrival, the cruiseline has to get the ship ready for the next passengers, so I would think they will be docked well before 7 am. ) If you walk off with luggage at 7 am, that gives you lots of time to make it to the airport by 10 am, which would be 3 hours prior to departure. Either by train or taxi..

they had lots of bikes, but small bikes were in short supply. We got regular bikes, and it was fine since we walked the first 1 km over the rough patch, and after that the path was smooth. Suspension never hurts, however, if you want a smoother ride. If you do get off the ship to make a 10:45 departure, I wonder if they would let you board the train if it is not sold out. That would give you more time to enjoy the bike ride.

I think it was a single que, if i recall correctly. However, if it turns out to be nice weather and you plan to bike down, i really wouldn't worry about a window seat on the train. Your views from the bike path will be 10x better than a view from a train window. Note the people renting the bikes to us were super friendly but a little unorganized. I would get right to the Cafe when you get off the train to secure a right sized bike for you. We had a little issue with finding a bike for my wife, who is very short, but it was resolved ok.

No drawback to booking early except the river cruise line might book the rest of the ship as one group. This happened to us on Viking, we were the first cabin booked then they booked every other cabin to a single group. It worked out OK for us as our TA found out, and thus we moved to another Viking cruise date - 2 weeks from original sail date and I had not purchased air yet. If we had purchased air, this would have been a problem. I do not think travel insurance would consider this a "cancelled cruise" since Viking said we were welcome to keep the original booking and be the only ones not part of a group. I could not imagine us being the only ones in the dining room not part of the group and having to listen to toasts for " nice job meeting last year's corporate sales goals!" or toasts to "best luck to the bride and groom" ! I would never book the first cabin again, I would wait until 10 or so are booked to be safe. I think it is not infrequent that river boats are taken by a single group.