Ja9Clay

We made our reservation for both but they had more than enough in Napier

We rented bikes in two locations on our December 9 Celebrity Edge...Napier and Dunedin. We used Napier Bike and tour and did the Waterways to Winery self tour (rental bike, helmet, map) and they pick you up at the Church Road Winery at a set time. It was across the street from where the bus drop you off from the port and they did a great job. For Dunedin, we used ihirebikedunedin.com or something like that. We met at their office/home in Dunedin or drop it off at the Library in Port Chambers (recommended). We did the loop with the port to port bike ferry and had an awesome day. The bike trails in New Zealand were absolutely beautiful.

We were at Ringaskenny last week as part of a Celebrity Apex Cruise. It is a very industrial port with not much around it. Celebrity offered a "Cork on your own day" for $50.00 a day with a shuttle service and then 4 or 5 hours in Cork. There were limited cabs that were allowed into the port for pick up and there was an extensive taxi line for pick up. We ended up taking the Public Bus that was picked up across the street from the Port for euro 2.70 which got us into Cork in about 50 minutes. We ended up then catching the Bus to Kinsale for 7.00 Euro making the trip about 1 hour and 50 minutes each way. (If you can try to get the bus that goes to Cork Airport and then transfer from there which we did on the way back...much faster). We ended up getting into Kinsale at 11:00 AM, and did the 11:15 AM Walking Tour (Barry and Don Walking Tour- Absolute Wonderful- Highly recommend) and then walked around Kinsale for about a half an hour and worked our way back to the boat by 3:00 PM (3:30 sail away). We love Kinsale and we had a great time but it was a little stressful as the Irish Bus System was not as precise as in Switzerland with many delays from the posted time on Google Maps. We would also recommend going through Cork Airport as there were taxis available there and less than 10 miles from the ship in case time becomes an issue. Talking to other people on the boat there were issues getting taxis both from the port and also getting taxis to return to Ringaskenny in the afternoon. There was a Princess ship in port at Cobn at the same time so there could have been a supply/demand issue. Overall, if you are a seasoned traveler that is comfortable with the public bus it is doable but a little stressful and more work. The majority of the shore excursions were to the Blarney Castle which was not interesting to me.

A quick positive update from us. We are on the May 30th Treasures of the Rhine Cruise out of Nuremberg. We received our documents emailed to us on May 17th and our backpacks were delivered to the house yesterday. At the end of April, we did have to call Scenic to confirm a new transfer time at the airport due to a change in our flights. (We self-booked our flights). They were able to confirm the new time and information in one very long phone call. We are more used to ocean cruising and getting up to an email a day from the ocean cruise line marketing department, so it has been a little bit light for us but we leave Sunday for our honeymoon and everything is in order. We are looking forward to our honeymoon in Germany. (We were supposed to do the Christmas markets last year but that got canceled at the last minute, so we have been married for over six months now).