TouchstoneFeste

To finish off the pre-cruise portion of the discussion: We just received a notification that the excursions are now available for booking. In Ponant's generic booking instructions, I think they say 60 days before departure would be normal for excursion booking, but we're over 100 days out at this point. This may vary depending on your Cruise Specialist.

Decision made. We'll go down the night before. Thanks, everyone, for the advice.

Well, if we have to drop something, it would be the evening in London (which we visit often) rather than Malta.

BA to Malta, arriving three days before our cruise starts, so no problem (other than a tour we wanted to take on arrival) if we totally miss the flight. But I'm starting to think the overnight at Gatwick is inevitable.

We have a 7am flight out of Gatwick on Thursday, September 5 (yes, I know; but all the other alternatives for our destination are immeasurably worse) to connect to a cruise departure. We'll be staying at the Clermont Charing Cross. I booked our departure from London for 4am, but asked the car service what their recommended pick up time would be. The response was "Upon checking, the journey from The Clermont London to Gatwick airport can take up to 2hrs depending on traffic. Gatwick recommends passengers to be at the airport at least 2-3hrs before flight departure. Please let us know what pickup time would be more comfortable for you and we will update your booking." Does that make sense? or could we stick to our original estimate ("at that time of the morning allow an hour or so to get there, a couple hours to process through Gatwick")? (I know that one option would be to transfer to a Gatwick-adjacent hotel the night before, but we'd like to avoid that because it would mess up our last night in London.)

https://www.romeairports.com/fiumicino_en/fast-track.html

Usually just a piano player or harpist. Nothing rowdy.

There's a roll call for this voyage (but no real activity there yet)

And it may or may not apply in all fare classes. Our first voyage we ended up in QG for the P2 fare (spoiling us forever). But when I explored this on a recent booking, it applied only to Britannia Club or lower fares.

The Cunard.com "White Star [luggage] Service" entry links to LuggageForward's Cunard page.

And finally ... Based on previous Smithsonian trips (but no Ponant/Smithsonian ones), I'd guess the passengers will all be parcellled into bundles of 20-30 people - sized for coaches. We've never encountered any options for more "private" tours, but of course you would be at liberty to book from independent providers at each port. When overwhelmed by days of trudging through dusty beige ruins, we've sometimes taken beach days on our own or wandered a port independently.

(dope slapping myself) Most of the information above, and much more detail, can be seen at https://us.ponant.com/the-mediterranean-ancient-wonders-and-culinary-delights-cruising-southern-italy-and-sicily-with-smithsonian-journeys-eg080924-12 Click on Itinerary. There are also pre- and post-cruise extensions offered. We found them both to be uninviting - they seem overpriced and flawed. The Malta one is a single overnight with one tour; we'll stay in a very nice room at the same hotel for three nights and do multiple tours around Valletta and the island - for approximately the price of the extension. The Florence hotel appears to be very nice, but it's 20 miles away from the central attractions, meaning independent exploration would be difficult. Obviously, your cruise will have different pre- and post- options, but I'd be careful. I can't find info about them on the Ponant site, but you can get some detail on Smithsonian's: https://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/tours/ancient-wonders-and-culinary-delights/details/

I can answer a few of these. We'll be taking a Ponant/Smithsonian tour from Malta to Livorno (that is, up the western coast of Italy) in September with daily port calls. Our tour options were announced in early April; they're not yet available for sign-up. The number of excursions varies, but only one port has just two options; the rest have 3-5 choices. None of our excursions seem on the high end of the activity scale. Frequent mention of "uneven terrain", but even the trips up Mounts Etna and Vesuvius appear to be coach-based with just one to two miles of walking. There's a "flat" tour available at each port. None are strictly sedentary, though. Each port has at least one food-oriented choice, sometimes more. This is advertised as a foodie tour with a celebrity chef onboard, so we may have more food-oriented excursions than normal. Even so, a lot of the excursions are archeology/museum oriented or mixed (for example, the Mt. Etna visit includes a stop at a winery). No classic movie locations tours :) There is no extra cost for any excursion. With the Smithsonian partnership, all tours are included in the base price.

Ewww. One thing worse than looking at a wall is looking at me!

So Osman has indeed jumped ship to the QA?

The Archeological Museum is probably the best bet since it has a much broader collection (and yes, you could spend days there). The Acropolis Museum is well worth it, though: beautifully designed but single purpose. The top floor is a walk around of the top of the Parthenon itself. It's quite an experience, we thought.

I'm trying to come up with a witty answer here, but all I've got is - Sorry, my mistake. I meant "embarkation".

Your point is well taken :) and your plan ought to work. If you do decide to use tags, I'd recommend the plastic ones so both sides of the folded tag are visible. Makes it much easier for the crew onboard. (We had a bag misdirected to another stateroom when I fumbled the tag attachment.) FWIW, I attach them at the hotel on the morning of disembarkation. Too much risk of an airlline tearing them off by accident.

Are folks taking a picture of the stock brokerage page with information redacted (as has been recommended in the past)?

For what it's worth: The US site still says "Have your printed boarding pass ready to present as soon as you arrive, and we will show you to the nearest check-in desk." if you dive down into "Before You Sail", "Embarkation & Disembarkation". Obviously this isn't strictly enforced. But ... Cunard app?

In the US Luggage Forward just uses the regular shipping companies, UPS, FedEx, and DHL. So maybe go straight to those companies or their UK equivalents? (LF does do pick-ups and drop-offs at domestic addresses, but you're right that their focus is on cruise lines, and they evade weekends except for meeting cruise ships.)

If you pick up your tickets at the station kiosk, be sure you have the credit card you used to purchase them (I use American Express to purchase things online, but don't always carry it with me overseas because it's not as widely accepted). You can still see the agent with your confirmation number, but that can take longer (depending on how many confused tourists are ahead of you in line).

Is that an Old World convention? In the U.S. .org just means "not commercial" and there's no implication it's government-related, per se. Most of the government departments use a .gov extension. (Our postal service even uses a .com).

Very much appreciate your help (and that of @gumshoe958).

We'll be travelling from Southampton to Bath, then from Bath to London a few days later. From searching this forum, I see that first class train tickets (at least on the first leg) don't confer much of an advantage. Would that also be true for the Bath-Paddington leg? We won't have much luggage, just carry-ons. Both legs would be on weekdays - the first after disembarkation, the second probably late morning or early afternoon. And ... embarrassing to admit, but the last time we took longer train trips around southen England, we had a lot of trouble finding the first class section, sometimes just giving up and travelling in regular seating. How are they marked?