gcornell

It’s possible sure but I wouldn’t take it. If the stars, moon and sun are aligned. No one sneezes or coughs on the plane. Your gates are adjacent to each other. You don’t have checked luggage and finally you are an Olympic sprinter you can do it. Lol. The stress alone thinking about it would ruin the run up to the trip for me.

So just a quick update. I have a price alert set up on my preferred flights and once SS booked my 4 seats the remaining available seats jumped from $16,000 (for 4) to $25,000 so makes me feel like I got a heck of a deal.

Yes, best wishes Jazzbeau. I just looked again and the price I paid was what United would charge for Economy booking directly. I am guessing I saved a lot of time by using my agent and requesting specific flights.

Pleasantly surprised so far. Last year I transferred all my reservations to a Virtuoso agent so I think that may have helped as they seem to have the inside track and provide exceptional service. Exactly 270 days prior to my upcoming Med cruise my agent submitted my requests to SS. Direct flights on either United or Delta from Newark to Athens and return from Venice to Newark. SS responded within a day. They don't have a contract with Delta but gave me my United fights for a $330 "fair difference pp" plus a $150 deviation fee pp as I am flying in early and staying longer. In total it works out to $11,000 for my family of 4 to book through SS vs $16,000 buying directly from United.

My family has been on 10 trips since Covid started and every single one has had flight changes. I’ve had to change destinations (United eliminated the flights), airlines (several flights were eliminated or schedule changed), multiple equipment changes resulting in lost seat assignments and reconfigure flights on every single trip which is why I check my upcoming trips every single day.

I visited Chile in February when their Covid protocols were in full force. The amount of time, stress and paperwork was overwhelming and the stories from travelers that missed a form were crazy. They sent them home on the next plane. Oh and this was for a family of 4 with 2 kids.

Those are the 2 most important questions I always ask as well. Coffee & gym. Can’t do one without the other. Not sure of the gym hours but my wife and I were at the gym about 6ish every day. First day is usually crowded with gym regulars and vacation gym people. The vacation gym people are gone by day 2-3 and most of the regulars by day 4. By day 5 it was just us for an hour or so in the mornings.

Here’s how my family handled our trips and we travelled extensively throughout the pandemic and didn’t slow down. We follow the rules. No more. No less. It’s worked out just fine for us as well.

As someone who goes to the gym an average of 350 days a years, including every day on vacations that have facilities, I can answer that question. Generally early mornings, 7am, are the best time but the first few days can be busy. Those days you get the hardcore gym people, occasional gym person and, the all to easy to spot, vacation gym people. By day 3 only the hard core gym people remain. Mid mornings and mid afternoons can also get busy but I’ve never had an issue getting a good workout in.

My family packs light so we choose cabins adjacent to launderette so we can easily do laundry a few times a week. There is only 1 washer and dryer per floor so it does get busy at times.

Yes. The bus had cases of bottled water and occasional snacks.

It was over a month ago for me but I do recall we, and everyone else on our bus, were unable to put a US address for final destination so we all just used the airport address. No one actually scanned our QR code.

A few recent threads on this. Seems to depend on the individual. We recently did a SS cruise and are doing the Med July next year and Iceland in 24. I think every industry has had some service issues. Some used it as an excuse to drop a lot of things. SS had a few tweaks but nothing that would take away from the overall experience for the vast majority.

All industries are struggling with service delivery these days but, based on a recent trip, SS employees are all truly outstanding, show a genuine concern for guests and appear to love what they do. You will say thank you hundreds of times a day. My young kids even notice how amazing they are. I read the reviews too and for the most part I feel that many of those people are just impossible to please.

Very welcome. Now that I think about it the only reason I know is I watched the online presentation last week and that was the only good piece of info I received.

Sorry that happened. Starting last week, SS changed their policy whereby you can book excursions immediately once your booking is reserved regardless of cruise date. I confirmed this because I booked my excursions for 23 and 24 already. I’m sure other have more experience but on my recent Alaska cruise they did not add any excursions in the months leading up to the cruise.

I don’t believe there is and unfortunately the only extras you can eliminate AND get credit for are the air ($900) and airport transfers ($100).

Yes. For this one I received a $900pp air credit and $100pp transfer credit.

Yeah, I can see how that would happen because the price difference is much more than the added value. Oh well, not going to worry about it. Went ahead and got the same cabins on the Spirit for 2024 as we have in 2023.

Another thing I noticed is no Business Class upgrades in 24/25 that I could find. EDIT: It is an option but looks like it's now $999 each way.

I've been looking forward to the release of the 2024 itineraries as I have a floating deposit to apply. They dropped last night. However, a quick look through and it looks like they dropped the P2P option for all the cruises. Specifically, I am interested in the Iceland cruise in July 2024 but I looked through a bunch of others and don't see any with P2P. We are doing D2D for our Med cruise next year but that option doesn't make financial sense for us for Iceland. Anyone know any further info on if/when P2P may be available?

I was on the Muse a few weeks ago (Alaska) and Kaiseka was not open for lunch. When I asked they said instead they added a self serve sushi station to the buffet but it was clearly not made by a sushi chef and had a strange (not in a good way) mix of rolls.

Correct. Just an observation as many, including us, were a little surprised about the total amount of time spent on the bus. I would still have done it just been better prepared and prepared my kids better. There were a few that said they would not have done it had they known the amount of bus travel. It also appears that at least one guest got covid from a couple that tested positive prior to boarding.

I took a picture of the caviar choices in Atlantide on the Muse last night.

Another tip. We got off the boat at 9:15am and took a 5 min Uber to a bike rental shop near Stanley Park. Rented bikes for a few hours and did the park loop which was great. Since we arranged our own flights our airport transfer was not included and SS wanted $40pp or $160 for 4 of us. Grabbed an Uber for $28 for all 4 of us. I don’t mind spending $ but I despise getting ripped off.