margeecruiser

We've used Vistaprint for cards and magnets, but not tee shirts. Their website is easy to use and create your own custom design.

Margee

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DH got a great deal on a navy blazer at JosABank last month. He will wear it with grey slacks. I know pairing navy with brown is in fashion, just not for him. He wanted black, but the fantastic deal was only on navy. Regularly priced about $400, on sale and close out, $70. Very nice light weight wool fabric.

Margee

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Wow. What a way to make a living!

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It seems to me that the waitstaff doing the "selling" are just doing what they were told. They did not have a choice. I just smile and say "already booked" even if that is a lie. I don't let it bother me. The crew work so hard, I try to be pleasant whenever I interact with them.

I treat the "perfume spritzer" ladies in the department store or the food sample ladies the same way.

Margee

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Hi, Schlocklate

Do you think the wine pairing dinner in Vintages was authorized by the Food and Beverage manager or the Vintages bar manager? We would love to see this on other ships. We've only seen it on Liberty. Would a request to the F and B or Hotel Director be of any help?

Margee

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My group of friends loves Vintages!!! We are mostly wine enthusiasts, but if anyone wants a beer, the waitstaff will go to another bar and get it. We always go there as soon as we board and order several bottles for the entire cruise. We have gotten a good discount especially since we drink really top wines. It's part of our cruise experience. Some cruises it can be empty at first, but can fill up later in the cruise.

On Liberty they had wine pairing dinners in Vintages. They served the regular dining room menu paired with fantastic wines.

We have a great time in there and it seems if a few people are obviously having a blast, more people come in too. Maybe they should pay me to go have so much fun[emoji3].

Margee

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I completely understand your point. I had to have a tooth implant last year and moaned that it cost as much as a cruise. Went ahead with the implant, but resented the cost. Even I have to prioritize sometimes, but I don't have to like it!!

Margee

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Folks, I've been burned by heavy thunderstorm rain after I got home. Suitcases left on the tarmac due to heavy lighting and a real downpour. Luckily we were home so we could dry our clothes right away.

Ever since we have used a plastic drop cloth (from the paint department) and line our suitcases with it then fold over and make a "burrito" type package of the suitcases contents. A plastic shower curtain liner also works. I have seen clear plastic suitcase covers, mainly in Europe, but they are very expensive.

We also Scotchguard our suitcases. Once burned ........

Margee

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I have not seen Bill Blass fragrance on any ship in the high end make up or fragrance store.

Margee

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You have so many wonderful choices with that itinerary. I would suggest a Plan A, Plan B etc and then go with the weather in each place. Some days the weather will be perfect and make the occasion even better.

Margee

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I just bought new Dansco walking shoes. They are sneaker-like, have elastic laces with a toggle clasp and have removable insoles so I can use my orthopedic inserts. I have worn Danscos for years, but my feet swell while cruising,so I need shoes with laces so I can change the tightness if needed. I think these shoes are more stylish than normal tennis or athletic type shoes.

I wish I could wear my regular Dansco clog type shoes, but I really need the lace-up feature.

Margee

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Be sure to arrange/book transfers back to your airport from Galveston too. There are a few options, but not a lot. It can take well over an hour to Hobby and IAH is on the north side of Houston, so quite a bit further.

Margee

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We have contacted Rudy's Taxi to arrange transfers from the airport and from the ship back to the airport. They want full payment up front through PayPal. We have always paid taxis or private transfer companies on the day of service. Is this common in Amsterdam?

Margee

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I've seen Amsterdam listed under Europe boards, specifically Northern Europe & Baltics.

Margee

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We were recently on Brilliance of the Seas. They had clear wine totes in Vintages that you could take your wine purchased from them to dinner or back to your cabin. I'm sure buying an upscale wine or being a good customer would make a difference. We were very good customers.

Margee

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On our Mediterranean cruise last month, there were many, many tuxedos and long dresses. I was surprised with the number. My DH wore his tux on most formal nights and felt underdressed when he only wore his sports coat. This was on the Brilliance.

Margee

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Hello, Again

I have just realized I have been talking about the lavish food and beverages for the following cruise, the TA from Barcelona to Tampa. This cruise was so port-intensive, we did not go to the Diamond Lounge at all. We did go to Vintages and the R Bar.

I'm sorry for the confusion. I will write a review of the TA soon, detailing our excursions and the fun we had during all the sea days.

Margee

Hi, Everyone

Thanks for reading my review.

As an overall summary of our experiences on this cruise, all I can say is that it was the best cruise ever for us. Although we had the disaster with the lost luggage, it was a minor setback that was resolved.

We liked the Hotel Jazz very much, but would not stay there again unless we had the need to book a triple room. It was very pricey for the suite we needed. We have stayed in other hotels in Barcelona that we like as well.

Our tours were all wonderful. I will book my own tours again. I liked the ability to customize the itinerary and the small group. We posted the tours here on Cruise Critic for others to join us. We made some great friends on these tours. Everyone showed up on time and knew exactly what to expect on the tours and what their costs would be. We never waited on people and we each could explore some at our own pace. We ate in restaurants where we wanted as an individual activity.

The ship and staff were just wonderful. I cannot stress too much how well run this ship was. Just an outstanding job done by the Hotel Manager and the Food and Beverage Manager. Their professionalism was really evident. We were blown away with the food and alcohol service in the Colony Club and around the ship for those without high loyalty levels. Why can't all the ships have this lavishness of food and beverages?

We did book our air arrangements through air2sea (Choice Air) for the good prices on the open jaw tickets. These flights went just fine, but I would have liked to have a little more time to change planes from domestic to international, but it was really not a problem. We had plenty of time, but I was a little nervous. We will book through them again.

If there are any questions, I will try to answer.

Thanks for reading all this.

Margee

Sorry, I do not have any pictures at all from our trip. We stopped taking pictures quite a while ago. There are pictures on the internet from Hotel Jazz and all our excursions. We found the hotel and the excursions exactly as described and pictured on their websites.

Margee

Here I am again, with details of our excursions.

The Mediterranean began in Barcelona and went to Nice, France (Villefranche), Florence/Pisa (Livorno), Rome (Civitavecchia), Dubrovnik, Croatia, Venice (2 nights), Bologna (Ravenna) Italy, Kotor, Montenegro, and back to Barcelona.

We had been to Barcelona several times before, so we just walked around. We went to the big shopping center Diagonal Mar Mall and bought large containers of shower gel and hand gel because we did not pack those. We went to the big store there which is similar to our WalMart. We enjoyed seeing what the local people actually buy and the prices they pay.

We did not do any tours in Villefranche since we had been to Monaco and Eze before. We walked the pretty little town and just enjoyed the day.

In Livorno, I had booked a private tour with Romeinlimo. There were 7 of us, 3 in our family and 2 other couples. We used this number for all of our tours and it worked really well. We had a large van with lots of room for all of us. We booked the Lucca and Vinci tour which cost 600 euro total or about 85 euro pp. This was an all day tour. They picked us up at the port and drove to Lucca. This is a charming little Italian town, with several historic and ancient churches and a central square. We found an electronics store here and replaced our charge cord for our Iphone and bought a battery operated clock for the cabin. We were pleasantly surprised at the prices and service in the little store. We had lunch on our way to Vinci. We then drove to Vinci, which is the birthplace of Leonardo and there is a museum with large models of his mechanical inventions, such as the helicopter, diving suit, cranes, canal lock system, paddle boat, tank, and other fantastic items he invented. We drove a short distance to the farmhouse where he was born.

In Rome we booked romeinlimo's Alternative Tuscany tour since we had been to Rome several times before and had spent a week in Rome before our last cruise. We again had a large van with 7 people. The cost was 650 euro or 92 euro pp. We drove to Pitigliano, which is a stunning medieval town built on a ridge with vertical drop-offs. It is amazing how they were able to build the town on the ridge of the valley. There were many tunnels and caves with tombs. We also visited Sorano and Solano, two quaint small towns. We were simply enchanted. Again, we ate lunch between towns, but I forgot to note where we ate.

In Dubronik, we booked Ston and Peljesac Peninsula tour with wine tasting. This cost $549.57 for the full van, which we paid through Viator. Ston is a little town at the end of the bay or fjord. They grow mussels in the bay and have several restaurants featuring the local seafood. We ate lunch overlooking the beautiful bay. Some of us had the local speciality, risotto with mussels, mussel stew, salad and bread. The portions were huge and we did not know when we ordered that there would be so much food. We then went on to 2 wineries in the Peljesac region for tasting and purchase (ha ha).

We were in Venice from 3 pm and overnight (only 1 night instead of 2 as I mentioned earlier). We walked around the town the first afternoon and I had booked the Secret Doge's Palace tour through Tickitaly for 64 euros for 3 of us for the 10 am english tour. This was a walking tour of the Doge's Palace concentrating on the jail, dungeons, court rooms and civil offices. I researched this tour as much as possible, but really made a mistake because of the 7 floors of steps from the bottom to the attic. These steps were uneven, with some areas with no hand rails and very steep. Two of us had real trouble keeping up with the group because of the many steps. I would caution anyone with bad knees to beware of this issue. There were no warnings on the website when I booked this.

In Bologna, port of Ravenna, I booked with Tours by Locals with Cinza Fabbri as our guide. This was 620 euros total for the 7 of us. We began our tour in Bologna where we drove through very fertile farmland. We visited the largest cathedral in Europe and walked around the marketplace. We had lunch in a little restaurant that was cafeteria-style. Very good food and reasonable prices. We then drove to Ravenna where we visited 3 of the famous mosaic churches. Our guide got our tickets and went into the churches with us. We had plenty of time to view the magnificent mosaics and she told us their history.

In Kotor, Montenegro we booked with toursbymilo. This was a 4 hour tour in a large van for 160 euro or 23 euro pp. We drove up the coast with fantastic views. We ate lunch in a little town at the end of the bay, where we ordered local cheese, bread, beer and wine. We took a little boat over to the Church on the Rock for a quick visit. Our driver was Mladen and he was great.

I will continue this review with an overview next.

Thanks for reading.

Margee

Hi,again.

I will list the itinerary in the next section listing our excursions.

I forgot to include the condition of the beds. Hard as usual. We brought the air mattresses made for back packers and they worked great. I slept better than any other cruise I've been on. We blew them up and Roxanne put them under the bottom sheet. This idea came from another poster here and it's the best hint I've ever seen.

Margee

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Hi, this section will detail the ship.

We were in room 1602, an aft junior suite for the Mediterranean portion of our cruise. With 3 in the room, we had plenty of storage and the room was great.We had to move at. This was the largest JS we have ever had. Our steward Roxanne was outstanding. We made up the sofa every morning so we had more room; she was nervous about showing DH how to do this, but we assured her it was not a problem. It was really easy. The bathroom had a tub with shower; this was great for tub users, but we are shower people. It was difficult to step into the tub because it was so deep, so we just took it slowly and were very careful. This would be a real problem for anyone with difficulty moving around. We had to move to cabin 1590 for the TA, which was fine for just the 2 of us. We kept Roxanne as our steward and the move was easy, but I will try harder to book the same room for other b2b's.

Brilliance was just beautiful. The sea views were great and the ship was in wonderful shape. We noticed some wear on upholstery in the public areas, such as the theater, but not too bad. The staff was outstanding, especially the Hotel Manager and the Food and Beverage Manager. We have never been on a ship with so much free food and alcohol around the ship. The nightly cocktail event for Diamonds and above was just over the top. They used both Lounges in Viking Crown as well as the entire Colony Club. There was so much food, dinner was almost an after-thought. They had a theme every night and the food and beverages reflected that, such as margaritas for Mexican night, for instance. There was also champagne offered several times for all the ship, which I thought was a nice thing to do. There was some grumbling about the Colony Club being closed off for the Crown and Anchor people, so the offer for everyone was appreciated.

We ate in Giovannis and Chops several times. The food and service were very good, except one meal in Chops where the veal chop was very tough. I sent it back and they replaced it with one that was very good. We ate breakfast in Giovannis most mornings, except when we had a very early shore excursion.

We enjoyed Vintages very much. We ordered our Caymus Special Selection (6) and Belle Glos Pinot Noir Las Alteras (6) the first day, so we knew we would have enough for the entire 26 nights. We have been on other ships where these 2 can be out of stock. We also liked the R Bar, but it can be noisy when events are happening in the Centrum.

We had traditional late dining. Our waiters were very good and tried very hard. We brought our own bottle of wine and they supplied the proper large glasses without any prompting. Our table-mates were a wonderful group of people; in fact, one night the whole table went to Chops to celebrate one of the group's birthday. Very fun group.

I will detail our excursions in the next segment. Thanks for reading all this. If you have any questions, please ask.

Margee

Hi: I am finally getting around to writing my review of our Brilliance b2b, the 12 night Mediterranean from Oct. 5 to Oct 17, 2016 followed by the TA Barcelona to Tampa Oct. 17 to Oct. 31, 2016. This will be a long review, with details of our hotel in Barcelona, an incident with lost/stolen luggage in Barcelona and our experience on board and on our private excursions. I will break this up into sections, so it will be easier to read or ignore.

We are Bill and Mary (aka Margee) and our daughter Daphne joined us for the first leg of the cruise. We are Diamond Plus; she is Platinum.

We flew American from DFW to PHL to BCN and stayed 2 nights in the Hotel Jazz in Barcelona before our cruise. Daphne flew from LAX to CDG to BCN using British Airways. All our flights were arranged through air2sea and were uneventful. We had some fairly tight transfer times, but all went as planned.

Since we wanted a triple room, we had a suite in the Hotel Jazz. We enjoyed our stay there. The hotel was spotless and comfortable. The morning breakfast was great, and the welcoming bottle of champagne was appreciated.

I arranged a transfer from the airport to the Hotel Jazz through Spain Day Tours for Bill and I and had 2 fellow roll call members join us. The cost was 69 euros for a van. They were right on time and our transfer was perfect.

Our one incident: When we checked out of the hotel, we used the first taxi that was right outside the hotel for the short trip to the ship. The taxi driver began to load our luggage into his sedan taxi. I told him we had 3 pax and lots of luggage, he did not listen. When he saw the last 2 large suitcases that DH was bringing, he said - no, too much luggage. He then threw out all our luggage (I thought) and drove off. We then began to load our luggage into a van taxi. When we got to the port, we discovered one small tote was missing. It contained a pouch with all our electronics (2 Ipads, all charging cords, luggage scale and our car keys), DH's tux shoes, and our MEDICINES.

The port terminal staff was great with helping us with this problem. The port staff contacted the Guest Services Manager Flavia and she really helped us. She contacted the on-board medical staff to review our medical history and our medications needed. They arranged to re-supply all our needed prescriptions. The doctor on board gave us an exam, wrote rx and filled all our prescriptions except one heart drug they did not have on board. They emailed ahead to further ports, and this drug was located in Venice, 5 days ahead. They were extremely professional. The cost was $125 pp for the exam and the cost of the rx was $300 for a full 30-day supply. This was much less than the cost of the same service here in central Texas.

We finally were on our way. I will continue this long review in later segments.

Hope I'm not boring the dickens out of you all.

Margee

I asked our cabin steward to put these on the bed under the sheet. No problem. We are large people and the width was fine. We aren't restless sleepers, really. We did not find the gap in the middle a problem at all.

These do make a "krinkly" sound, but we got used to it right away.

Margee

Hi -- I read an earlier thread that said an air mattress made specifically for back packers was the answer to the rock-hard mattress issue on Royal ships. We just returned from a b2b on the Brilliance, for a total of 26 nights. We slept better than on any other ship, ever. This includes 30 cruises on various cruise lines. I bought the Klymit Static V air mattress. It weighs 18.1 oz and is 8 inches by 5 inches and inflates to 72 x 23 2.5 inches when inflated. It was very easy to blow up and did not leak air at all. It comes with it's own little pouch.

We bought ours from Academy Sports and Outdoors for about $60. A little expensive, but for the heavenly sleep, well worth it.

Margee