katiepe

Thank you so much for all of the photos. We are booked for July 2013 Venice to Barcelona and loved seeing the ship. It looks great and now I am REALLY excited!!

You should be excited! A fabulous cruise on a wonderful ship. I would do it again in a minute.

Thanks for the memories! We sailed the Grand Med this past Oct/Nov on the Spirit.Venice to Barcelona. It was our first NCL cruise and I think we will find it hard to top the Spirit on NCL or any other line for that matter. We loved her.

Cant help as far as a "glass" is concerned.

Can tell you that I went to a bar on the Spirit traded a voucher for a bottle and could take it to my cabin.

In a restaurant I gave the voucher to the waiter they brought me back the bottle. If I didnt finish it I just took it along with me to the room. I could have left it they would label it and I could have it wherever I went next,.

The table for the wine packages was set up in the Atrium when we boarded and you couldnt miss it.

We are just back from our NCL Spirit cruise.

We used Athens by Taxi or Greek Taxi or PK Travel..(they are known by different names-not sure why) and they were marvellous.

We took a 5 hour tour as DH didnt want museums-just the highlights

Constantine was our driver and he was so great. Gave us so much information and was so much fun. Ask him to take you to lunch at his suggestion.We had the BEST greek salad I have ever eaten..

More importantly to me was how safe we felt. We were in Athens Ochi Day and there had been a lot of demonstrations just prior to our arriving.

Potoula reassured me in my many emails:o and we also felt quite comfortable with Constantine. He knew where to drive us while the parades were taking place and we were even able to see more than we normally would because of all the back streets he had to use!

Can really recommend you use this company without a doubt.

That is exactly what happens.

Just back from an NCL Grand Med.

We used Athens By Taxi. Awesome!!

Only did the half day-5 hours but oh boy did we get a complete tour..

I would certainly recommend them in a heartbeat.

Cant be sure of this but wouldnt early evening be the time when you would need the support/meeting? That is usually when the serious drinking starts isnt it? Not in the morning?? When you are getting ready for an excursion etc..?? Just asking..

Anyone organising tours for either of the above Posts/Dates? If so, what itineraries are planned, type of transports, times costs, etc? Many thanks.

Your best place for this type of question would be your Roll Call for your sailing.

May I ask..how was the wine? The red in particular? Can you remember the label?

This is so great..we are doing this sailing end of october.

So enjoying it and how marvelous to hear how to do a port intensive cruise with some mobility issues. You are helping a lot of future/present cruisers.

Why are all these reviews by first time posters? It is a bit of a worry.

Kind of agree-it is odd.. but dirtgirl certainly has more than one;)

You'll be fine! Canada lets criminals in all of the time. It's only the US that cares about such things. ;)

 

Liz

What?? Hope you were making a joke

Putterdude and Parrot head were correct on this.

And for the record- Canadians can be denied entry into the US with a DUI if the Border officer doesnt check further into what Criminal Offense the traveller has committed.

The Secure Data given for every person- cruise and or air- mentions only ``Criminal Offense`` and the the officer must retrieve further data.

Does anyone know if they have vans or buses equipped to transport an electric scooter?:confused:

Sorry I dont know the answer but I found Barcelona Day Tours very very quick to respond to any of my emailed questions.

Yes, we have travel insurance.

 

I have had the hardest time getting a private transfer. It is the strangest thing. For example, I was in touch with Spanish Trails. She took a month to get back to me (had excuses), then I told her I wanted to book. I had to email again a week later. She said she would send me the paypal link to pay a 40euro deposit, but that was last week. I sent another email but haven't heard back.

I was also in touch with Auto Vilar for a transfer. I thought I was getting the info and was about to book and he stopped answering emails, so I didn't book.

Another company recommended here wanted about 490Euroes for an airport transfer with a stop at Sagrada Familia!

 

If I could find a reliable transfer company that can actually answer my emails, I would consider booking. This problem never happened in any other port we are booked in. Strange!

barcelonadaytours dot com emails answered before the end of a day

sorry missed the post about 340 euros!!

On the Glory a couple of weeks ago we all went to our actual Muster Station before sailing. Everyone was basically quiet. We did have to wait as they made some repeated announcements for the Muster call so I imagine there were some people perhaps dawdling.

I do think anyone traveling whether by plane or ship needs to take some personal responsibilty to make sure YOU know what to do in an emergency. I dont know how many times I have flown and yet I still look for the emergency exits and watch the safety video.

I made sure we knew how to get to our muster station, where our life jackets were and read the plaque on the back of the door for the evacuation route.

I have had to put on a life jacket on previous cruises but didnt on this one. I did wait until after the muster to ask where the life jackets were if we didnt have time to get to our cabin.

So glad to find this thread.

DH is a smoker so we havent looked at sailing Princess since the new rules. I am an occasional "bad person";) so can do without if necessary

It is great to see there are still some places for him to smoke so maybe we actually can go back to our favourite line!

My pleasure. I know when I was planning, there was a lot of conflicting advice.

 

Oh and I almost forgot 1 more.

 

10. The Freedom changes its clock to local time. So there is no "Ship Time vs Local Time". I asked this question when booking a non-CCL tour and someone told me that the Ship stayed on Eastern Time. It does not.

 

-F-

Really? This so totally different than what has been posted all over CC!!

Do you suppose it was just your ship doing this?? Gosh we have private tours booked and two of them are on "local" time and two are "ship" time. So now really confused:confused:

I thought juice wasnt included? Justthe free juice at dining and room service?

Is juice included on the soda card?

I am sorry if I missed this..but can the tour be booked in advance or only once onboard?

Another great reason to NOT book on the ship is the flexibility it will give you at this park. Chankanaab is a beautiful beach and a great place to spend the day without being rushed back to the ship. The taxi ride is very short so missing the ship is not an issue. The beach is man made and built on a coral base. This means a great beach with good snorkeling. It's a bit tough getting into the water due to carved out steps in the rock but once in it is devine.

 

We went a few years ago when there wasn't all this hassel about being a Carnival passenger or not. The dolphin experience was incredible and the professional pictures we purchased were worth every nickle (to us) given the huge smiles on all of our faces (including our teenagers:)). I locked up my camera in one of their lockers and brought it out later when I went snorkeling.

I'm glad I didn't fool with it as it would have distracted from the experience. You are in pretty deep water and for much of the experience you have to swim out into the bay for the dophin to do it's pushes and rides. For this reason I suggest caution when bringing young children. They won't be able to participate in the exciting events and may be frightened when doing the dolphin kiss or hand (flipper) shake. During our encounter, there was another family that had a young child and he was scared through out the event and was not up to the swim out into the bay.

By pretty deep water do you mean over your head water depth where you are treading water the whole time?

blakeamy email me kittyhawk at live.ca tell u how to do it

Let me know how that goes. I put in my info to book online, but when I put in my cruise ship, it told me to book through the cruise line. I'm just wondering if they'll find out if I give them a hotel name instead of carnival?? I'm sure someone out there has had this issue.....

Did you figure out how to book ?

Just wanted to relate our past experience with Rudy and Tour By Van in Acapulco.

Rudy met us at the pier himself and introduced us to our Driver/Guide -Sergio. Very professional and reassuring I must say.

They went out of their way to make sure I got to do what I wanted. I have always been interested in turtles and when I found out I could release a sea turtle while in Acapulco I desperately wanted to do that. But the normal time is evening. Well Rudy and Sergio made sure I got to do the release in the morning. I was very impressed and had a little private ceremony ourselves:) Of course it helped that is was cloudy that day.

I must say Sergio knew ACA like the back of his hand and by the end of our 5 hour tour he was like a friend showing us his "home town". We got to see and do more than we expected.

No worries with Rudy for sure.

BTW I dont work for Rudy and didnt get any consideration for giving this review. I was a little concerned about doing an independent tour and not with the ship so wanted to let anyone else who has the same concerns know our experience.

Just wanted to post our experience with Rudy and Tour By Van.-January 09 2010

Had a marvelous time. They went out of their way to make sure we got to release a sea turtle even though we were not at the Sanctuary at the right time. This was something I really wanted to do. It was an experience of a lifetime. We saw and did more than expected.

Both Rudy-who met us at the ship and introduced himself -and our very excellent driver/guide-Sergio-were very professional.

Sergio knew ACA like the back of his hand. He was totally great. Toward the end of the day he was more like a friend showing us his "home town." He told us all sorts of things about ACA and the hotels and restaurants.

I have no problem whatsoever recommending Tour By Van.

You will have a great time.

We were thinking of the Panama Canal cruise in April 2010. When I was talking to the guy at "Funforless.com" he said that the 2010 schedule wasn't out yet and that it looks like, for some reason, very few ships will be doing that cruise in 2010. So we've decided on the Nov 1, 2009 trip out of San Diego and up to San Juan.

And, yes, we're a bit concerned about the weather in November.

Sharon in UT

Dont know who the "fun for less" guy is but the 2010 Panama Canal Cruise Schedules have been out for quite awhile. I was deciding which one to take in end of March and into April and I see your post is May 29?