Dick and Jane

June 9, 2015

This is a terrific trip report. Thanks for taking the time to write out all of your experiences. I jumped on one of your suggestions and purchased my visitor Oyster cards online. Usually I wait until we get to London to take care of this but I like the idea of having them in hand as soon as we arrive.

June 7, 2015

Oh! I feel so honored to be included in your photo gallery.

June 6, 2015

Well......if you go on down the beach to Tabasco's......I think it is much nicer there. I checked with a few resorts there before we went to see if they had day passes and came up empty on that. I think I heard that the Puebla Bonita might let you sit at there property. I would give them a call. Any of those places along the beach have great Mexican food. There is a restaurant in town called Cabo Wabo. I heard someone say that they went there and had a good lunch. It was really hard to find any research on this!! But definitely do the boat ride!!!

Like you, we're really glad we did the boat ride out to the arch. We've been to Cabo several times, but this was the first time we did this adventure (about an hour). I would do it again. We've been to Cabo Wabo before. It's a few blocks inland from the harbor, so no ocean view. It's owned by Sammy Hager (lead singer of Van Halen). I thought it was ok. We liked Cabo Cantina better - also inland and quieter than Cabo Wabo. Beers, guacamole, and/or a salsa platter plus free wifi. Almost all of the street vendors were children.

June 5, 2015

Our tender ride was not so smooth! We left much later than you and it took forever to load the tender because of the swells. They had to keep waiting for the boat to even up. One person boards. Wait for the boat to rise and lower about 4 feet! Jump on quick while you can.

June 1, 2015

I assure you......a lot of research and trial and error have gone into our selections. You won't be disappointed. It would be even better if we could go with you as your personal guides!! :D

We would love to meet up with you on a future cruise! By the way, I've never had a personal guide before.

June 1, 2015

Hi Dick and Jane!

Always nice to get a shout out from fellow cruisers!

June 1, 2015

I love the images in posts 125 and 126. They have such an artistic look to them. You should tell everyone you meant to do that.

May 31, 2015

I really loved your description of the beaches you visited. We have our favorites, but I'd really like to try some of the ones you mentioned for St. Thomas, Saint Kitts, and Saint Maarten.

May 31, 2015

Don't want to detour your review, but can I ask a question? I have never been on the Jewel and I am scheduled on the Jewel early next year, and I was wondering what their beer list looks like. Is there any hope of some craft beers or is it mostly the bud/miller/bass/newcastle types of beers.

Here are the beers I had on board the Jewel: Miller Light, Heineken, Dos Equis, and Peroni. I think I also saw someone drinking a Fosters. There are plenty of opportunities in the ports to try local beers.

Hi Jane! I love your review. You put a lot of work into this. I'm in the early stages of reading, and I haven't gotten to the Panama Canal part yet. It was a great cruise, and we so enjoyed meeting you and John. Your review is a terrific way to bring back fond memories.

May 9, 2015

No riots in the Centrum?:confused:

I guess I missed that photo op!

May 9, 2015

Wow - We are currently on the Jewel, and if I hadn't logged in to Cruise Critic I would not have known about this huge passenger protest! I'm sure there were many - particularly those with pre-arranged shore excursions - that may have decided to go to the guest relations desk to have their questions answered. Life on the ship goes on as normal.

April 19, 2015

I hinted at the byzantine nature of rail pricing here. It is not unknown for a return fare to be lower than a single for the same journey. Try pricing a London>Harwich>London Ticket with the outward on your departure date and see if it works

Interesting. Yes, if I booked round-trip I could save approximately £9 for the total. I also played around with departure and arrival's both on Sunday which would also yield a savings, but the departure from Harwich is later than I would like. Since I've already paid for and reserved my tickets to Harwich, I'll have to save this bit of information for my next journey. Thank you for adding to my knowledge of train travel.

April 19, 2015

Without more details it is difficult to be sure, but you are probably seeing standard fares (which will probably be a Super Off-Peak), so any Advance tickets for that service (if there were any) have sold out, probably to other people off the same cruise.

Presumably a return didn't work out better than two singles for you?

I assume I am seeing standard fares. I have been checking the rates daily, so I also assume there probably were no reduced rates ever available. The Monday following our return has just opened up with reduced rates.

I'm sorry – I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a return didn't work out better than two singles.

April 19, 2015

Rail ticket pricing is a total mystery to most of us. In general they offer lower prices for advance booking on underused services. A reduce service operates on Sundays and it may be that there are plenty of travellers to fill them up.

You can also check out scheduled maintenance as that can cause delays and closures.

Yes - I'm thinking it is a result of reduced service. Thanks for the reply.

April 18, 2015

Following the terrific advice on this site, I booked my train ticket from London to Harwich at a fabulously low rate. I'm not finding the same rates for return which is on a Sunday. Is this typical for train travel on Sunday?

April 10, 2015

Be careful if you try to polish those pins. The "gold" will rub right off!

April 10, 2015

You can make jewelry from ur pins for ur tux!

March 28, 2015

Well – it was better than snorkeling in my opinion. If you go, make sure you wear water socks/water shoes. It's quite a walk through rocky terrain to get out deep enough to go under. SCUBA in almost every other port will be better.

March 28, 2015

Dick took our diamond and diamond plus pins and turned them into jewelry.

February 6, 2015

Sorry...why...wouldn't your time have been better spent using transportation :confused::confused:

One of the joys of travel is to be able to do that adventure in the way that suits you best. Ours includes walking whenever possible. We often use the excellent transportation systems in many European and US cities when it is more convenient and we're on a time crunch.

When we were in Dublin, our ship was in port from 10:30 AM until 11:15 PM. This provided ample time to see the sites as well as walk. We did not have to wait for a bus to arrive, for it to load or to unload or to be at a specific spot at a specific time for the return to the ship. On our self-guided walking tour, we visited Trinity College, we saw the book of Kells, visited a local police station to buy a T-shirt (£5), strolled through St. Stephen's Green, and stopped at three pubs. We had a light lunch at O'Donaghues with our Guinness. The bartender said we could have a ham & cheese or cheese & ham sandwich! It was so pleasant to sit and chat with him about the similarities/differences between Dublin and the USA.

On previous cruises to Dublin, we have taken bus trips to such places as Malahide Castle. The next time I go to Dublin – well who knows what we will do.

For this particular day, I believe our time was well spent. The weather was perfect for a walk along the river and across several of their very unique bridges.